Define choice

Scrolling through Facebook groups I came across one called End Abortion Now!!! Your Mom Made A Choice!

What an interesting thought. My birth mother didn’t in fact make a choice. I am sure at fifteen years of age in a time when “unwed mothers” were sent “away” she may well have made the choice to abort.

Does that make me weep and moan and gnash my teeth? No! I do regret for her sake that there were people who made the choice to deny her the right to choose motherhood or not.

Lisa (not her real name) didn’t make a choice either. Her abusive boyfriend isolated her away from family and friends and forced pregnancy upon her keeping her housebound, she had little prenatal care. Shortly after the birth he began abusing the baby viciously until the CAS were finally called in by neighbours.

I remember as a child my parents discussing a co-workers family. A new baby had just been born but the mother died. The doctors presented the father with the choice to save one or the other, he had been taught as a good catholic that the baby must live and so he sentenced his wife to death.

Even as a young child I could see there was no choice on the part of the mother.

Mary was 18 and a virgin when she was date raped. Too afraid to tell her very religious catholic parents. She ignored her lack of periods and swelling belly. When her pregnancy became visible her father beat her till she miscarried telling her she wasn’t going to embarrass him just because she was a slut. She left home but never reported either the rapist or her father. Neither her pregnancy nor her parent induced abortion was her choice.

These are not extreme and rare stories, though I wish were. This is the reality of being born with a womb.