abortion

"We scheduled the abortion for Friday, and I found myself facing a week of ordinary days until it happened, I realized I was supposed to keep doing ordinary things. One afternoon, I holed up in the library and read a pregnancy memoir. The author described a pulsing fist of fear and loneliness inside her- a fist she’d carried her whole life, had numbed with drinking and sex- and explained how her pregnancy had replaced this fist with the tiny bud of her fetus, a moving life" (Jamison 8).

            By doing ordinary things narrator delude herself that upcoming abortion is not going to change anything, that it’s not going to really affect her. She broke from her plan when she read a pregnancy memoir. Although the book was about how much pregnancy and motherhood may help women to defeat their demons, she doesn’t change her mind about having this abortion (she doesn’t mention about her doubts although I’m sure she had some). I still wonder why she thought she had to do it?

            It reminds me about a situation from when I was in high school and my friend had an abortion. She didn’t tell anybody except me and other friend. She missed one day of school, went to other city to a doctor who illegally performed an abortion. In Poland law prohibits it. When I saw her the next day and asked about it I saw pain and fear in her eyes. We haven’t talked about it anymore. We went on with our lives by “forgetting” about it. My friend did it because she was 16 and not ready to be a mom. The father of the baby was a soccer fanatic who cared only about game and alcohol. My friend’s young live would have changed so much if she had a baby, that she didn’t feel she had a choice. She didn’t even tell her parents about it because they would probably disapprove it. In her case the psychological price of abortion was high. For a long time she struggled with alcohol addiction.