Abort! Abort!

 

If you are old enough to remember the ‘space race’ you’ve heard the term ‘Mission Abort’ and the rocket blows up.

 

To abort something is to end it. When something is aborted, it’s finished.

When you abort a plan or activity, you’re ending it, usually prematurely. Halt, stop, end, call off, cut short, discontinue, terminate, arrest, suspend, check, nullify, scrubbed, axe, or pull the plug on.

If you’ve ever gotten a flat tire on the way to an assignment or event with a deadline attached, your plans are detoured or perhaps aborted.

 

I’ve understood that making a baby changes your life. As I have observed, the toys, carriages, beds, baby showers, pregnancy clothing, health matters, car seats, etc. change how a couple reacts to each other and the world around them. A baby is not a pet that can be left at home.

 

Though not having any sex education, I figured out how to make a baby.

 

I’m a guy. I can’t deliver a baby.

 

I do have to be there for a couple of minutes to start the process but I cannot carry a person in my belly for 9-months and squeeze it out of my body.

 

It must be in our DNA because we seem to like this process. Even thought there are all sorts of contraception available today, we don’t always use them in the moment of passion. Then it is a waiting period.

 

The ‘act’ is very popular and what are you going to do after television or how do you keep the species restocked, but sometimes due to situations beyond control (didn’t keep her knees together) there is an unintended and unwanted result.

 

I’m a guy. I can be there at the beginning and hand out cigars at the end, but the making of another person is no longer my responsibility. Then it is time to make a decision.

 

It happened to our parents. It happened to their parents. It happened to their parents on back to the beginning.

 

I don’t know the numbers of births that end too soon or the babies left in trash cans or babies abused or fathers and mothers who split due to the daily pressure. I don’t know the numbers of pregnancies that were terminated for whatever reason.

You can look up the data and make your own conclusions. Be sure to check all the numbers of the vulnerable killed in wars.

 

I’m a guy. I can’t carry a baby. It is the mother’s choice.

 

Why should I care about this issue?

 

I was born five years after my brother. He was born three years after my parents were married. What cause this decision to create a family? Was I a Valentine mistake? Remember there were no legal abortions? Did we have another sibling?

 

Most of the families I grew up with looked like us. Two children and one mom and one dad were the typical family. We all dressed the same, went to the same schools, ate the same food and basically lived the life presented in the 50’s.

 

It wasn’t until later that I heard about orphans, single mothers, four or more siblings, families who lived in apartments. I wasn’t anymore aware of divorces or to unintended or unwanted pregnancies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqe-mr_zBdg

Like every red blooded American male full of testosterone and plenty of willing participants, I fooled around and fell in love.

There was that girl from New Jersey or the girl from Williamsburg or the girl from England or the girl from Australia or the girl from Wilmington or…. well, you get the picture. I became familiar with the process and rarely was concerned by the results. Long distance love is difficult to keep track of.

 

So what does this have to do with me?

 

There were some girls who were panicked that they were with child because they had missed their period. Most passed with time or interest; but not all.

 

I paid for four abortions.

 

There was the girl in my class in college that after an afternoon study session led to one thing or another.

I didn’t know her that well (even though I’d been inside her) and after class one day she said she was pregnant.

I could only assume that she was telling me this because she thought it was mine. She said she couldn’t have a baby now and asked for money to get an abortion.

I gave her the money and never saw her again.

Was she really pregnant? Was this just drug money?

There was a girl I met at a party and things escalated into a horizontal rumba. Few weeks later I saw her in passing and she said she was pregnant. She never said it was ‘my’ baby but indicated she didn’t want to continue the relationship. She took me to an alley garage and I gave her money. I never heard or saw her again.

I was learning what girls had to go through in hopes of not telling their parents or friends.

I met a girl who lived close to my apartment. She seemed very interested in the processes of making babies. I had contraception but didn’t use it in the heat of the passion.

She announced that we’d have to get married for she was with child. This was not the best option for both of us. Planned Parenthood was just down the street so we walked down there and I paid more money and they told me to leave and I never saw her again.

I met a girl on a blind date. She seemed to like me. She got naked in my bedroom. She said I didn’t need to apply any contraception because she was on the pill. I believed her.

Too soon afterwards, she said she was pregnant. How could that be?

As never before, we went to a hospital and had an ultra sound to confirm the inevitable. A name started to be chosen.

With much discussion and possible persuasion, the decision was made to abort.

She set up the appointment. I went with on a very silent journey and waited. I brought her back to my house and nursed her the best I could.

 

This was her decision. She could have left me and had the child. She could have gone back to her former boyfriend who could have been the father of the child.

 

By then, abortion was legal.

Pay the bill like having your appendix removed.

 

The emotional decision applied to “I’m pregnant” is between two people. How you decide to make the decision to propagate or not shouldn’t be a law like speeding or hunting or war.

 

I finally got smart and did what I’d thought about doing in high school and got the ‘snip snip’.