Heather Corinna, founder of Scarleteen.com and author of pure as the driven slush is a patient advocate at a local, independent women’s clinic that provides, among other services, pregnancy termination. Her post yesterday is almost literally a picture-perfect illustration of the meaning of “pro choice” and how that’s not just different but quantitatively different from being simply claiming to be “pro life” or, more directly, anti-abortion. Or even pro-abortion. Unless you’ve been to a clinic yourself it might be eye-opening even if you’re pro-choice.
We had protestors yesterday, one of whom walked right by a teen client in front of the clinic (and broke the law here in WA by doing so on our property) who was already upset, and who was already being pressured TO terminate outside by her boyfriend and family.
Anyway, it’s a cool, cool post.
I was able to get her inside, take her downstairs to my sitting room, and give her open time to talk about all of her feelings, what she wanted, and how she felt she was given no permission by anyone to make up her own mind. She was able to say she felt very unsure, and was considering termination, but had also wanted to consider adoption but was told this was “selifsh” I gotta say, I hadn’t heard that one before about adoption, but you hear something new every day. She also informed me her mother had told her she could legally block her from remaining pregnant, which I let her know was false. We were able to discuss both options in some depth, and she was able to hear someone tell her  and mean it  that ANY choice she made was an acceptable choice which could be her best one, and that none of her choices were selfish save that this was about her and it was really important she think of herself. I was also able to open the pressure valve by letting her know that no matter what, when we have a client come for a procedure who says they are here due to being or feeling forced by others and/or says they do not want to terminate, we will not and cannot do a termination that day, and that I’d be happy to inform anyone she needed me to that that was our policy and my firm decision on that. I let her know she was welcome, if she decided for herself she did want to terminate, to come back, even the next day if she liked, and we could still talk more about all of this regardless, but she did not have to worry about making up her mind that day.
The next few paragraphs are about a mediation session the client requested with her boyfriend who… well, to be fabulously generous let’s say he’s swallowed standard narratives about what teen pregnancy, and single motherhood, and, um, being female, period, so deep the hook’s caught in his rectum. Such that his own shit comes out of his mouth any time the line gets tugged on. Anyway, after some (highly readable) processing Heather ads
I can’t know what she wound up deciding unless she does come back, but in the end, my sense was she was going to be likely to terminate, and was feeling that may have been best for her from the start, she just needed everyone to back the hell off so she could get all the information and breathing room she needed to consider her options, and so she could make her own choice. This is actually a pretty common occurrence, especially with teens who also tend to face people not giving them autonomy in most things, so they often already feel talked over and controlled as it is.
It doesn’t matter to me what she chooses, but my sense is whatever it is, it’s a lot more likely to be her choice now, and whatever she feels is best.
Choice. It’s what human beings do. And not because humans always make some pre-determined right choice, even when given all the information, space, and freedom to make it. But because at the end of the day it’s human being, her or himself, who lives with their own choice. As opposed to surviving the imposition of other people’s choices.
