Say what??

Fellow twitterbugs will know this already but this is a conversation that happened yesterday.

Sitting outside for lunch yesterday and a colleague - who is a little strange - and she asks if I have any kids. I briefly explain that I lost a child last year, but that I am now 5 months pregnant. She responds with sympathy to the loss and then says....wait for it..... "So have you decided if you are going to keep this one?"

SAY WHAT?

Ok so abortion is legal in SA. Since 1997 abortion, or the ever euphimistic "termination of pregnancy" has been pretty much legal up to 20 weeks. There seems to be a belief that the kindest thing to do is to abort if you don't want / can't afford a child. Some believe that thousands of SA orphanages are filled with kids wishing for families. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. If, for example, you were wanting to adopt a white kid in SA you would have to wait 5 - 8 years. White women in this country abort. Now don't get me wrong: we have orphanages, but I'd guesstimate that the majority of kids in these homes are Aids orphans or else have been removed from abusive / unhealthy situations. This last sentence is my impression and I stand to be corrected but I think it's true.

I am close to a few people who are adopted and I also have friends with adopted children. I can't see that any of these people believe it would have been kinder to have been killed in utero than to live a good life with people who have actually chosen them. Ok, granted, I am perhaps simplifying the situation quite a lot, but it's just that abortion has always been a heartbreaking thing to me and NOW! WOW! now I see those disgusting quickie "same day abortion" signs on Cape Town street poles and it makes me feel ill. There are so so many of us who would give anything for our child to live and all the while people are "terminating" pregnancies.

Anyway, of course abortion is its own entire debate and people will inevitably say "yes, but what if this and what if that". But what if, as I suspect, most abortions don't fall into the incest, rape, etc categories. They simply fall into the "Oh ****, that's not what I had planned!" category.

Back to the lunchtime conversation. WHY ON EARTH would a woman - who is a mother herself - EVER even legitimise a person like me - earning a good salary, married, fairly established - having an abortion?
I mean lets not even go near the fact that I've lost a child fullterm on top of it. But how on earth could it possibly be ok in her mind for me to consider abortion?

I thought about it a bit and realised the reason... this lady is particularly militant when it comes to feminism. A few examples: don't dare say "spokesman" or the "average guy on the street" or refer to people as "man" (like as in "fellow man"). It's all sexist in her eyes. I have a t-shirt that says "the incredible shopping with reusable bags woman" and it really upsets her! ("It's not like shopping is a woman's job!" nope... but I am a woman?!)
Anyway, you get the message. And so the only thing that makes sense to me is that her saying that is her just making the point that I do, in fact, have a choice.

It's got to be that, surely?

Yes, I have a choice. It's called condoms, the pill, abstinence, whatever. A middle income, 27 year old, married woman with a perfectly healthy baby on board choosing to have an abortion is not CHOICE, it's sick. If that's women's lib you can count me out.

(Besides at this stage I really need my bra and ain't nobody gonna be burning it!!)