Some of you may have recently read about a woman named Emily Letts; she publicized her own abortion by video-taping it and posting it to YouTube. After working as an abortion-doula (that's apparently an actual thing) for years, she found herself in a predicament many of her former clients have been in--in the midst of an unwanted pregnancy.
She knew immediately that she'd get an abortion, but what she didn't plan on, at first, anyway, was using the procedure as a "teaching moment" for other women who may be considering an abortion. She said she could not find one other instance of the actual procedure publicized on YouTube, and she was going to be the first. She was warned of the backlash it would cause, to which she said "bring it on."
It was apparently brought. Letts says that she received the expected hate mail such an act might incite-- one person called her a Nazi-- but that the women she positively impacted made it worthwhile.
Because I vehemently disagree with Letts I am expected to act hatefully and aggressively. It's perhaps even the way Letts may want me to react, because that way I'm easy to dismiss. My arguments could be written off as heated and uninformed. I'd be just another brainwashed conservative American pitching Psalm 139 to a country that largely does not believe the Bible as truth.
I am not that person. I don't hate Emily Letts. I don't wish her ill. You cannot cast me off as uninformed and my arguments as unsound.
Those who know me understand that I am a people-pleaser to the core. My biggest struggles stem from the innate compulsion to mince my words in such a way that I will offend nobody. (Part of this comes from the fact that I had an outspoken year in high school that makes me cringe to this day.) It's hard for me to firmly and publicly say something I know people will disagree with, but I have no trouble saying this: Emily Letts was wrong.
The most important issue I take with the whole thing is not that she had an abortion, though I've made no secret I believe abortion is wrong. The thing that compels me to speak up about this is the attitude with which she regarded the entire thing-- a self-centered joy over the occasion-- and the hero's reception much of the media is giving her.
I've decided against linking the articles I've read to this page because they're appalling, if I'm being frank. But I'll summarize. Letts said things like "she was feeling the love of those in the room." She was humming along, much like an actual birth, and, to her, it was as birth-like as could be. Her goal was to show how relatively quick, easy, and painless the experience could be. Polymic thinks she's essentially destroyed the biggest argument pro-lifers stand behind, which is that abortions are scary, dangerous, and painful.
1. Her experience was not anything like a real birth. On so many levels, her pseudo-birth was not like a real birth. She did not have that nine month pause-- the nine month's hard work and build-up to the reception of a child. She did not go through waves of excruciating pain for hours. She did not let her body become maimed by the growing and birthing of a child. And she did not experience the surreal bliss that is accepting your baby in shaking arms for the first time. For that I mourn with her, regardless of whether or not she understands what she has missed.
2. Emily succeeded in showing that not all abortions feature gore and pain. They do not always leave a woman infertile or permanently damaged. For that I am happy--her life is a valuable and intentional part of God's design, and I do not desire things like that for anybody. But this does not dismantle pro-life's most essential argument against abortion, it highlights it.
Abortion doesn't disgust me because I fear for the women's safety who choose them. It disgusts me because it results in the loss of a human child. By painting abortion as a twisted form of cheapened birth-- a birth that has nothing to do with a child and everything to do with the woman undergoing it-- Emily (and those lauding her) emphasize what abortion is at its core: selfish.
I don't offer a disclaimer to that because it's true, but I feel it important to address the fact that I can relate to a woman contemplating abortion. Her frame of mind is neither foreign nor monstrous to me. It makes sense. I can imagine agonizing between wanting to bring the life inside you to fruition and preserving your life as is. I also feel it important to note that I grapple with the idea of abortion in certain instances. I don't believe abortion should be denied to a victim of rape. But I also don't think dire circumstances make abortion any less regrettable. An unwanted life is not less of a life.
Emily Lett's abortion is not the thing that puts a simultaneously angry and sickened knot in my stomach. Her attitude is. It's not only wrong but it feels like a slap in the face to anybody who has ever had to consider an abortion-- or to anyone who's ever gone through with one. I know women who have had abortions and who have not regretted it, and even they can't get on board with the mentality that says an abortion is a positive thing. A thing to be celebrated and lifted up as a beacon of hope to other women in similar situations.
I spent nearly a week of my life debating this question while three months pregnant with my son: If continuing to carry him means it might kill me, do I still want this pregnancy?
The answer to that question was yes, but I would be lying through my teeth if I said there was no room for "no" within that yes. I imagined what an abortion might be like. I wondered if it would hurt. I wondered if I could ever forgive myself for choosing my life over his, and it was agonizing. There is no other word for it. I do not believe I would have been wrong had the answer been "I choose to keep my life," but it would not have been easy and it certainly wouldn't have been something I'd want celebrated.
Thankfully I was spared having to grapple with that question for very long and I'm now the grateful mother of an almost two year old boy. A boy I loved before I held him, and a life separate from mine before he was independent of my will.
To say the biggest argument against abortion has been destroyed is laughable. To celebrate one woman's abortion is a jab to the gut of countless women who have agonized over the decision (regardless of what they chose). To relive the experience feels an awful lot like dancing on the grave of a baby.
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