This is a very interesting snippet. So what do y'all think a partner's role should be in the abortion decision?

I know I come from a religious tradition that, while generally finding abortion to be immoral (although in some circumstances it actually is obligatory), the (only) role of the partner in my tradition, AFAIK, is to say "honey, whatever you decide, I'll support you -- but it's your decision ... if you need medical advice, ask your OB/GYN and if you need moral advice ask the Rabbi": I don't think my tradition allows me (except maybe in a few very specific circumstances) to have any real say in the matter.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? As a feminist, I had long thought of it as a good thing, but this passage does raise questions ...

Why would a partner have a say in another person's health decision?

That's a lovely piece - certainly a very thoughtful look at Ms. Piepmeier's thoughts.

It's really too bad about the disgusting anti-choice rhetoric that follows the essay in comment-form.

Why can't there be movies based on stories like Alison's (that show abortion in a positive light) instead of those in the Juno/Knocked Up/Waitress variety?

DAS, why does this piece raise questions about the role of a partner in a decision about a pregnancy? To me, this story confirms that the role of a partner is to be the support that the woman needs, whether that's intense involvement or none at all.

This is one individual story of a woman who had a very good relationship with her husband and the fact that he was involved in the decision was simply a product of that relationship. That it worked well for them says nothing except that the decision to abort a pregnancy is not always a tragedy.

Funny, this wasn't in our edition of skirt! this month... Though I'm surprised that the deep south gets this magazine anyway (and the Bay Area doesn't).

What a great story. She is right, you NEVER hear stories about women in loving relationships who choose abortion. Every time you hear a story about a woman who considers abortion, it's teenager, or a version of "Knocked Up" or "Waitress" where the baybee magically fixes the woman's messed up life, so she decides to have the baby. Very far from reality.

I had to take the morning after pill a few weeks ago because of a condom that didn't work like it was supposed to. I'm talking to my doctor about a tubal ligation next week, I don't want kids, ever, neither does my SO. But for various health reasons, the forms of hormonal birth control that are avaialble would not be good for me.

It does happen to women in loving relationships. I know that my long term boyfriend, who I have lived with for four years, would be stressed, upset, sure, maybe sad. It's not as if the decision to abort is ever joyous. But he would support me if I chose abortion. He would be there for me to listen, support me, go with me, and take care of me if I needed it. We would be there for each other.

Contrary to what anti-choicers think, it's not only dumb sluts who "get themselves pregnant" because they were too stupid or irresponsible to use birth control.

And I forgot to say I think it took tremendous courage for her to talk about this openly. The comments that the story got are exactly why I wouldn't blame any woman for using an assumed name to talk about something like this, or just keeping quiet.

How did Juno show abortion in a negative light? She felt uncomfortable with the clinic and changed her mind. It was presented as a legitimate option.
The pro-choice vibes are part of what made it an awesome movie.

Why would a partner have a say in another person's health decision?

I don't think it's a matter of "having a say" in terms of telling someone what to do. Whatever her decision is, it should be supported.
But I think this is more like, say, I have cancer and there are pros and cons to various treatment options, and I'm trying to decide what I'll do. I would of course talk it through with my partner, as a way of helping me figure out my best course of action. I expect her to help me work through ANY problem I'm struggling with. That's part of a partner's purpose, as far as I'm concerned; who would be better for me to talk to than someone who really loves me?

That absolutely does NOT mean "tell me what to do." It means "be a sympathetic ear for me to talk this through." And of course, if I have no conflicts myself and know what I'm going to do, then it's just support-provision that's expected.

Why would a partner have a say in another person's health decision?

I don't think it's a matter of "having a say" in terms of telling someone what to do. Whatever her decision is, it should be supported.
But I think this is more like, say, I have cancer and there are pros and cons to various treatment options, and I'm trying to decide what I'll do. I would of course talk it through with my partner, as a way of helping me figure out my best course of action. I expect her to help me work through ANY problem I'm struggling with. That's part of a partner's purpose, as far as I'm concerned; who would be better for me to talk to than someone who really loves me?

That absolutely does NOT mean "tell me what to do." It means "be a sympathetic ear for me to talk this through." And of course, if I have no conflicts myself and know what I'm going to do, then it's just support-provision that's expected.

loganberry-

I don't think Juno had pro-choice vibes.

Here is Katha Pollitt's take:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt

I think it's great whenever the father can consulted when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. When I had my abortion, one of the major factors in the decision was knowing that if I had the kid, I would be raising it alone, due to the father's explicit inability to be a parent. This is not to say that the man's desires should override the woman's and ultimately, it's her decision. I think that a couple facing any major life decision should talk with each other about wants, desires, and fears.

THANK YOU for posting this- I'm sending the link to friends now. That was an amazing and loving story ... I think Alison just became one of my newest heroes.

Then I had to go and do somethng stupid- I read the comments. Wow ... it never ceases to amaze me how the people who claim to "love" so much are, in reality, so full of hate.

As for the partner role issue, it's something I've discussed with my boyfriend of 2 years. He knows how I feel and what, most likely, my decision would be if I were to get pregnant right now. I haven't been in that position yet, though I have used the morning-after pill on two occasions during our relationship. For me, what I would want is simply his support- physically, emotionally, and yes, financially. Would I need it? No. But within the bounds of any loving relationship, I would expect it.

Why would a partner have a say in another person's health decision?

Because they're a couple who share their lives, and work through decisions that affect both of them together.

Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely pro-choice, but saying that men have no right to even be consulted in a long-term committed relationship is just absurd. If I discuss finances, plans for the future, career moves and so on with my husband, you can be damn sure I'm going to work through the issues of an unplanned pregnancy with him and come to a decision that fits both of us, if at all possible.

To be honest, I find the reduction of an unplanned pregnancy to a 'health decision' insultingly simplistic. There's a lot more to it than that, which is precisely why women need support in their decision.

Re: abortion in movies -- I think it would actually be very hard to produce a pro-choice movie where the outcome of an unplanned pregnancy is an abortion, simply because a movie, like any story (remember Middle School English) needs to have a conflict. And how does a conflict revolve around having an abortion without sending a message that would be construed as anti-abortion or at least bolstering an "abortions are icky, er 'problematic'" Will. Salatan type position ("see what conflicts abortion causes?")?

Even if the movie involves the struggle to obtain an abortion in an environment where an abortion is illegal, unless the pregancy were threatening to result in morbitity or mortality, it would be difficult to make a movie in which the choice to have the abortion really comes off as a good (rather than the best available) choice and in which the woman really does come off as sympathetic and doesn't turn off movie-goers to her plight ("wow -- she fought so hard to have an abortion when she could have just had the baby -- why is she so messed up?").

I would love to be proven wrong, but I think any movie involving an abortion would be all too easily spun as taking the "abortions are icky" position if not the "see, look at how much trouble abortions cause" position. Given that conflict is an element of story-telling and given that any conflict involving abortion would, to the eyes of many, be evidence of how "wrong" abortion is -- it would simply be "politically incorrect" so to speak, to have a movie involving abortion.

One could say that a movie in which a woman doesn't have an abortion and has all sorts of conflicts stemming from that decision is far more "pro-choice" than a movie in which a woman has an abortion could be.

But the movie doesn't have to be about the abortion--it could be a movie in which abortion appears as a factor, like Dirty Dancing or Fast Times. There are plenty of tedious movies about couples falling in love and getting together. No real reason why abortion couldn't figure in one of those.

Thanks so much for linking to this essay. I have years in my eyes.

Too often, I feel like the pro-choice movement emphasizes the rape/incest/health reasons for abortion rights. I had an abortion, and it wasn't for any of those reasons. I felt like I "should" have continued the pregnancy--I was married, I had a job and health insurance, I wasn't in school, etc etc. It was the abortion of "convenience" conservatives love to sneer about. I like hearing about people who were in the same position, and made the same decision that I did.

Ugh. Tears in my eyes. Not years.

Can I just say how much I hate hate hate the comments that go on about how the commenter or other women have miscarriages and can't have children so shame on Alison for aborting? It just sounds exactly like "Finish your dinner, children are starving in Ethiopia." And the situations are analogous in that eating something I don't like or continuing to eat after I'm full does nothing to help people who are starving.

Since i can credit myself with so little else concerning Alison, i got to mention that she stole that southern accent from me.

That was beautiful. I want to share it with everyone I know but I don't know how many people would understand.

Commenters talking about this being a person, being murder - do they have so little regard for actual living human beings that they don't care whether they're wanted or not, only that they're born?

I'm not saying that people who make decisions like this wouldn't love their children. But rather that if in exactly the same situation they decided to have the child it would be wonderful - after weighing up all the options. Having children because we're made to do so is a really bad reason in my opinion.

Even if the movie involves the struggle to obtain an abortion in an environment where an abortion is illegal, unless the pregancy were threatening to result in morbitity or mortality ...

I have to disagree here. And I cite 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days as my evidence.

It's an incredibly powerful film with eminently sympathetic characters (though not necessarily lovable, as you don't really learn much about them) about trying to get an abortion. No-one was at risk from the pregnancy per se, but the baby being carried to term is so obviously a wrong decision it's not even contemplated.

It deserves to be seen more widely.

This was a wonderful post and a sad but lovely story, and I'm disgusted by the fact that the comments were so vile. It was refreshing to read something like this, though, and I commend her for having the courage to write it with her real name.

I came across another personal tale of abortion in my local paper several years ago. It's here, should anyone care to read it.

aww walter, i don't think yall even sound that southern!

shyva - it was in the november issue actually, but it has just started to get lots of anti-choice attention after townhall.com picked it up recently.

don't worry, we won't take it off the web though, keep linking to it :)

Thanks for posting this. I wish I had seen the essay a while ago, as I have recently had an abortion and have been wanting to read about other women like me who made a decision that was complicated, difficult, and also a relief. Instead I'm being attacked by the anti-choice crowd, but hey...even if there aren't a lot of stories like this shared, it helps to hear even one voice describing an experience that, in some ways, has been mine.

Thanks to the recent comments list for pointing me to this discussion, and the article.

Yes, it was beautiful, and I felt it spoke to me. Recently, I muse that the children my wife and I have today are the two that were aborted years before. And this:

"We’d used contraception, but apparently they’re not kidding about those failure rates."

As a nurse, and a man with a wife who except for two or three times with me, apparently becomes pregnant EVERY TIME she has sex without a condom in the 13 years I have known her; I cannot emphasize enough the need for a backup form of contraception, preferably including a barrier method to prevent STD/STIs. If I didn't imagine the possibility of having to start over one day, I'd get a vasectomy.

Courage to share, with her name tacked on. Courage to tell her family to their faces. Damn. We'll never tell our families.

Ah, the hateful comments. Screw them. As a nurse and as a person, I am sorry about the people who cannot have the children they desire, and those who experience miscarriage, but that has nothing to do with the women who have abortions. The author had some guilt or regret because she felt she gave up a gift from the universe, with such people in mind? I hope she decided that on her own, and not because of the kind of propaganda and hate her story is getting.

TRIGGER WARNING:

Fortunately for my wife, and myself, she apparently has put her past of a childhood of severe physical abuse, multiple sexual assaults and rapes that occurred well into her career, and two abortions that I know of, behind her, denying trauma, then or now. She also lacks the awareness a number of her experiences were rape. I am not going to inform her she was in fact raped, to relive them.

I felt "left out" of my wife's decision on abortion. Not because I deserve input, but because she had to feel alone, and keep her experiences secret. After I found out on my own* and told her it was ok, she cried on me.

* She kept records, including hospital receipts, and a log of daily temperatures and menstrual cycles she kept by the bed. There were some missing weeks of entries. Uh . . .

The comments. The good with the bad: "Being"/"Blob"/"Semen-and-egg-combo-with-fries" - lol

It was in the course of our discussion about deciding what to do about her pregnancy that my (now) ex-wife and I realized how much we loved each other and that it was enough reason for us to marry. We decided to abort (I say "we" because it was nominally a joint decision, but in practice I mostly endeavored to support her decision, either way) and that decision and dealing with everything involved with it was a loving, involved process with an outcome that both of us were happy with. Neither of us ever regretted it, neither of us ever felt that the abortion was something shameful and not to be discussed in polite society. In short, neither of us ever felt or experienced all the negative things about abortion that are the staples of how it is discussed in our culture.

It's a real shame that it's never portrayed this way in our media.

BTW, I also don't think that Juno was anti-abortion. I feel that it presented her decision as the decision of a young, empowered woman. This is what choice is about, isn't it? Some women prefer not to abort, even if they don't want the baby. That is their right. In my opinion, Juno's interaction with the abortion protester had a subtext of the way in which pro-lifers are an affront to women's autonomy.

But I don't want to overstate my defense of it. I wasn't comfortable with the implication that Juno was unnerved by the fingernails assertion, nor was I happy with the way in which Juno's stepmother wouldn't refer to abortion directly, as if it were a dirty word and an unseemly subject (in the middle of a discussion about pregnancy!). Those things bothered me. But in the context of our culture which is decidedly anti-choice, this film took for granted Juno's right to choose, and that's a good thing. I believe that a Guardian writer defended the film's choice credentials on that basis.