Why I’m having an abortion

Angie Jackson is in the process of getting an abortion.

What makes this even more interesting is that she’s been documenting the experience on her website and on Twitter. (Angie’s also on YouTube, though she hasn’t documented anything about the situation there yet. and you can see her talking about her situation here.)

I think it’s important for others to understand why she’s taking this route - whether you agree with her or not - so I asked her to write a guest post about her journey. That piece is below. Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist

I’m an atheist, children’s rights activist, and happy mother of a four-year-old boy who makes my world go round. But this week, I’ve been getting called a “killer” a whole lot.

I found out I was pregnant on February 13. It turned out the birth control I thought I was using didn’t quite work as planned (my IUD had apparently come out and we weren’t using condoms as regularly as I was pretending to myself we were). You can imagine how romantic our Valentine’s conversation was. (I think what I said was, “Let’s go for a twofer - I’ll get an abortion and you get a vasectomy”.)

I had been feeling pretty awful for a couple weeks before then: throwing up, getting dizzy, being a total bitch to my boyfriend and son, battling suicidal depression and crippling social anxiety … Yeah, being pregnant is not good for me.

Prior to conceiving my son five years ago, I was told I would never carry a child to term because of sexual abuse that happened when I was seven and eight-years-old - and I barely did. I didn’t find out I was pregnant with him until the 21st week, roughly halfway through my pregnancy. When I did find out, I was underweight for the duration of the pregnancy, and I had several other high risk indicators. I did my best to gain weight (it helped that my ex-husband worked at a pizza store).

Even still, I made several trips to the emergency room throughout my last two trimesters. During my eighth month of pregnancy, I actually lost ten pounds due to a pretty horrible stomach virus. It was as if I had no immune system at all while pregnant. I went from having never received IV fluids in my life, to being intimately familiar with the feeling of cold fluids dumping into my veins. And let’s not even get into the other causes of dehydration.

When my son was born, I decided I didn’t want any more kids, in part because I’d learned during my pregnancy that I was a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis, a fatal and painful disease (of which my son was fortunately spared). I don’t regret that decision. My son is happiest when he’s getting one-on-one attention from an adult - he has even manipulated the system at school so that he gets to hang out with his teacher while she eats lunch and the other kids nap! I honestly don’t believe siblings are always a blessing, always friends, or always best for a family.