Wednesday, December 05, 2012
A Time For Change
I want to write about a
topic that’s dear to my heart. It begins with my grandmother who is a
remarkable woman. She was born
during the Great Depression in rural Alberta, and was one of four girls to
graduate in 1954 from the University of Alberta with a Bachelors of
Science. When she was seventeen
she was told that the surgery she’d had three years earlier had some
complications. They’d removed her
appendix, and somehow tied her tubes leaving her barren at the age of
fourteen. At the age of twenty-one
she married my grandfather who had just graduated university and was beginning
his career as a general practitioner in rural Alberta. As they settled in, they realized
something was missing, a child. So
on January 2, 1961 they received a call, they were getting their child, a
girl born to a young nineteen-year-old.
My mother lived a normal,
somewhat privileged life. She was
the eldest of five, and grew up spending her summer holidays at the family
cabin. She loved figure skating
and pursued it relentlessly throughout her teenage years, travelling back and
forth between my hometown and Calgary to train. She lived a good, well-adjusted life that prepared her for
the high paced job she’s in today.
She began her career as a lab technician, and soon rose to the position
if Manager of Blood Transfusion for Calgary, a position she held for the
majority of my life. A year and a
half ago, she moved into the position of Associate Director of Cancer Research
for Southern Alberta.
My mother is not unique,
and although she won’t be immortalized in history, she has impacted so many
lives. Whether being the child my
grandparents were unable to have, the kind mother who raised me, or the person
who’s received the blood she donates every month because her job has made her
aware just how important donations are.
The message is that everyone impacts the world, and who knows what the
world would be like without her contribution. I certainly wouldn’t be here.
Five years ago my mother
had the chance to meet her biological mother. It was an exciting, yet terrifying experience for her. Forty-eight years spent creating a
image of what her mother would look like and act like; and here she was meeting
the women who impacted her the most, without ever being physically present. During this meeting any illusions were wiped
away, as my biological grandmother told my mother about her affair with a
married man, sixteen years her senior that led my mother’s conception. Shocked to learn that this woman had
married him only two years after my mother’s birth made her press this woman
for more answers. Finally this
woman confessed that the man who was listed as my mother’s father on her birth
certificate was not actually her biological father. Before this man had left his wife, this woman had taken a
trip with a friend to Vancouver that ended when she slept with a random
stranger. Upon returning to
Calgary she discovered that she was pregnant, and used this information to
break up her current husbands marriage.
After giving my mother up for adoption, she married this older man and
together they had a family. Half
brothers and sisters my mother will never know. She confided to my mother her fear of the day my mother would
come back into her life and ruin it.
She finished this confession by telling my mother if she had been able
to, she would have had an abortion.
In a single sentence, this
woman degraded my mother’s entire existence. How dare she vocalize her opinion that my mother didn’t
deserve to live! Evidently, she
was the one person who if such a situation were to arise today, would be within
her rights to terminate my mothers’ life, as well as my brothers’ and my own.
Is it fair that a teenager
can engage in sexual activity without fully understanding the consequences? Is it fair that we’re allowing ourselves
the ability to avoid the responsibility of those consequences? Is it fair that we’re allowing
ourselves to be satisfied by instant gratification?
Now I want to be clear. I’m not saying that there aren’t
circumstances where an abortion is necessary, nor am I proposing that someone
is a bad person if they’ve had or are currently seeking an abortion. What I am proposing is that we instate
restrictions on abortions, and make first choice to an unplanned pregnancy adoption. We need to remove religious involvement,
and create educational programs that educate the future generations about the
impact of their sexual activity while providing information about contraceptives. I also propose that government needs to
become involved by providing free birth control to women.
Now I understand that this
proposal raises many problems involving a women’s control over her body. This is a valid point, with valid
concerns that can’t be disregarded.
On that same note, there are things we do everyday that may have consequences
that we would prefer not to have.
I assume everyone reading this has at some point in there life been in a
car. The truth of the matter is
that people get into serious car accidents everyday, and from those accidents, they
sustain life-changing injuries that will impact them for the rest of their
lives. These injuries occur even
when they wear their seatbelts.
This is an excellent
comparison to accidental pregnancies, the difference being that there is no get
out of jail free card when it comes to avoiding the injuries obtained in an
accident. But we’ve created such a
card for accidental pregnancies.
Or have we? There are reports that demonstrate the
termination of the pregnancy isn’t the end of the problem. Although we move on physically,
mentally women are impacted by the loss of their
unborn child. An article in the American Psychological Association journal discusses the possible impact
effecting women after they’ve had an abortion. The statistics provided by this journal article also suggest
that the majority of abortions are from unwanted pregnancies and of those
women, many report feeling pressured into having an abortion. That pressure came in many forms,
possibly an un-supporting family member/biological father, or by other issues
such as financial security. This except
from the American Psychological
Association addresses the psychological impacts that an abortion may have.
Rue and Speckhard
(1992; Speckhard & Rue, 1992) posited that the traumatic experience of
abortion can lead to serious mental health problems, for which they coined the
term postabortion syndrome (PAS). They conceptualized PAS as a specific
form of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) comparable to the symptoms
experienced by Vietnam veterans, including symptoms of trauma, such as
flashbacks and denial, and symptoms such as depression, grief, anger, shame,
survivor guilt, and substance abuse.
This demonstrates to me
that there are consequences to our actions whether we address it at the time or
not. The problem is that this
choice doesn’t simply affect you; it impacts the life growing within you. This isn’t a tattoo you got when you’re
teenager that remains as a permanent demonstration of your impulsive decisions. It’s a human life that has an infinite
possibility to what it can achieve.
How can anyone decide whether it has the ‘right’ to survive?
It’s time we started
educating our children not only about abstinence, but about the real
responsibilities that come with sexual activity. It’s time we stop looking for the easy way out. It’s time we change.
For More Information:
Major, Brenda; Appelbaum, Mark; Beckman, Linda; Dutton, Mary
Ann; Russo, Nancy Felipe; West, Carolyn (2009) Abortion
and Mental Health: Evaluating the Evidence, American Psychologist,
Volume 64(9), December 2009, p 863–890. Retrieved from: http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/sp-3.7.1b/ovidweb.cgi?QS2=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