Posted on 10/24/2006 10:02:53 PM PDT by Lorianne
Between Sandy Hingston's teen years and her daughter's adolescence, "abortion" became a dirty word. It was time to tell her child a secret from her past.Theoretically Pro-Choice There were 20 little girls in the Brownie troop that I took over from another overstressed mom when my daughter was 7. Twenty girls, fat and thin and pretty and plain and brave and timid, shilling Thin Mints, earning badges, going camping, and saluting the flag. It was on one of our first camping trips that I looked at my co-leader, Jeannette, and said, "Who do you think will be the first one to get pregnant?" She stared at me for a minute, then laughed.
I was only half joking. Girls mate young in this blue-collar town outside of Philadelphia. College isn't much on the radar; kids graduate from high school (or don't) and go to work at Wal-Mart or the supermarket or Jiffy Lube.
The first Brownie got pregnant at 14. "She's due in six months," my daughter, Marcy, told me.
I gasped in spite of myself. "She's having the baby?"
"Well, what else could she do?" she asked matter-of-factly. I looked at her, surprised. "She could have an abortion."
Something flickered in my daughter's eyes. "Nobody I know would ever do that," she said.
It was my first glimpse of the enormous gulf between Marcy and me on the subject, and I was stopped cold. She knew, had known all her life, that her father and I are staunch supporters of a woman's right to choose. She'd even professed her allegiance to the concept. But clearly, it was all theoretical to her, something we believed some imaginary women somewhere ought to have the right to do.
I wanted so much to say more to her. But she was so young: She was only 14. There was plenty of time.
The second Brownie who got pregnant was 15. "She's showing," Marcy said knowingly. "Her mom is giving a baby shower for her." I was dumbfounded.
"I can't believe she's having the baby."
"Like she has a choice." Marcy was curt.
"She has a choice."
"What choice?"
"She could get an abortion."
Marcy's back went straight. "And kill a baby?"
"It's not a baby. It's a fetus. And if she got an abortion, she'd still have a future."
"Nobody gets abortions," Marcy said. Again, that abrupt dismissiveness. My throat was aching with what I longed to tell my daughter. But I couldn't figure out how to couch it. I was suddenly seeing the issue not from my comfy old political perspective, but from a different angle: that of a young, naive, kindhearted girl who wouldn't hurt a kitten, much less an unborn child.
Fetus.
Not to mention, she still believed in happily ever after.
"I think they can make it," Marcy said of the ex-Brownie and her baby's father. "They seem really solid."
"They're 15," I said.
"But they're in love." Speaking Up About My Abortion We are all products of our times. I am 50, and in the time I grew up in, good girls didn't have sex. I was a good girl. For a while. I lost my virginity when I was 16. I would have died before I let my mom and dad find out. Teens who became pregnant when I was growing up never kept their babies. They were discreetly sent off to group homes, or they managed to get themselves abortions. Either way, the pregnancy didn't permanently alter -- at least outwardly -- the arc of their lives. Now, girls my daughter's age were having babies and showing off their bulging tummies like Britney Spears on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. What had happened to shame in those 30 years?
Don't get me wrong. I'm no particular fan of shame. I didn't want my former Brownies branded with scarlet letters. But I did want some sort of -- what? Acknowledgment that their choices hadn't been wise? Warning to those coming up after them that this wasn't the way to maximize your potential? Sure, there's a Planned Parenthood outpost in this town -- but there are three places with heartwarming names like Golden Cradle, eager to reassure reluctant moms-to-be that, as long as they stay pregnant, everything will be all right. Marcy sees the cute onesies at the showers. She sees the babies toted to football games and fawned over. Nobody is telling her the other side.
So I do it. I tell her that I had an abortion. It takes a long while. I start the conversation a dozen times without finishing it. I'm terrified that I'll stop being Mom and become Mom-who-killed-a-baby. I explain that I was 19 and in college at the time. I tell her how frightened I was to go into the city to the clinic, but that I was even more frightened my parents would learn I'd had sex. I tell her I've never regretted my decision. We are driving in the car, at night. I can feel her beside me taking in what I'm saying, feel it altering her perception of me, just as I'd feared, like a kaleidoscope that shows one pattern, spins and blurs, then clicks into another pattern.
"Wow," she says, a little breathlessly. "I didn't think anybody really did that ... I mean, anybody I knew --"
And that, of course, is why I had to tell her. Who else was going to speak up, to witness to her? Movie stars? They were all trying desperately to get pregnant or adopting babies in Africa. Female musicians? Athletes? Politicians? Ha! There's no shame at all in Katie Holmes bearing Tom Cruise's child out of wedlock. But when's the last time you saw a headline saying "Star Aborts"?
"Did you ever feel guilty?" Marcy asks me.
"No," I tell her, honestly. "I was too worried that Pop-Pop and Nana would find out." She takes that in too. Then she says, "I guess I won't be afraid to tell you."
I wrote a magazine article about our conversation and got dozens of e-mails in response. Some said I was a murderer, a selfish monster. I printed those e-mails out and showed them to Marcy. "You're brave," she said, knowing perfectly well that I'm not, really. The rest were from women who'd had abortions. They told their stories, different stories with a single theme: I had a choice, and my life is better because I did. A lot of them said, "I've never told this to anyone before." The writers spoke of secrecy and shame.
I showed Marcy those e-mails, too.
The third Brownie to become pregnant was Marcy's age -- 16. When the news reached Marcy's lunch table, she spoke up loud and clear: "She could have an abortion." Her friends didn't argue politics with her. They weren't aghast. They just blinked and stared, she said, "as if they'd never thought of that."
Sandy Hingston is a senior editor and parenting columnist at Philadelphia Magazine. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and their teenage son and daughter.
Originally published in MORE magazine, October 2006.
"Sandy Hingston is a senior editor and parenting columnist at Philadelphia Magazine."
A parenting columnist??? One who is unashamed of killing her own unborn baby because she was "scared" of her telling her parents that she had sex in college? Simply disgusting.
You said it best.
Who else was going to speak up, to witness to her?
This line speaks volumes. It's a religious rite to the author.
Try explaining abortion to one.
"You mean, they KILL the baby?"
I was suddenly seeing the issue not from my comfy old political perspective, but from a different angle: that of a young, naive, kindhearted girl who wouldn't hurt a kitten, much less an unborn child.
Fetus.
She went from unborn child to fetus. Had to convince herself too of the lie she was telling her daughter. Pathetic and sad. :(
With enough incentive, people can convince themselves of almost anything.
Her story reminds me of stories of how racists turn their children into racists. The children grow up learning there is no difference between races, that we are all the same, but then the parents convince them otherwise, and then those kids go off and if they are persuasive they get a few more on their side, and we have the next generation of racist pigs.
In this case, it's abortion. People know killing babies is wrong, it's something we are born knowing, but parents can deceive their children.
I had a choice, and my life is better because I did
They argue it's for the baby, but it's not, it's to improve their own lives. I disagree that her life is better, but even if it is, who cares.
I bet men who kill their wives find their lives "better" with their wives gone, too. Burglars have better "lives" because they have money, as do embezzlers.
You think Skilling, before he was caught and is going to jail, didn't think his life was BETTER because he had millions of dollars from cheating people?
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The author of this piece is disgusting!
Holy cow. I'm speechless.
There are definitely blue collar areas around Philly. Upper Darby comes to mind, but there are others. I live in a suburb of Philly and have lived where it was definitely blue collar (Ardsley). I find this article pathetically and emphatically evil. I raised a daughter by myself and raised her to know that she had choices. That she could--and should--go to college. That getting pregnant was a choice. And that a baby has the right to be born--and the mother has the responsibility to see that he/she is.
me too!! it is one of the most chilling things i have ever read. the daughter had the intuitive sense to KNOW killing a baby is wrong and the MOTHER sells her on the BLESSING of abortion. i am dumbfounded.
I understand what you're saying, but it would be better if teens considered getting pregnant to be the aberration.
And mothers giving baby showers for their pregnant 15 year olds? WTF?
Yeah, it's tough to argue in favor of bloody dismembered dead babies against cute onesies and cooing over precious bundles at the football game.
Heck - her daughter in this story is ONLY 3 years younger than she was when she murdered her unborn child. That was almost thirty years ago.
Shame on the author. What a horrible thing to do and pass on to her lucky to be alive daughter.
The mother is evil. She is a liar and a murderer.
The mother killed one of her children physically ... then she killed the other one spiritually.
Reading this article, I had the impression she lived in Jersey.
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