A life not chosen

Can you be a feminist and pro-life at the same time?

Is abortion our source of freedom or a symptom of our oppression?

There’s something peculiar about childhood friends. Perhaps it’s because they knew you before you had the skills to present to the world only what you wanted it to see. They know you. Doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen each other. They know the real you.

Maybe that’s why she chose to ask me.

“I’m pregnant,” Eva announced, but not the way you’d expect. This was not a joyous moment.

I probably knew what was coming then. My mind in overdrive, going over our lives and how they had trailed in and out of proximity to each other.

Eva had two kids. Two girls. To a man she never spoke as highly of as the ex she’d been kept apart from. They weren’t married. Eva had hinted at problems for years, but never elaborated. She liked to focus on the good. Or maybe I’d never asked the right questions.

“I can’t keep it,” Eva continued. There was desperation in her voice, but no tears.

“Does Davyn know?”

“He can’t know. He’ll make me have it. If I have it, I’ll be stuck. I need to leave, but don’t have the money. I need to get myself set so I can leave.”

Something sick twisted in my gut. Eva and I hadn’t seen each other for almost a year. We only caught up in person. She didn’t know I was trying to have a baby. That I was struggling to have a baby. And here she was, carrying the child I wanted, and asking me to help get rid of it.

I wanted to know so many things. How could she have fallen pregnant to a man she didn’t like? Wasn’t there some way she could’ve prevented this? In this day and age, there was no reason for accidental pregnancies. And if it was so bad, then why hadn’t she just left already? Damn being set.

But I could guess the answers. Davyn was emotionally abusive. Physically coercive. There was a smarminess about him I had never liked. And I barely knew him. They’d met when Eva was so young. Pregnant at what I considered a ridiculous age. Yet she had the family I was now struggling to build. I had secretly envied her for years. Part of me even envied her predicament.

The one thing I had always guarded myself against was an unplanned pregnancy. Because of that, I’d always considered what I’d do if the ‘worst’ happened. For years abortion had remained a serious option. As much as I wanted kids, their welfare had to count for more than my desires. If I couldn’t take care of them, then maybe it was better they weren’t born. That changed when I got my first real job. My career might take a hit, but that was okay. I had the money to be a parent. Abortion was off the table.

But never completely.

Rape would’ve brought it back into play. A pregnancy forced upon me against my will. Pregnant to a man who’d hurt me. Who I hated. Who would form half the genetic make-up of my child. A constant reminder of my pain. Of course, it would’ve been half mine. And so many good people had been born from arseholes. Maybe I knew what I would do, but I’d hate that I had to do it.

“What do you need?” I asked, feeling my throat constrict with my own maternal desires.

“Money,” replied Eva. “I can’t afford it. I don’t have much time left.”

My mind whirled, seeking some way to arrange the impossible. I’d take her child in a heartbeat. Yet I knew Eva could never have this child. It wasn’t a matter of not being able to keep the child, but maintaining the pregnancy. There had to be another option. A way to transfer her baby to my womb. My empty, vacant womb.

“How much?” I queried, wondering if this was me agreeing or if I would still back out.

But would my decision have any impact on hers? It wouldn’t change her domestic situation. Her need to make this pregnancy disappear wouldn’t evaporate with the withdrawal of my assistance. I’d only make her more desperate. Maybe she knew someone else who could help. Someone who didn’t want a child. Or maybe she’d try and do it herself. Or be brave enough to visit a backyard butcher. Or perhaps she’d find herself trapped. Forced to give birth to a child who in turn would be forced to endure the same abuse as its mother.

“Four hundred dollars.”

I didn’t believe in God, yet a part of me was convinced that if I nodded, my dream of becoming a parent would die with her unborn child. An eye for an eye. But my childlessness didn’t have roots in Eva’s abusive relationship. It didn’t even have roots in me. Me denying Eva the chance at a free life would not make my husband more fertile. But maybe if there was a God, he’d grant me a miracle for not taking a life.

Perhaps that was why I couldn’t respond. My irrational belief in miracles. That good things happened to good people. But horrible people got what they wanted all the time and nice people suffered more than was fair. Were all those nice people being punished for helping others without reference to their own desires? Were horrible people rewarded for ignoring the needs of others?

I looked over at Eva. It took my longer than it should, but I finally realised that she didn’t need an abortion. She needed to escape an abusive partner. The abortion was just a means to an end. The question I was really being asked was would I deny a woman the chance to escape abuse in the hope of being rewarded for that decision.

There was only one answer.