I learned more about abortion elsewhere in college -- aside from Dr. Z's fervent proselytizing.
I met my future husband and with thoughts of marriage came thoughts of children. I looked over my immunization records and saw that I'd never received a Rubella vaccine. Off to the doctor I went.
The nurse counseled me before my vaccination, "Be very careful with birth control, because if you get pregnant in the next three months, you'll have to have an abortion." The doctor repeated this caveat. I went home preplexed. If this vaccine posed that great a threat, why not admonish me to abstain for three months? The other thing that struck me was the admonition, "you'll have to have an abortion." Weren't they supposed to give me the information about what kind of birth defects the vaccine might cause, and let me make the choice?
Then I had a pregnancy scare.
Funny how open to suggestion we humans are. Had they told me to abstain, I probably would have abstained. But since they assumed such a course of action wasn't thinkable, I didn't give it any serious thought either. In the course of time I fell ill and took various medications and underwent various chemical and x-ray intensive tests, one of which led a technician to suggest to my doctor that I might be pregnant.
I called every place that might have answers -- birth control clinics, prochoice groups -- asking what harm the vaccine and tests and medications might have done to my baby. They all told me I could consult with a doctor if a pregnancy was confirmed -- which couldn't be for two more weeks. Many sleepless nights I spent crying. I had been taught that my choices were to impose a horrible disability on an innocent child, or to abort. It took two weeks of agonizing, debating with my boyfriend, reading everything I could get my hands on, before something dawned on me. If I didn't abort, I wasn't causing a child to be crippled. I would just be allowing an existing crippled child to live. That was hardly a monstrous act. I began to resent the nurse and doctor who had advised me at the time of my vaccine. How dare they try to guilt-trip me into an abortion before I was even pregnant?
I paid cash for a blood test for pregnancy (two weeks' grocery money at that point in my life), rather than wait longer to take the free urine test. I nearly collapsed with relief when the test was negative. But I swore I'd never go through a scare like that again -- I would go on the Pill.
Back to the birth control clinic I went. I noticed some odd things there, too. One was a sign on the wall reminding staff that "procedures" would be done on Saturday. I knew they meant abortions, and wondered why they couldn't just say it. Another strange thing was a posted news clipping applauding some criminal abortionist or other -- what a paragon of virtue he'd been, what wonderous services to women. Even willing as I was to tolerate the institution of abortion, that seemed to me to be overdoing it.
The thing that disturbed me most at the time, though, was again an admonition by the doctor and the nurse. They both reminded me that I had to follow my instructions carefully: "We don't want you back here for an abortion." I resented that they presumed to choose for me before I even got pregnant. This little episode raised so many red flags in my mind that I never returned to that clinic -- until many years later, with a picket sign in my hands.
NEXT: Part 4-- Under Pressure
The Entire Fence Sitter Series:
Laying the Groundwork
Biology of Sex
Curiouser and Curiouser
Under Pressure
Every Little Bit Helps
The Eye Opener
A Learning Odyssey
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