an adoptee absolutely for abortion
# n i n e t e e n
I started writing this 6 weeks ago, before the Supreme Court’s decision was made. I put it down because 24 hours later I unknowingly started coming down with Covid. As the week inched closer to a positive rapid test, my brain became mush and writing took a huge backseat. I wondered if I would need to keep my thoughts going on this topic, if anyone really wanted to read yet another perspective in my echo chamber and I was secretly wishing I wouldn’t need to actually finish this. But then Friday June 24th happened and my rights as well as others who can become pregnant flipped upside down in America.
Ever since I can remember, my parents always told me I was adopted. I’m thankful I never had a moment where my world changed because I found out I wasn’t born from my adopted mom’s belly but always knew there was someone else who cooked me up. Not only was I adopted but I was adopted into a Christian home, given up by a Christian mother. So of course I was raised to think poorly of abortion. I was never taught that it was healthcare, I was only taught it was murdering babies. And with kid reasoning, how could I go wrong being “pro-life”? Even the title seems like a grand slam opinion. I lived in a very inclusive world only populated by conservative views despite living in a large city. And since I was adopted people double downed on trapping me into this way of thinking. I was never given the opportunity to understand what pro-choice meant because as an adoptee, I was constantly bombarded with phrases like “aren’t you glad you weren’t aborted?” And at the time- sure, of course, I love my life. I love living. I love being able to watch my stupid sports and yell too loud. But now when that question is posed to me I see how dangerous and brain washing it’s meant to be.
The language that surrounds adoptees is usually a very othering kind of language by suggesting that there is a hard delineation between a biological family and an adopted family. When speaking of biological kids, people like to say “they are my own kids” or “we are full siblings.” These kinds of statements puts the adoptees in the other category, which I can’t speak for every adoptee but I know for me it’s been a tough category of feeling like I don’t belong. But I’m used to it and it comes as no surprise when once again us adoptees are put in a category we definitely didn’t sign up for- the one where people force us to believe we are “lucky to not have been aborted.” I was never given the chance when I was young to understand that my life is actually made better by the choice my birth mother had to birth me rather than being forced to carry me.
And now I will say this emphatically and with my entire heart- as an adoptee, my life is better because of abortion. I am grateful for abortion and I will support it till I’m no longer here. To me there is no gray area, there is no nuance. Abortion is important, it’s needed and to strip us of this option is deadly. When I was a kid forced to be a token in the so called pro-life movement, I never once was emotional about the thought of aborted fetuses. I never mourned the unborn like they suggested we do. I was there only in a performative way, because a lot of religion is going through motions to save you from punishment. I couldn’t see the face of a fetus so I never was sad about the termination of one, but ever since Friday I can’t help but get choked up, cry and lose it because all I see are the faces of the people scared that one day they or someone they love will be forced to carry to term something unimaginable.
Sometimes I wonder if my birth mother wasn’t religious would she have aborted me. A part of me does mourn for her if she felt forced to carry me, but then I remember she still had Roe. She still had the option available to her if her pregnancy turned out to be ectopic or if one of our lives became endangered. She had access to life saving care through Roe, care that is being stripped away every day around us. Even if she didn’t believe in abortion, abortion was still there for her.
I’ll never have the answers to questions surrounding my birth so I shouldn’t be forced to answer anyone’s leading questions about adoption. I should never be led to believe my life is lucky or that I should be grateful because my mother kept me instead of aborting me. I did not make that choice for her and I will not partake in language that furthers this dangerous thinking. My life is not a pawn to keep oppressive laws on the bodies of people trying to make it through another day on this terrible earth. Leave us adoptees out of your anti-choice narrative because we are not a number for your political gain.
If you haven’t seen the We Will Adopt Your Baby crowd, just know it’s the last crowd I ever want to adopt someone. My mom didn’t adopt me to save me from abortion, my mom adopted me because she couldn’t have kids. The We Will Adopt crowd has absolutely no understanding of adoptees or else they definitely would not be standing anywhere near the anti-choice crowd with those signs. They have no clue the trauma they are about to inherit and that adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide. Adoptees are not a shiny object you get to house just to keep your Jesus happy. We are fully complicated humans that will test your boundaries and should not be forced to be born just so you can further a deadly narrative.
Adoptee trauma will always go unseen because its scars are hidden deep in the chemistry of our brains. I’ve had multiple conversations with other adoptees who all feel similarly- we people please to keep our worth while struggling with abandonment issues our entire lives since we were taken from our birth mothers (which I’ve written extensively about in this previous newsletter, I don’t need to expand any further here). And the We Will Adopt You crowd won’t understand that these scars simply don’t fade by praying them away.
I was given my adopted mom, my favorite person, through choice. I was given the life I have through choice. Every part of me was chosen and not forced. So to those who say “aren’t you glad you weren’t aborted” the answer will always be “I wasn’t aborted and I’m glad my life was chosen for me.” Which very ironically, the book my parents read to me to teach me that I was adopted and to understand what that meant was called The Chosen Baby. Not The Forced Baby.
A lot of people want the topic of abortion to be murky, nuanced, hard to talk about, etc. But it’s simple. We live in a society that allows for families to plan better, resources to be more widely available and life-saving plans of actions if a pregnancy starts to become unviable for the person carrying it. We need abortion, it’s healthcare and it’s extremely important.
My life is my life, just like my birth mother’s life was her life. She had me and unknowingly put another person on this planet to keep the pro-choice movement alive. I am nothing but a poster child for abortion, because without it the person I am today would not be here. I am endlessly grateful to be born under choice, now more than ever. Every single person who becomes pregnant deserves the choice of what to do with that pregnancy. There should never be a reason for abortion either- I know people like to circulate stories of the worst things imaginable to reason why an abortion needed to happen. But sometimes they just need to happen, that’s it. We need the choice to be there and no one should ever have to explain why.
I’m ending this newsletter here and not doing any of my normal round-ups of things I like. Just donate to your local abortion fund. And if you are someone who is religious and still unpacking how abortion could be important, I get it. It’s hard to come out of such a rigid view but understand that you need abortion more than you will ever know. What is being taught to you is not actually what is happening. Learn to challenge that and research how detrimental this Supreme Court decision is going to be for all of us.
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Actually just kidding I do have one more thing completely separate from the above topic and its that one of the best people I know, one of my best friends for the last decade, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She started treatment and we have a GoFundMe going and if you can please donate and share. All we can do is take care of each other.
GoFundMe to Help Lyndsey “The Best And Funniest Person Out There” Frank
