A Mother’s Story: 3 Births and 2 Abortions

A growing number of women are choosing to share their stories surrounding their decisions to have abortions. Many hope that talking about their experiences will not only help other women feel less alone, but also combat the culture of sigma and shame surrounding abortion.

Deborah Copaken, recently opened up about her reproductive history in a beautifully written story in The Atlantic. She tells of the medical complications she has endured from her pregnancies, and about her decision to have two abortions, at two very different periods in her life. Copaken writes:

 I’ve had five pregnancies and three live births, I write on the medical forms, but what I leave out is now crucial, as Roe v. Wade once again comes under attack. My youngest was not planned. But he was chosen—I want him to know—with love, optimism, and hope, just as the terminations of the two other unplanned pregnancies were also chosen. My body is now a canvas of pregnancy-related scars. I knew, going into that third birth, the physical toll pregnancy had already taken on me. And yet I chose to go into it anyway.

She writes about the importance of having that choice and what it meant to her in her life going forward.

What’s at stake in this ridiculous debate over bodily autonomy is choice. It’s always been about choice. To be alive and human is to be in favor of life, but to bring an unwanted child into this world—or to force any woman to do so against her will, her health, her future, her finances, or her well-being, because that is your moral stance, not hers or her doctor’s—is not pro-life. It is control wearing the mask of virtue. It is government regulation at its most invasive. 

To read Copaken’s full story click HERE