{"id":90353,"date":"2016-03-16T12:54:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T16:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=90353"},"modified":"2016-03-20T02:47:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T06:47:15","slug":"i-didnt-have-an-abortion-choosing-life-for-my-son-saved-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/i-didnt-have-an-abortion-choosing-life-for-my-son-saved-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion didn&#8217;t save me \u2014choosing life for my son did"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><div class=\"separator\">\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newwavefeminists.com\/\">New Wave Feminists<\/a>) This week we&#8217;ve been <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Nightline\/video\/major-abortion-case-front-us-supreme-court-matters-37360984\" target=\"_blank\">bombarded with stories<\/a> from celebrities, CEOs, and all around successful women who claim their abortion(s) saved them. They talk about how they wouldn&#8217;t have been able to be successful and still fulfill their dreams without sacrificing the lives of their children.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I don&#8217;t know about you, but &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t have&#8221; is not a phrase fit for\u00a0feminism. The beliefs we have as women need to be built\u00a0on, &#8220;I can&#8221; and &#8220;I did,&#8221; because therein lies\u00a0a message of strength and resilience that all women should hear. They need to know they are capable of facing an unplanned pregnancy and persevering. They need to see that there\u00a0is a way for them to\u00a0pursue their dreams\u00a0without sacrificing\u00a0such a powerful part of themselves along with the life of their child.\u00a0They need to know they are not alone.<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\">\n<p>True feminism surrounds those women with support, encouragement, and resources&#8230; not a violent\u00a0&#8220;choice&#8221; she\u00a0might live the rest of her life regretting.<\/p>\n<p>With that said, I decided to dust off this short essay from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NewWaveFeminists\/photos\/a.342873355734792.79667.202144953140967\/1069228946432559\/?type=3&amp;theater\" target=\"_blank\">our Facebook<\/a> about my own &#8220;I can and I did&#8221; moment, because we are women and we are capable of anything. We&#8217;re done sacrificing either\u00a0our dreams or our children&#8230; when we know we&#8217;re strong enough to have both.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abortionprocedures.com\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-88619 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.liveactionnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/levatino-ad-LAN.jpg\" alt=\"levatino-ad-LAN\" width=\"306\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/levatino-ad-LAN.jpg 306w, https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/levatino-ad-LAN-300x221.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 306px) 100vw, 306px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The panic is temporary. The fear is temporary. The crisis is temporary. The days when you wake up thinking \u201chow did I make such a huge mistake?\u201d are so few in retrospect.<\/p>\n<p>You have nine months for all that, but then it gets good. Still difficult, don\u2019t get me wrong, but so so good\u2026<\/p>\n<p>My \u00a0\u201ccrisis pregnancy\u201d turned 15 today. He\u2019s just a year shy of the age I was when I\u00a0became pregnant with him (a thought that absolutely terrifies me). However, he\u2019s anything but a mistake.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s the other half to all my inside jokes. He\u2019s the best person I\u2019ve ever known. He\u2019s the one who binge watches &#8220;Doctor Who&#8221; with me and teaches me about robots and video games. He\u2019s the reason I started New Wave Feminists. He\u2019s the owner of a pure heart, swiper of my favorite CDs, and contributor of copious amounts of laundry. He\u2019s the kid who still has me hanging around skateparks a decade and a half later. He\u2019s often my (much needed) filter, because he\u2019s a stereotypical naturally mature firstborn, and the last one to ever let me down. He\u2019s the kid that I didn\u2019t really raise at all, but instead grew up alongside. He\u2019s my heart and soul.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but choosing life for him would give me a life that I wouldn\u2019t trade for the world.<\/p>\n<p>See, you don\u2019t realize how temporary the \u201ccrisis\u201d is when it\u2019s consuming your every waking moment, but as soon as you get beyond that\u2026 Such beauty can be born from that which we never planned.<\/p>\n<p>Fear is temporary, but the courage you gain facing it lasts forever. Panic subsides, but the strength you find in the midst of the crisis endures. Perhaps the most amazing thing though is how the love you feel for this new life, whether it was intended or not, suddenly turns a \u201cmistake\u201d into a miracle.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t save my son by \u201cchoosing life.\u201d \u00a0He saved me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s note: This article originally appeared at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newwavefeminists.com\/\">New Wave Feminists<\/a>, and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(New Wave Feminists) This week we&#8217;ve been bombarded with stories from celebrities, CEOs, and all around successful women who claim their abortion(s) saved them. They talk about how they wouldn&#8217;t have been able to be successful and still fulfill their dreams without sacrificing the lives of their children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":82503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[3233,7925,7926,187],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I didn&#039;t have an abortion\u2014 choosing life for my son saved me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but choosing life for him would give me a life that I wouldn\u2019t trade for the world.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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