Bitchicisms

This is a delayed post that was supposed to be for the January 22, 2008 Roe v. Wade anniversary.

Yes I am pro-choice. I've always known I was pro-choice. Even after withstanding years of videos of fetuses being ripped from the wombs of their mothers courtesy of my pseudo-sadistic Catholic school upbringing, I am still pro-choice.

But why is that? I guess partly because I've had a rough life. And I was born to a woman who has always struggled with being a good mother. And she has raised a daughter who grew up a little too fast and a son who seems to never grow up. I've also met children who should never have been born because something in their family life cause them to mess it up. There are also children who die much more miserably after being born unwanted. There are also women with lives ruined because they had children. And there are women who have abortions that are illegal.

1) K was a classmate in high school. She was a close friend of a friend. I remember how people were not very fond of her. Mostly because she built her life around her boyfriend. The salacious, thuggish and kinda gangsta Bd.

Bd was the head of a frat who claims to have the most members in the nation. This notoriety leads to the common known pun that they have brods who are taho vendors and fishball vendors. Which is true I bet. This frat doesn't really encourage its members to succeed or build themselves intellectually.

K and Bd were having sex when I was still reading Judith Krantz and mastering masturbation. They always seemed so much older than me and my close friends. We were part of a clique but the clique was broken in half. The 2 girls who had boyfriends (K and another named Cd), and the young kids (myself, Jp and Ic) who did not even have suitors and were predictably awkward growing up.

K got pregnant when we were juniors. Actually we never used that term. She did not get pregnant. She got delayed. She proceeded to take some drugs her boyfriend gave her and did about 100 crunches a day. She got really nice abs but still no period.

While she was trying her damn best to get her period started, they (K and Cd) were also befriending the school's guidance counselor. A move which just struck me as not so smart. Sure we get to spend idle time in the cool office and we got to talk to some boys but it just didn't seem particularly intelligent. It seemed even less intelligent when they confided to the counselor that K was delayed and trying to ratify it.

Hubbub ensued. It was the time when Jp's father died I think and Ic, Cd and I were going to the wake that K got called into the guidance counselor's office. If I remember correctly, K was no longer delayed by then. She got kicked out of school got thrown away to a province and Bd became a close friend of Cd (and in the process even tried to hit on her once or twice).

Though K and Bd were apart for so long, they ended up together, married and with kids. Up to now I still see Bd when I go to a particular mall. However the girl I always see him holding hands with is not K.

2) Y is one of the Gimik Girls. Or, rather, used to be one of the Gimik Girls.

She used to be the right hand man of Master, a really good friend who introduced me to the finer points of clubbing. However, somewhere down the line I ended up realizing that I don't much care for Y. And that I can totally live without her. So she was no longer my friend. Further unraveling of events led to the dissolution of the Gimik Girls and the bonding of Jean Grey and Master as well as the distance from the other 2 former members.

Y was known for having had an abortion. I was not yet part of the group at that time so I had no idea how things turned out. However I know she had one.

3) Darkeye is a very very good college friend. She's the perfect complement to my insane tirades and mood swings as I have never seen her get mad.

Her virginity was taken by her boyfriend. It was something she'd always wanted to try, sex I mean, and it made her happy to finally get all the stupid little stories and acts I kept alluding to. They were almost always safe. Her family was liberated and her parents taught them about condoms, which is more than can be said about my mom who still pretends she thinks I'm a virgin sometimes.

I received a call from Darkeye one summer. She suspected she was pregnant. She was at home in the province and can't buy a pregnancy kit at the local drug store because her parents knew people there. And yes she was that paranoid.

So she shipped out to Manila on the pretense of visiting me and we purchased a pregnancy test at the Mercury Drug near our school. She peed on the stick in our College's rest room. After a couple of minutes we found the results. They were positive.

We were standing outside near the railings of our college and smoking. The fact hadn't sunk in yet. "Oh my God you're pregnant," I said. Then we started laughing hysterically. We laughed like it was the biggest cosmic joke. And it sort of was. I was the biggest slut we knew at that time and she had gotten divirginized about 3 or 4 months ago. And yes Darkeye was pregnant.

We crushed our cigarettes and walked, still laughing, to the nearest cafe.

Prior to getting knocked up, Darkeye and I had shared several conversations about sex. She had asked me what would I do if I got pregnant. I told her I would get an abortion. She asked me if I was serious. "Did I stutter?" Then Darkeye told me she'd keep her baby if she ever got pregnant right then and there.

This was why I was shocked when she told me she was getting an abortion. Lack of funds and lack of opportunity led to her staying in the province for a long period of time and her stomach getting bigger (in hindsight thank god she was fat so it wasn't that obvious she was knocked up). I'd urged her early on to make a decision, make a choice. Since she had not gotten an abortion yet I had assumed she would keep it. She wanted an abortion when the fetus was already about 3 or 4 months old.

We talked to her. I told her I would help her raise the baby if money was the problem. I asked her if she was sure. Y even played a part in discouraging her because the fetus was already big.

In the end she took medicine her boyfriend got her. And the embryo died. But it didn't come out. She got blacklisted from East Avenue Medical Center because they refused to remove the fetus eventhough it was dead, eventhough it could end up poisoning her, all because of the anti-abortion law, they'd rather see her dead than help her.

Darkeye took some more medicine to expel the fetus (admittedly I chickened out of offering my house for this, my mother would not have been happy with seeing a dead fetus in our bathroom), and was alone in the bathroom with the fully formed fetus.

The fetus got buried, Darkeye suffered trauma and has still not undergone therapy for it and she's still with the dude.

Now I have connections that enable me to refer people to safe abortions should they need it. It should be early in the term and is guaranteed safe. I also dispense advise about emergency contraceptives and morning after pills.

Recently a friend of a friend needed one and I referred her to someone I knew. The contact thought I was the pregnant one. Which I get a lot. People automatically assume the ones who enjoy casual sex will eventually get what's coming to them and get a disease or a baby. I say, "Not if you're smart, you don't."

All this hullabaloo and drama could be prevented. If we had legal abortion and a solid family planning system, unwanted pregnancies and dangerous and unsafe abortions could be a thing of the past. The best way to deal with abortion is not to make it illegal, but to prevent the need for it with the publicizing of contraceptives and putting up womens centers where they will be given advice about their reproductive health.