BY KASSI UNDERWOOD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, May 02, 2011
In a boldly improvised speech on the House floor in February, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) admitted she had "lost a baby." Markai Durham, star of MTV’s "16 and Pregnant" abortion special, feels "sad from time to time," and on NBC’s "Friday Night Lights," Becky still dwells on her termination.
As a 26-year-old New Yorker who has no problem telling a stranger about the abortion I had at 19, I have found that people make two assumptions: that I am pro-choice and that simply being pro-choice would resolve any difficult emotions I have encountered.
Identifying with political ideology does not jibe with my more complicated experience. Grief might be normal, but dogmatic agendas have hijacked outlets for healing.
After my procedure, relief washed over me – just as I had read it would, in a report from the Guttmacher Institute, an offshoot of Planned Parenthood. Yet it was the kind of relief I have felt after losing someone to a prolonged battle with cancer: grateful the suffering had ended, but sorry my loved one had to go.
