Thoughts on abortion

I'm ridiculously pro-choice. I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who are also ridiculously pro-choice, as well as many who are conservatively pro-choice and some who are anti-choice. I'm not going to spend time here arguing about what "side" is the "right" one.

I've been thinking a lot lately about parenthood, probably because I've been thinking about adulthood in general. A lot of people in my age group (early 20s) have already gotten married; I've had several confusing moments on Facebook where either I'll see a friend name I don't recognize and find out that it's a female acquaintance who changed her last name when she got married, or I'll see that a male acquaintance has gotten married and his new wife has changed her last name. Some people have kids already. Meanwhile, I'm beginning my career. I'm not trying to set this up as me choosing between family and career. I'm just realizing now that my next boyfriend might turn into my domestic partner/husband, that my next degree probably will turn into my specific career, and so on and so forth. So, yeah, adulthood.

I recall that when I was younger, I figured I would want kids when I was older. When I hit my late teens, I was sure that wanting kids was something that would eventually happen. And hey, I like kids. Teaching is a fun job. I'm good at classroom management. I like spending (limited amounts of) time with my little cousins.

But can I imagine kids 24/7? I doubt it.

Even more than that, I can't imagine dealing with an infant. It's bad enough when I don't know what Loki wants, and if he's annoying me, I can stick him in his cage. Plus, he's technically an adult.

I used to think that if I got pregnant unintentionally, but I could afford to support a child, I'd go through with the pregnancy. Now, I think not so much. I've grown up thinking that you need "good" reasons to abort a pregnancy, like lack of finances, or the general "not a good time in my life" that I figured I'd use during school. But now I'm starting to realize that when you don't really want kids, or you don't want to be pregnant, there isn't a good time in your life to go through with it.

So, there's that whole part: Because I don't want kids, there is no "good" time to not abort an unintended pregnancy.

But even if I change my mind, and I do want kids? I'd go with those awesome foster parent commercials ("You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. Thousands of teens in foster care would love to put up with you"). There are so many kids out there who are in foster care. I'm not trying to suggest that every foster parent is evil and I have to save all these kids (after all, then I'd be a foster parent and therefore evil as well). But I'd much rather have a kid through foster care than through my own biological functions.

Which brings me to this: Giving birth is, quite simply, a bad idea for me. I'm at risk for diabetes and I'm trying to improve my health as it is. My body can't take the strain of pregnancy. I'd also rather not suffer the effects of birth on the vagina. I just don't want that. So even if I change my mind and decide, "Baby time!" I'm going with adoption. This body can't take a biological baby.

Besides, there's nothing biological about me I'd like to pass down. Not that I'm self-hating, but what's there that's so important? Besides, feminism isn't biological :-p