PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND ABORTION
When I was in high school in Whittier, California, there was a lot of sexual abuse, and even rape, going on in my school. I hung with a group of very pretty girls. Being the only kid in my school driving a car at 15 years old - I got asked to help out with things a lot. Things the other kids didn't want to go to their parents about.
I lost my virginity to a rape. A rape where he penetrated, ejaculated, and didn't use protection. It was literally over before I knew what happened. I had known the guy for two years. We went to the same school. He was always hitting on my best friend, Donna, so it never crossed my mind he would do anything to me. This guy would walk his dogs every day by our house. We walked to school together. I thought he was a friend.
Then I made the mistake of saying I was a virgin - saving it for marriage. It seemed this 17 year old boy had a "thing" for breaking in virgins. He called me up crying saying he had just broken up with his girlfriend. Wanted me to come talk to him. I went over to his house wearing a dress. I entered the house, and he tried to take my hand and lead me to the bedroom. I resisted. I sat down on the couch and tried to ask him what was wrong. He pushed me over, got on top of me, lifted up my dress, and it was over in two seconds.
I was fortunate I didn't get any disease or pregnant. I told my best friend and learned he'd raped her too. I told my other girlfriends and found out he'd raped them also. Seems he felt it was his mission in life to deflower all the virgins in our high school. I gathered together a group of them and we went to his house to tear him apart. None of us had told our mothers. His mother said he'd enlisted in the military and was gone.
We responded by spray painting his house with words like "rapist", breaking some windows, egging the house, etc.
All of us were scared we were pregnant. We went to the only place where we could get a pregnancy test free - Planned Parenthood. There was one other place - the Crisis Pregnancy Centers. They advertised they offered free pregnancy tests - which they did. But they'd only give you the results if you watched this horrible tape of mangled fetus for two hours before they'd give you the results. Planned Parenthood would give you the results - and then just ask you "what do you want to do?"
Back then the state would pay for an abortion except for a $150 deductible. So for $150 and a signed consent form - you could get an abortion. Some of the girls that boy raped in my school did get pregnant. Not wanting to tell their parents, or keep a child at 15 years old - these girls asked me to drive them to get an abortion.
However, I had seen the videos at the Crisis Pregnancy Center. I told my girlfriends I would do this - but only after they'd seen the videos at the center to "fully understand" what they were doing. At that time, they did not offer any assistance with keeping the baby. They just used a lot of guilt to try and convince you not to have the child.
Times change. I got pregnant by accident in 1990. I was 31 years old. I was renting an attic from a member of NA and helping run the program for prostitutes in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I hadn't been paid from my job yet so was broke. I remembered I could get a free test at a Crisis Pregnancy Center which they also had in Allentown. I went there and got the test. They tried to show me the tapes and I said "don't bother - I'm keeping the baby". I'd seen an angel telling me I was going to be pregnant and I wasn't going to piss off God.
The father was bipolar that I was unaware of until I became pregnant by accident. He was supposed to be moving out that weekend. I told them this and they offered to move me into a "good christian home and take care of everything". They told me they'd help me keep the baby or help me adopt it - either way I decided.
Now that's progress. I wish they'd done that in the 1970's when I was a teenager. So many of these young girls I went to school with might have kept it for that reason. It's not like their home life was great. Some of those girls were pregnant by their step-fathers. They didn't want their mothers to know about what happened for obvious reasons. Scared they'd be kicked out of the home if they were discovered to be pregnant - they opted for abortion.
But now I'm older - I know asking a 15 year old to make a decision about abortion is about as reasonable as asking the family pet to make the decision. Teens don't even have a frontal lobe to make proper long term decisions. They're not doctors. They haven't studied the issue properly. They think like children. Which has left us up to the adult counsel of the people who were at those clinics. It never crossed my mind there might have been a financial alternative because in the 1970's I don't think there was. So my memories as an adult are of Planned Parenthood before all this tissue research even became a reality.
I was pregnant one more time in 1977 when I was 17 years old. Another accident. The father was 15 years old but I thought he was older than me. He was very mature looking for his age. This boy had told me he wanted to get married and came with me to my mother to tell her I was pregnant. My mom moved him in the house so we could get married. Turned out she'd gotten pregnant at 18 years old and my dad was only 17 years old lying about his age also! She told me he didn't confess until right before the wedding because he had to get parental consent to get married!
The pressure must have been too much because he went out to look for a job and never came back. I went into a miscarriage. I went to the doctor who rushed me in for a DNC when I was four months pregnant. Years later I learned he might have been able to save the baby by giving me drugs. I went back to confront that doctor about why he did that so quickly without trying to save the baby. He told me that "considering your condition I didn't think you needed to be saddled with a baby at 17 years old. I was angry for years that he made the decision for me instead of talking to me about what I wanted.
Because I wanted that baby. I went into a very black depression afterwards. I spent a year sulking around the house, packed on 75 pounds in fact. Nine months later the boy came back to the house to see if I had the baby. When he saw I didn't have it - he left. I never saw him again. I then went into a whole new depression after that. I often think if it hadn't of happened, if I had the baby, I wouldn't have fallen into being a sex trafficking victim.
My daughter says then I wouldn't have become a victim, seen how there was no system for us to get help, and founded this sex trafficking movement, our 12 step program, the first hotline for adults, etc. She says it was "God's will" and that I wouldn't have then had her if not for that. I don't know if she's right.
I saw a woman online tonight talking about "waiting until the right time" to have a child. My grandmother inherited a lot of land in Arkansas before she died. I tried to get her to talk to me about it and she wouldn't. As she was dying, I tried to find those papers and couldn't. I asked her about it and she made a death bed confession - she had been pregnant with her first child, my mother's brother by rape. They didn't have abortion clinics in the 1940's - so she went to an unwed mother's home in San Diego, California. That's why she hitch hiked out from Missouri to California she told me. His family, nor hers, believed she'd been raped. So she went to a home there in San Diego.
She tried to keep the child. No one would hire her. No one would rent to her. They all thought because she was an unwed mother she was a prostitute. In desperation, she went to the Navy where her rapist was stationed and supposedly made a bargain - to marry her and support her and the child or she'd file criminal charges. To "seal the deal" and consummate the wedding - my mother was conceived.
Wow. That's heavy. That also explains why she always acted like she wanted nothing to do with my uncle and my mom. She opened up a bar where she would go and work nights and leave them alone. My mother was really scarred by that. As a result, she was always terrified to be alone because of being left alone by my grandmother. Turns out she was scared if I talked to his family I'd find out about the rape. Well, now I knew. If abortions had been legal in the 1940's - then I wouldn't be here.
Does that mean I think there are no medical circumstances where sometimes it's warranted? I'm not a doctor. All I know is I live my life by a 12 step program. I have to or I relapse and die. That program tells me that I have to "pray only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry it out". I do know that there are all kinds of adoption programs out now that didn't exist before. I do know if you don't want a child - there is an epidemic of mothers who can't conceive now who are quite well off who would take that child.
On the other hand - I don't like the idea of anyone having control over our bodies. I think women should be able to make an informed decision about what to do with that body. The problem is that theory and reality are two different things. I was a loud advocate of Planned Parenthood because they were the only program I saw providing reproductive care to teens who were being sexually abused in situations where their mothers were turning a blind eye.
However, as I've grown up I've also come to realize that very few people do things they do "just because they're the right thing to do". The videotape made of Planned Parenthood was done illegally. However, I've done many illegal things to rescue sex trafficking victims - so I believe the saving of lives warrants breaking man's law sometimes. The tape supposedly shows that PP was selling the body parts of these fetus for research. Which tells me that maybe, just maybe, the reason why PP was being so "helpful" to us girls back then was to get access to those parts. Maybe the tape was a fake. I just don't know without doing hours more of research. They might have opened my eyes to the fact Planned Parenthood has changed. Then again not. Again I just don't know without further research.
I do know this. We are living in a world where people are exploited. I know well the "lure" of the predator. I know how the abusive male comes on like Prince Charming. I had a man invade my life as a "Romeo Pimp". I was swept off my feet to built my trust - and then he tried to get me to join in with the trafficking operation. I know my father put on a "respectable" front of being a lawyer so no one would believe what he really was up to at night. I know that it's very possible that PP was saying they were "defending our right to choose and control our bodies" when in fact it might have been to get to those body parts.
I know the older I get - the more I see through the cons. The 12 steps and 12 traditions have never let me down however. I have a beautiful daughter now who is an advocate in her own right. I believe once her health is better - she wants to open up a home for teens like the ones she saw struggling when she was in school. All the young girls she was friends with in school are now on drugs, had a baby, in jail, etc. I treated her differently than her friend's parents did - and she's the only one not on drugs, screwing around, knocked up, etc. I'm very proud of her and know I brought a bright light into this world with her.
I knew God would provide - and He always has.
I lost my virginity to a rape. A rape where he penetrated, ejaculated, and didn't use protection. It was literally over before I knew what happened. I had known the guy for two years. We went to the same school. He was always hitting on my best friend, Donna, so it never crossed my mind he would do anything to me. This guy would walk his dogs every day by our house. We walked to school together. I thought he was a friend.
Then I made the mistake of saying I was a virgin - saving it for marriage. It seemed this 17 year old boy had a "thing" for breaking in virgins. He called me up crying saying he had just broken up with his girlfriend. Wanted me to come talk to him. I went over to his house wearing a dress. I entered the house, and he tried to take my hand and lead me to the bedroom. I resisted. I sat down on the couch and tried to ask him what was wrong. He pushed me over, got on top of me, lifted up my dress, and it was over in two seconds.
I was fortunate I didn't get any disease or pregnant. I told my best friend and learned he'd raped her too. I told my other girlfriends and found out he'd raped them also. Seems he felt it was his mission in life to deflower all the virgins in our high school. I gathered together a group of them and we went to his house to tear him apart. None of us had told our mothers. His mother said he'd enlisted in the military and was gone.
We responded by spray painting his house with words like "rapist", breaking some windows, egging the house, etc.
All of us were scared we were pregnant. We went to the only place where we could get a pregnancy test free - Planned Parenthood. There was one other place - the Crisis Pregnancy Centers. They advertised they offered free pregnancy tests - which they did. But they'd only give you the results if you watched this horrible tape of mangled fetus for two hours before they'd give you the results. Planned Parenthood would give you the results - and then just ask you "what do you want to do?"
Back then the state would pay for an abortion except for a $150 deductible. So for $150 and a signed consent form - you could get an abortion. Some of the girls that boy raped in my school did get pregnant. Not wanting to tell their parents, or keep a child at 15 years old - these girls asked me to drive them to get an abortion.
However, I had seen the videos at the Crisis Pregnancy Center. I told my girlfriends I would do this - but only after they'd seen the videos at the center to "fully understand" what they were doing. At that time, they did not offer any assistance with keeping the baby. They just used a lot of guilt to try and convince you not to have the child.
Times change. I got pregnant by accident in 1990. I was 31 years old. I was renting an attic from a member of NA and helping run the program for prostitutes in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I hadn't been paid from my job yet so was broke. I remembered I could get a free test at a Crisis Pregnancy Center which they also had in Allentown. I went there and got the test. They tried to show me the tapes and I said "don't bother - I'm keeping the baby". I'd seen an angel telling me I was going to be pregnant and I wasn't going to piss off God.
The father was bipolar that I was unaware of until I became pregnant by accident. He was supposed to be moving out that weekend. I told them this and they offered to move me into a "good christian home and take care of everything". They told me they'd help me keep the baby or help me adopt it - either way I decided.
Now that's progress. I wish they'd done that in the 1970's when I was a teenager. So many of these young girls I went to school with might have kept it for that reason. It's not like their home life was great. Some of those girls were pregnant by their step-fathers. They didn't want their mothers to know about what happened for obvious reasons. Scared they'd be kicked out of the home if they were discovered to be pregnant - they opted for abortion.
But now I'm older - I know asking a 15 year old to make a decision about abortion is about as reasonable as asking the family pet to make the decision. Teens don't even have a frontal lobe to make proper long term decisions. They're not doctors. They haven't studied the issue properly. They think like children. Which has left us up to the adult counsel of the people who were at those clinics. It never crossed my mind there might have been a financial alternative because in the 1970's I don't think there was. So my memories as an adult are of Planned Parenthood before all this tissue research even became a reality.
I was pregnant one more time in 1977 when I was 17 years old. Another accident. The father was 15 years old but I thought he was older than me. He was very mature looking for his age. This boy had told me he wanted to get married and came with me to my mother to tell her I was pregnant. My mom moved him in the house so we could get married. Turned out she'd gotten pregnant at 18 years old and my dad was only 17 years old lying about his age also! She told me he didn't confess until right before the wedding because he had to get parental consent to get married!
The pressure must have been too much because he went out to look for a job and never came back. I went into a miscarriage. I went to the doctor who rushed me in for a DNC when I was four months pregnant. Years later I learned he might have been able to save the baby by giving me drugs. I went back to confront that doctor about why he did that so quickly without trying to save the baby. He told me that "considering your condition I didn't think you needed to be saddled with a baby at 17 years old. I was angry for years that he made the decision for me instead of talking to me about what I wanted.
Because I wanted that baby. I went into a very black depression afterwards. I spent a year sulking around the house, packed on 75 pounds in fact. Nine months later the boy came back to the house to see if I had the baby. When he saw I didn't have it - he left. I never saw him again. I then went into a whole new depression after that. I often think if it hadn't of happened, if I had the baby, I wouldn't have fallen into being a sex trafficking victim.
My daughter says then I wouldn't have become a victim, seen how there was no system for us to get help, and founded this sex trafficking movement, our 12 step program, the first hotline for adults, etc. She says it was "God's will" and that I wouldn't have then had her if not for that. I don't know if she's right.
I saw a woman online tonight talking about "waiting until the right time" to have a child. My grandmother inherited a lot of land in Arkansas before she died. I tried to get her to talk to me about it and she wouldn't. As she was dying, I tried to find those papers and couldn't. I asked her about it and she made a death bed confession - she had been pregnant with her first child, my mother's brother by rape. They didn't have abortion clinics in the 1940's - so she went to an unwed mother's home in San Diego, California. That's why she hitch hiked out from Missouri to California she told me. His family, nor hers, believed she'd been raped. So she went to a home there in San Diego.
She tried to keep the child. No one would hire her. No one would rent to her. They all thought because she was an unwed mother she was a prostitute. In desperation, she went to the Navy where her rapist was stationed and supposedly made a bargain - to marry her and support her and the child or she'd file criminal charges. To "seal the deal" and consummate the wedding - my mother was conceived.
Wow. That's heavy. That also explains why she always acted like she wanted nothing to do with my uncle and my mom. She opened up a bar where she would go and work nights and leave them alone. My mother was really scarred by that. As a result, she was always terrified to be alone because of being left alone by my grandmother. Turns out she was scared if I talked to his family I'd find out about the rape. Well, now I knew. If abortions had been legal in the 1940's - then I wouldn't be here.
Does that mean I think there are no medical circumstances where sometimes it's warranted? I'm not a doctor. All I know is I live my life by a 12 step program. I have to or I relapse and die. That program tells me that I have to "pray only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry it out". I do know that there are all kinds of adoption programs out now that didn't exist before. I do know if you don't want a child - there is an epidemic of mothers who can't conceive now who are quite well off who would take that child.
On the other hand - I don't like the idea of anyone having control over our bodies. I think women should be able to make an informed decision about what to do with that body. The problem is that theory and reality are two different things. I was a loud advocate of Planned Parenthood because they were the only program I saw providing reproductive care to teens who were being sexually abused in situations where their mothers were turning a blind eye.
However, as I've grown up I've also come to realize that very few people do things they do "just because they're the right thing to do". The videotape made of Planned Parenthood was done illegally. However, I've done many illegal things to rescue sex trafficking victims - so I believe the saving of lives warrants breaking man's law sometimes. The tape supposedly shows that PP was selling the body parts of these fetus for research. Which tells me that maybe, just maybe, the reason why PP was being so "helpful" to us girls back then was to get access to those parts. Maybe the tape was a fake. I just don't know without doing hours more of research. They might have opened my eyes to the fact Planned Parenthood has changed. Then again not. Again I just don't know without further research.
I do know this. We are living in a world where people are exploited. I know well the "lure" of the predator. I know how the abusive male comes on like Prince Charming. I had a man invade my life as a "Romeo Pimp". I was swept off my feet to built my trust - and then he tried to get me to join in with the trafficking operation. I know my father put on a "respectable" front of being a lawyer so no one would believe what he really was up to at night. I know that it's very possible that PP was saying they were "defending our right to choose and control our bodies" when in fact it might have been to get to those body parts.
I know the older I get - the more I see through the cons. The 12 steps and 12 traditions have never let me down however. I have a beautiful daughter now who is an advocate in her own right. I believe once her health is better - she wants to open up a home for teens like the ones she saw struggling when she was in school. All the young girls she was friends with in school are now on drugs, had a baby, in jail, etc. I treated her differently than her friend's parents did - and she's the only one not on drugs, screwing around, knocked up, etc. I'm very proud of her and know I brought a bright light into this world with her.
I knew God would provide - and He always has.
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