We stood in the parking lot, chatting idly about toddlers and kids. But her eyes kept darting to the bumper of my car. Every time I could see her hands fidget, she licked her lips and tried to go on talking as if she didn’t notice.

Finally she broke, mid-sentence, and asked.

“What does that mean, choice?”

Without blinked I answered cheerfully. “Abortion.”

Suddenly her eyes were as big as saucers. She muttered a few partial words, trying to (I’m guessing) reconcile her image of me as the mom at the park each week and those evil baby killers.

As calmly and sweetly as I could, I chirped “1 out of 3 women will have an abortion. 60% of them are already mothers.” (source)

The statistics only shocked her more.

“How could someone who has already had a child want to do that? I could never kill a child!” A few more sputtered half words as the numbers sank in.

“And that’s fine for you. No one wants to force you to do something that causes you emotional pain. But different women have different situations.”

And I smiled.

The woman who had an abortion may be the mom that yo talk to every week at the park. She may be the woman as the gas station you chat with on your way to work every morning. She may be the daycare provider caring for your kids, or the teacher at their school that you love. She may be the one blogger who always has the recipes you like, or the photographer that you can’t get enough of. She may be selling you a car, or scanning your groceries, or reporting the nightly news.

I considered giving this post a witty and slightly mysterious title, something that would make it not quite clear what I was going to talk about before you then the post. Then I decided fuck it, if I’m going to inspire blind hatred and fake-pity based on preconceived ideas about me I might as well do it from the start.

Yes, I had an abortion. Me, a mother of three, the one that co-sleeps and breastfeeds and using slings and gives birth at home. Me, the one in a long-term relationship with the same man, with no serious illnesses, not desperately poor. Me. The one that probably doesn’t fit into your idea of what a woman who does “that” looks like.

I’m not a young, poor, stupid slut. I don’t hate kids, or hate being a mother. Because in the all the negative stereotypes that get laid out, the reality says that most women who have abortions are like me. Mothers, just doing what they need to do.

It didn’t change me, or traumatize me, or make me cry. I found out I was pregnant, knew it was the wrong time, called the nearest clinic, went to my appointment, and went home. The whole thing was about as exciting as a pap smear.

And here’s the thing. What I did, what I choose, was about me, my family, my life, my feelings, my heart, my plans, my future, my existence. Your god, holy book, ideals, and believes have no place inside of that. Really, they don’t. I didn’t need your acceptance to get pregnant, and I didn’t need it to end it. Neither does any other woman in the world.

The female body is one of the most regulated things today. We have laws to let us breastfeed our babies when they are hungry. We have laws to let us give birth without intervention. We have laws to let us end a pregnancy. For thousands of years women have been walking around breastfeeding, giving birth at home with whomever they wanted present, and taking herbs to stop a pregnancy at the wrong time. Yet now, suddenly, we need to be monitored and labeled and have laws created to allow us to do with or bodies what you will allow us to do.

I’ve breastfed my toddler on the park bench on a warm summer afternoon. I’ve pushed my baby out in my bathroom with no one but my partner there. And I’ve have an abortion. And none of those things, none of them, needed your acceptance/permission/religion.

I had an abortion. It was no big deal. I’m not depressed about it. And I don’t care if you like it or not.