TRIPOD'S WOMEN'S ZONE

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width="170" height="18" border="0" align="top" ismap></a></td> </form> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="170">  <tr><td></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> </table> <center></center> </td> <td valign="TOP" width="100%">  <center> <table width="100%"><tr><td align="left" valign="center"> </td><td><center> </center> </td><td align="right" valign="center"> </td></tr></table> <br><br><font size="+1"> by <b>Spike Gillespie</b></font> </center> <br><br><font size="+0" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial">     Twenty-five years ago, before the ink dried on Roe vs. Wade, my father set out to protest. Every Sunday  his only day off  he picketed the local hospital where the procedure was offered. I imagine him pacing, angrily. Perhaps, like his fellow Teamsters during strikes, he carries a placard. At home, his nine children play, knowing they must be silent when he walks through the door. <br><br></font> <font size="-1" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial"> Years passed, and my father stepped up his efforts. He bought an old-fashioned airport limousine  think of a double-length station wagon. On the tailgate, in large, florescent letters, he painted: ABORTION IS KILLING YOUR OWN CHILD. There we were, his rolling performance art piece, not understanding "abortion" except that it meant a one-way, first class ticket to hell.</font> <br><br><table align="right" width="160"><tr><td> <font size="+2" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial"> <b>ABORTION IS KILLING YOUR OWN CHILD.</b> </font> </td></tr></table> <font size="-1" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial"> To Daddy's deep regret, I grew up to be a pro-choice activist. But with a twist. For as important as I felt safe and legal abortions to be, his message didn't leave me. I, personally, could never abort what I had been taught was holy life. <br><br> My first pregnancy  I was 22, fresh out of college, unmarried, and in the hole  I tried. I made the appointment. Wracked with guilt, I cancelled. A few weeks later, that potential child exited my body in a heap of crimson clots, cramps doubling me over. Next day, a strange doctor, colder than the instruments of his trade, performed an ironic D&C. <br><br> Pregnancy number two, equally unexpected and ill-timed, is now seven. And he is the single greatest joy in my life. He is also, in large part, why I eventually made the choice I swore I would never make. <br><br> Like all pregnancies, my third was a catalyst. Despite an outsider's view that finally I would be reproducing "properly"  for once I had money, insurance, and a husband  the truth leapt up and smacked me in the head.</font> <br><br> <table align="left" width="160"><tr><td> <font size="+2" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial"> <b>leapt up and smacked me in the head.</b></font> </td></tr></table> <font size="-1" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial"> My marriage was a farce. It would never last. I resigned myself to the knowledge that soon I would be a single mother of two. While that idea was not particularly appealing, I saw no other choice. <br><br> Morning sickness and petty fights soon gave way to a sick feeling 24 hours a day. I tried to imagine the best, but could only foresee the worst: Endless court battles starting with divorce and moving on to 18 years of bitter feuding. The loss of huge chunks of my spirit, time, and money. The toll on my son. The pain this potential baby would suffer, being raised by parents who already hated one another from conception. <br><br> To have this child would gravely compound the error of conception. Though I was beyond equating abortion with murder, I fended off my father's voice in my head. If abortion truly was killing, then in this case it would be of the mercy variety. <br><br> When I suggested, meekly and hardly believing the words I spoke, that an abortion might be best, my then-husband exploded. Striking fear in my heart and validating my belief that he was not stable enough for parenting, he asked how I would feel if someone killed my son. In one breath he offered full custody, in the next he assured me he would use any means necessary to take this child, then a two week embryo, from me.</font> <br><br> <table align="left" width="160"><tr><td> <font size="+2" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial"> <b>I saved three lives that day</b> </font></td></tr></table> <font size="-1" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial"> I saved three lives that day, up on the table, under the bright lights, breaking my lifelong vow. No pro-lifer in the world would buy that argument. Sadly, to save one's life emotionally does not fall under the clause that allows abortion when the mother is threatened by pregnancy. <br><br> In the aftermath, my women friends came forth and revealed details of their own abortions. These stories were not told with shame or guilt. Everyone had a reason, each looked back gratefully at her choice. So then, why had we not discussed this before? What caused this air of secrecy? <br><br> Daddy did. Daddy and all those like him, out in the trenches, spewing their venom, their lack of compassion. They have silenced us, made us feel, if not guilty, then certainly awkward discussing what remains a legal act, a woman's right. No other legal activity is cloaked in such silence. <br><br> Daddy still adorns his bumpers. I have inherited the trait. His stickers praise God and condemn the woman who chooses abortion. Mine mock the religious right and show staunch pro-choice support. But I do not have the chutzpah he had as he drove us around in that big car. <br><br> If I did, if it did not mean my windows would be smashed, my car blown up, I know just the sticker I would display. The antithesis to ASK ME ABOUT MY GRANDCHILDREN, mine would proclaim: ASK ME ABOUT MY ABORTION. And I would stop and offer all takers the story behind my choice. Because our silence is the real killer.</font> <br><br><font size="+2" face="eurostyle, arial narrow, arial">      <a href="/"><b>What's your story?</b></a></font> <br> <table width="100%"><tr><td align="left" valign="center"> </td><td><center> </center> </td><td align="right" valign="center"> </td></tr></table> <br><br><hr><font size="-1" face="courier"> Spike Gillespie lives in Austin, Texas, with her son Henry, a dog, a cat, a bird, a guinea pig, and a laptop.</font> <br><br> <form method="POST" action="../../../../www_subdomain/bin/search/pursuit.html"> <br clear="ALL"><br> <table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" align="RIGHT"> <tr> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="RIGHT"> <nobr><img src="../../../../img/www_subdomain/lycos_power.gif" border="0" alt="Lycos Powered" height="15" width="91"> <select name="cat"> <option value="tripod_www" selected>Search the Tripod Web Site <option value="tripod">Search Tripod Member Pages <option value="lycos">Search the Web</select></nobr></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="RIGHT"> <nobr><input type="text" size="20" name="query"> <input type="submit" value="Search"></nobr> <br> <br> <center> <font size="-2" face="helvetica, verdana, arial">©Tripod, Inc. 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