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I saw an anti-abortion booth at a traveling fair when I was 10. I held onto the little card they gave out of a fetus cartoon with the bubble, " I have rights too!!!" for at least 10 years. It got all dirty and dog-eared, but I kept it. (I threw it out after my abortion.) I was a good Protestant girl from a broken, poor, and dysfunctional family... I ended up 18 in the South with an alcoholic boyfriend I was afraid of, a guy I had met in Jersey. The man performing the abortion looked like Mussolini with a slick smile, as if he might try to pick me up in a bar under different circumstances. No counseling, "We prefer cash..." Even at 18, I was on to their B.S. game. But I just wanted sweet relief, and I was afraid of more welfare offices. It wasn't even the guy... It was being alone and poor that scared me most... I went back to the "ladies health emporium" a week later for the check-up, because I so wanted to have babies someday and saw the picket signs at the entrance. Why hadn't they been there the week before? Like many other gals in the same situation, I spent the next six and a half months crying in spurts, furious and ashamed. Suckered. Baby clothes in a store killing me. Phantom love asking why. I got pregnant with the next guy as a sub-conscious band-aid. Both times my birth control failed, but I think it was all emotion controlling it. He spat on me and walked away when I refused another abortion. I went straight to the welfare office, HEAD HELD HIGH... I love that now-grown woman with all my heart, and her sister and brother too. I wasn't on welfare long. I went to college, and I pay taxes and married a great guy. IT IS ALL ABOUT VALUING YOUR BEAUTIFUL SOUL AND UTERUS!!! Walk like you own it with that baby in your arms because life and love is all yours, and so many will help you in that journey... Click here to read this story in its entirety.

Age: 45
Location: USA
Date Submitted: February 2, 2012