Poor, Pregnant, and Pro life: My experience at a Crisis Pregnancy Center

 About two years ago, I found myself in a situation that I never thought I would be in.

 I was pregnant. At 19 years old, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was still technically a teenage pregnancy and I was scared. I had no job, I was not emotionally stable, and I was facing housing problems. My parents lived across the country and Aaron and I had not known each other for very long. It was a real mess.

 Being anti abortion is easy when you are not accidentally pregnant. You feel like you can tell people, perfect strangers, what to do. You can hold up pictures of fetuses in the womb, late term abortions, little babies with tiny feet in the air and halos around their sweet heads. You can shout slogans and pray in front of clinics for the women going in. It will most likely not mean a damn to any woman who is desperate and scared. I know that discovering that I was pregnant with a baby that I wasn't ready for shook my dedication.

 As a teenager, I feel like I fought pretty valiantly for the cause. I organized Stand True's yearly Day of Silence twice at my high school. At the time I felt it was not a protest, but rather a day of silent prayer for all of the mothers and babies affected by abortion, to inform others. I held my head high as I was mocked and threatened with rape, and even shoved down the stairs as I wore that red tape over my mouth; I knew that I was right and that these children can joke and hate and try and hurt me as much as they liked, I would never break. I saw my younger sister and dear friends treated similarly.  I helped design fliers and make t-shirts and passed out red tape. I was the president of our Young Republicans club and I called state senators or congressmen or whoever to ask them to pretty please not support such and such or this bill. I was a good little warrior.

 I reflected on that two years ago, as Aaron and I drove to my appointment at the Crisis Pregnancy Center.



 I'm a little bitter now. I was a little bitter when I found myself in the waiting room of that Pregnancy Center. I hoped that it was the right choice. Part of my brain bucked like a wild horse, spewing profanity laced thoughts and self doubt. "Megh, you idiot. GET OUT OF HERE. GO. No matter what you said in the past, no matter who you said it to, it doesn't matter now. It's different. We can't have this baby. You won't survive it,"  something ugly inside of me was trying to get me to leave. I had to remind myself that I was doing this, not because I would be a hypocrite or that people would care, but that in the end I would hate myself for not even trying to have this baby. To give the little guy inside of me a chance.

It was a small clinic in Houston's 5th ward. Crisis pregnancy centers pop up in two places, regardless of what city you are in; in very poor parts of town or near Planned Parenthood buildings. The waiting room was pretend nice, with ferns in the corners and nice chairs to wait in, a small glass chandelier on the ceiling. But the clinical atmosphere, young worried looking girls, and a disinterested secretary served as a reminder of where you were and why you were here. Aaron was the only man sitting in the building that I could see.
 It was my turn. I left Aaron in the waiting room, and headed to the back of the clinic where the examination rooms were. I passed rooms with ultrasound machines and examination tables and was led to a plain room with three chairs, a TV, and a VCR.

 Most, if not all, CPCs are run by a church or religious organization. This particular one was. I was flustered and embarrassed. How was I supposed to tell them that I didn't want an abortion, but wasn't sure if I wanted to keep this baby?  My counselor was an older Hispanic woman. After having me give a urine sample to test, she brought me back to the room. She asked if I thought I was pregnant. I told her that I had taken a home pregnancy test.
 "Well, we'll see what the test says. If you are pregnant, I want you to know that there are options other than abortion..."
I interrupted, blurting that I knew, that I didn't want an abortion, that I didn't believe it was right, that I was like them.
The look she gave me.
I could feel the mood shift. Immediately, I could tell that the woman sitting in the room with me did not care about me, or the fact that I was there. If I wasn't struggling with the decision to have an abortion, why was I there? If she couldn't save me, why should she care?

I felt tinier than I had ever felt in my life. I needed help. I asked if I could bring Aaron in and she allowed me to fetch him from the waiting room. Before I left to call him in, she asked if we were married. I told her that we planned on it, but weren't married as of yet. I consider marriage as a forever thing, not to be taken lightly. Imagine my surprise when she told me that I should get married to him right away, because "men don't stick around if they don't have to." What confidence.
She struggled to make conversation and asked if I had been saved (meaning baptized). I confessed that I hadn't. She immediately perked up, as the devout often do when they can talk religion.
And then she said something that made me lose interest in helping and supporting Crisis Pregnancy Centers like this one and all faith based pro-life groups.
"Well then. You're going to go to Hell if you don't immediately get baptized!"
I hate that. It isn't the first time I've been told I'll be going to Hell, and I'm quite sure it isn't the last. But it wasn't so much the sentiment that was being directed towards ME; it was the feeling I had that this happened a lot to pregnant women and girls looking for help.

The nausea and hormonal emotional flashes didn't improve my already impatient and constantly irritated state. I asked if babies went to hell along with their unbaptized mothers, already fully knowing the answer.
"Of course not! Babies, and unborn babies, all go to Purgatory!"
"Well, if I'm already going to Hell and my baby is going to Purgatory, it doesn't really matter if I get an abortion or not, does it?"
No answer.

I feel as if there is a fatal flaw in pro-life rhetoric. It's leaning so heavily on religion that they often can't use any solid logic or convincing facts to discourage abortion because they have already put themselves in a rut. You'll go to Hell if you have an abortion, because abortion is murder.
Most people care about murder.
Most people do not care about going to Hell.

Some of us pro-lifers aren't religious. Some of us don't even like being called "pro-life". We get the short end of the stick. We hate abortion, because it is the end of a human's life, because it's so easily preventable. We can't always be heard over the shouts of  our own group, because it's so easy to be loud with accusations of sin and so easy to ignore pleas of being reasonable.

Accidents do happen. I left that day with a heavy heart, a nauseous belly, and empty hands. I had not even been given the information that I had gone there for.

Pregnant women confused about what to do with their unborn child are so often bullied. I will not say they are brainwashed, as pro-choicers will often say that the "anti-choicers" do with their pictures of murdered babies and slogans. I will not say that they are tricked, like the anti-abortionists will say about the pro-abortion crowd. Pregnant women are bullied into doing one thing or the other. Women are smart. But when faced with an accidental pregnancy, women are often scared and vulnerable. The most confident women can find themselves lost in doubt. If you haven't ever found yourself in this bind, it's easy to forget that it's an actual person dealing with this life changing decision.

Sometimes, they are not so strong.