REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM

My husband and I chose to have two children, one in 2015 and one in 2019. This was extremely deliberate thanks to birth control. We both had finished our master's and doctoral studies, purchased a home, had steady jobs, and we were both ready to take the next step to start a family in 2015 and expand it in 2019.

After carrying two children to term and going through the extremely emotionally and physically demanding postpartum period nursing and round-the-clock care, I am adamant that it is up to a woman and her partner as to if, and when, they want to bring a child into this world. 

Every child deserves a chance to thrive. But bringing a child into this world by a teenager with no support system in place and no education or training to secure a stable job is set up to fail. Or forcing a woman who is septic to keep her pregnancy because she isn’t yet septic enough to be close enough to death is pure evil. 

And adoption, when it works, is great. Yet that is not always the case. There are more than 12,000 children in North Carolina living in foster care who are waiting to be adopted. As a CHS family recruitment specialist said, “ There are children that are literally sleeping in DSS offices, hotels, and being displaced things like that because they have nowhere to go.”

An abortion is an emotional and intimate decision to make.  I respect their decision as their own to make, for their body and for their future.

After the fall of Roe v Wade in 2023 NC legislators set a 12-week abortion ban with a forced 72-hour mandatory waiting period and in-person biased counseling. This is all forced upon women to make it more expensive and time intensive to travel and miss work to have an abortion.  

Our OBGYNs are trained physicians and should be trusted to have these confidential discussions with their patients on what is medically best for them without the fear of unclear legislation potentially putting them at risk of being sued or losing their medical license. 

I will NEVER judge someone for what they did or did not decide to do regarding their reproductive rights. I know multiple people in my life who have had an abortion. I will not share their stories as they are not mine to share. But I was a trusted confidant and supportive friend. And I will continue to be so for anyone who needs me to be.