Back in college, I wrote for the student newspaper The Diamondback at University of Maryland). At the time, I had the itch to voice my opinions on controversial subjects using satirical writing. I didn’t care that some people would angrily dismiss me as an idiot, because others would STRONGLY agree. Sure enough, the hate mail and love letters arrived. Even professors nodded their approval.
But there was one person who wrote to me who I’ll never forget. I did what most people can’t – completely change someone’s perspective on one of the most controversial subjects out there (using a student newspaper, of all things). She sent me this e-mail on Dec. 6, 1996.
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 00:22:03 -0500 (EST)
From: Rebecca Bender <renna@wam.umd.edu>
To: Chain <bsumner@wam.umd.edu>
Subject: Oh, dear.I am twenty years old. For eight years of my life I have been staunchly
pro-choice. This is especially odd in light of the fact that I am also
staunchly Catholic, and nothing anyone, including my Church, could say
would change my mind about the abortion issue. Not only is it my body to
do what I want with, but it’s not my place to tell others what to do with
their bodies. Period.Your editorial changed all that.
I started reading your article because I thought it was another piece of
lifer bullshit. I’m still not sure what your point was, whether it was
arguing against abortion or against drugs or just against hypocrisy. It
doesn’t matter. And I’m not saying your article was an extraordinary piece
of literature. But somehow, it changed my mind– something I never, ever
thought would happen.I was reading your article going bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, when I hit
the line about “a woman has every right to drink, smoke and bounce on her
belly because, say it with me, ‘you can do with your body what you want'”.
Again, I thought, bullshit, she doesn’t have that right because that’s
attempted murder, just like on ER a couple of weeks ago with that woman
who tried to drink her baby to death.And then I realized I was being a hypocrite.
And suddenly a hundred things fell into place. I realized that if a woman
gives birth three months prematurely she can’t dismember the baby on the
delivery table, but she can have an abortion at six months and that’s
legal. I said, hey, it’s a body inside MY body and so it’s my right to do
what I want with. Then I thought, just because the dentist puts his hand
in my mouth doesn’t give me the right to bite it off. I thought, Having a
child inside you gives you a responsibility, not a right.I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but you snuck up on me. Here’s what
you did do on purpose: you made me face up to my own hypocrisy.What about feminism? I thought. And then I thought, in a society where
motherhood is not sacred but negligible, is it any surprise that women’s
roles as mothers are not much respected?How dare I bitch about the lack of sanctity for motherhood while demanding
my right to kill my children?A man named Milan Kundera once wrote that as humans, it is our treatment
of the helpless, not of the able, that says the most about us. Now I think
I’m a different kind of pro-choice: putting the choices of my children
before my own choices. That sounds like the right kind of feminism to me.This is getting long, so I’ll end this here. I want to thank
you for setting me straight. I think you should be proud. I marched in the
pro-choice march in ’93. Though I never believed I could live with myself
if I had an abortion, I always vigilantly supported the right of women to
do so if they chose. Even my church couldn’t change my mind. And somehow
you did.And I’m surprised because I really feel good about it, like I finally
chose the right thing. Thanks.-Becky