This week I won't be uploading a Mindful Monday; they will resume next Monday. So instead, I have decided to still upload a blog post, which will be uploaded to both my Patreon page patreon.com/freyaAhartfield and my blog freyfrey95.blogspot.co.nz as I feel I want as many people as I can get to read this post.
Before I start the post, I just want to say how deeply sorry I am for every female in America; what has happened is such a huge step back in women and human rights, primarily women's rights. What should be a choice made by a woman over her own body is saddening that that choice has been taken away. We as women need not to stay quiet. Women need to defend our bodies, make choices for our bodies, and let no man make those decisions. Men will never know the pain, strain, and stress of pregnancies and giving birth that is put on women's bodies. Not to forget how mentally and physically demanding it is for some women.
Just a little disclaimer, what you will read next is fiction, but please know that for someone woman, what I write, they will be living it. So be kind of what you say, think of others and what they might be going through at this time. And for anyone who needs it, please do not hesitate to contact health services if you need them. There will always be someone to talk to. Please, for this post, put your own opinions or religious views on this matter aside while you read these characters' lives, as they could be your daughter, sister, cousin, mother, auntie, friend, neighbour or someone you have passed in the street.
A mother by law
By Freya A Hatfield
It was a sunny day, no clouds in the sky,
I am fifteen, walking home from school.
I have said goodbye to my friends,
I carry on walking home, my usual route.
I can hear someone following me,
I walk faster and faster.
I’m in a school uniform,
I have my school bag on my back.
I am fifteen.
I get pushed to the side.
I try to kick and scream but I can’t.
I am pushed into some bushes. No one can see me or hear me.
It is daylight.
I lay, not knowing what to do. My attacker has now left me.
I am alone, just been raped, just lost my virginity.
I am fifteen.
Who do I tell?
I can’t tell my parents. I can’t tell my friends. I can’t tell the police. I can’t tell a doctor.
I pick myself up, brush off the dirt, pull my school skirt back into place, and pull my pants back up and my socks.
I carry on walking home, this time I run and I don’t stop until I reach my front door.
I run to my room, drop my bag, and run to the bathroom.
I have a shower; I know I probably shouldn’t.
But what do I do?
I am fifteen.
I am a child, now carrying a child.
What do I do?
By law, I now have to keep this child.
By law, I am now a mother.
By law, I am now the sole carer of another life.
I am fifteen.
I am twenty-six
I’ve told my partner I’m not ready for children.
I keep telling my partner I am not ready for children,
I do everything I can not to have children,
My partner doesn’t.
I am twenty-six.
I am working as many hours as I can to make ends meet,
I am working as many hours as I can to keep a roof over my head,
I am working as many hours as I can to pay for medical and healthcare just for myself.
I am twenty-six.
I am the 99.9% of women whose contraception pills didn’t stop me from getting pregnant.
I barely have enough money to pay for bills, food, and healthcare.
My partner has left me and said he can’t deal with this shit.
I am left with a baby I can’t afford growing inside of me.
I am now in a single-income household, with barely enough money to look after myself.
I am twenty-six.
What do I do?
By law, I now have to keep this child.
By law, I am now a mother.
By law, I am now the sole carer of another life.
I am twenty-six.
I am twenty-eight
I have been on a night out with my friends.
I have met a guy I like.
I have had a few drinks, but I am not intoxicated enough to not know what's going on.
We are in a hotel room.
I ask, “ do you have a condom?”
He says, “yes!”
I watch him take the condom out of the packet, but I look away as he puts it on,
He says he can’t do it with me looking, I trust him.
It’s the end of our night; we fall asleep.
I leave the following day; he’s still asleep. I see the condom unused on top of the wrapper. I at first think nothing of it.
A month goes by,, and I haven’t had my period.
I am late.
I am twenty-eight.
I can afford everything I need for a baby.
I don’t want to raise a mans child who I met one night.
I am twenty-eight.
I am carrying a man's child who I don’t know.
I had a one-night stand.
I wasn’t drunk, but I trusted in him.
I am twenty-eight.
What do I do?
By law, I now have to keep this child.
By law, I am now a mother.
By law, I am now the sole carer of another life.
I am twenty-eight.
I am a mother of two.
I have gone through a traumatic labour,
I have gone through postnatal depression.
I was young when I had my first; I was in my early thirties with my second.
I am now in my late thirties with my third.
My husband and I can't afford another baby.
We can’t afford a vasectomy.
Despite how badly it affects me, I am on the pill, but it doesn’t work.
My husband's condom breaks, and I am now pregnant with our third child.
We can’t afford a third child.
We can barely afford the mortgage we are paying, along with bills and food.
What do we do?
By law, I now have to keep this child.
By law, I am now a mother again.
By law, I am now the carer of another life.
My husband and I can’t afford another child.
These women all have one thing in common.
They are pregnant with a child they can’t look after.
They are pregnant and have no way out.
At fifteen, a child is becoming a mother.
At twenty-six, a woman who isn’t ready for children is becoming a mother.
At twenty-eight, after a one-night stand, a woman is becoming a mother.
In her late thirties, a woman who is already a mother and has gone through complicated pregnancies is becoming a mother again.
A man can walk away and never have to deal with the child
A man can walk away and never have to go through carrying a baby for nine months.
A man can walk away and never have to go through labour.
A man can walk away and never have to deal with the hormone changes and/or postnatal depression.
A man gets to walk away.
A woman has to stay and look after a child.
A woman has to stay and go through nine months of pregnancy.
A woman has to stay and go through labour.
A woman has to stay and deal with hormone changes and/or postnatal depression.
A woman has to stay.
Somewhere a young girl, a young woman, an older woman
Have taken their last breath,
Their only legal way out has been taken away.
Their right to make a decision over their own body has been taken away.
They didn’t want to go through bringing a child into a world where they didn’t want them.
They didn’t want to give birth to a life they couldn’t look after.
They didn’t want to go through looking at their child and seeing an image of someone they never want to see again.
They, a few months ago, had a legal choice.
They now don’t want to make an illegal decision.
They have just taken their last breath as they can’t bear the pain they might feel from the changes their body will go through,
They can’t bear the pain they might go through mentally after this child is born.
They can’t bear the thought of a happy life they can’t give to a child.
They may have wanted a child later in life, but because of one incident, at that time, they weren’t ready.
They were told to keep the child.
They were told, you can’t get rid of it.
They were told you can’t walk away from this.
They just took their last breath.
A daughter.
A could have been later in life when she was ready, a mother.
A could have been later in life when she was ready, a grandmother.
These women are the women whose choice over their own bodies was taken away.
These women are the women who no longer had a right over their own bodies.
I am,
fifteen,
Twenty-six,
Already a mother of two.
I am,
Not ready to have a child,
Have never wanted to have a child,
I can’t afford to have a child.
I am
A young girl,
A young woman,
An older woman.
I had no choice over what happened to my body.
I wasn't allowed to make a decision about what happened to my own body
It’s my body, nobody else but mine.
I own this body. No one else does.
I make decisions for this body. No one else does.
No other woman or man has a right to decide what happens to my body.
But BY LAW, I now can’t legally terminate a pregnancy in AMERICA
A child I can’t afford,
A child I didn’t want,
A child I wasn’t ready for,
And a child that I got from being raped.
By LAW in AMERICA, I am now a mother.
I can’t walk away
I have to stay.
I am now a woman with no other legal choice than to become a mother.
©2022
