Saturday, May 10, 2008

Diane's Story

"Diane" wrote me with her story of being a young lover in Indiana who got a rude awakening.

The birth control pill saved my life. When I was a teenager in rural Indiana, I regularly had sex with my steady boyfriend. We were "in love" and the blazing attraction of youth could only be quenched by romps in the back seat of his car on dark, deserted country roads. We were the epitome of the clichéd young lovers. We were "Jack and Diane" with the small town backdrop and all the angst we could muster.

Fortunately, I noticed the consequences of such trysts at school where pregnant seniors, juniors and sophomores were increasingly common. Also fortunate was the Planned Parenthood in a larger town nearby.

As I walked in the door to the clinic that day, I had no fear of being caught and shamed. Nothing would be worse than the shame of an unwanted pregnancy since my father expected me to finish high school and wanted me to go to college. I also realized that my economic status would be harmed greatly by a truncated education. I wanted to travel and see the world. I had goals that didn't include children.

Eventually, my expanding goals began to exclude "Jack" to the point where he threw away my birth control pills in an effort to trap me into a marriage due to pregnancy with him. At that moment, the clarity that children trap people in bad situations occurred to my young mind. I didn't let him touch me again until the next pack of pills was being consumed and we broke up shortly after that.

Once I had escaped the confines of rural Indiana, I realized that I was never cut out for motherhood. Life with children wasn't the least bit attractive to me. There didn't seem to be any rewards and my peers who produced offspring were usually complaining about the difficulty of the enterprise. There isn't a law that says you have to have kids, so I got a tubal ligation when I was twenty. I have not regretted it for a New York nanosecond since. The pill was a liberating interlude for me while I awaited a more permanent solution to my childfree status. I will always be grateful for the freedom birth control has provided me.

Decades after those years in Indiana, "Jack" got back in touch with me. He never married and moved back to the state after a hitch in the military. I've lived on both coasts, gone to exclusive clubs, chatted with rock stars, attended conventions and generally had a good time in life that I could not have done if I had tried to fit my square peg outlook into the round hole of a conventional life. Any children I would have had would have been resented for keeping me from the things I truly loved. Others may be able to hide those types of feelings from themselves and others, but I never could.

-"Diane"
As an aside: my wife and I are both big fans of Planned Parenthood, which does a wonderful service by providing reproductive health counseling and services in all 50 states. Of course, according to the American Life League, Planned Parenthood is public enemy number one. Consequently, one of the best ways to counter the "The Pill Kills" protests is to Join Planned Parenthood.

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