By Dave Andrusko
They don’t tell you what the original title was for “My Happy Abortion: One Woman’s Guilt-Free Story.” But because we are told that while Jessica DelBalzo “was raised Catholic, she no longer self-identifies as such,” we can assume the headline was probably something along the lines of “My Happy Abortion: One Catholic Woman’s Guilt-Free Story.
Talk about a story with layer upon layer of meaning. DelBalzo tells us right out of the box that “Though I was raised in a Catholic family and apparently encouraged to participate in a ‘Right to Life’ poster contest as a child, I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t pro-choice.” So just to be clear, she’d hasn’t outgrown pro-life convictions. She never had any to begin with and whatever outward signs to the contrary were foisted on her by DelBalzo’s parents.
I can only imagine how much pain this post will inflict on her parents. Beginning with her insistence that her abortion (which followed a time when she “welcomed two very wanted, well-loved babies into the world”) was not only painless, it left her giddy (“euphoric”).
Her only “guilt” was momentary—“when one of the other patients in recovery asked me if I ever stopped smiling, but I quickly reminded myself that it was senseless guilt. After all, smiling is a natural reaction to happiness, and I was happy sitting there. When they released me to go home fifteen minutes later, I was gladder still.”
She now considers herself “an ambassador for reproductive freedom,” a function of “actually [being] grateful for the experience itself” and her willingness to share her story “with others.”
We know nothing about the father of her two living children other than that “Once things began to deteriorate between their father and I, I knew without a doubt that any future pregnancy we faced would be terminated.” And “In October of last year, I made good on that promise to myself.”
Beyond the unborn child’s death, DelBalzo’s alienation from the father of her children and quite possibly her parents, the worse part was how she dragged her own children into a supporting role.
She has lots of reasons for speaking out, she says, “And, perhaps the most important reason to me as a mother, is that being open about my experience with my children will avail them of the knowledge that abortion is not shameful or uncommon.” Excuse me? You’re congratulating yourself on the grounds that you’re really doing your children a favor by announcing to the world that you killed their brother or sister?
But DelBalzo commandeers her children one more time. In the very last paragraph she tells us (yet again) that she regrets nothing, “but one thing: that by the time my daughter is in the position to need an abortion, factions of fanatical, misogynistic conservatives may have eliminated her right to choose.”
How wonderful. After patting yourself on the back for announcing that you aborted their sibling, you do yourself one better by proudly announcing that you will fend off those “misogynistic conservatives” so that your daughter can abort her child as well!
Sorry, a misogynist is someone who hates women. After reading DelBalzo, I realize this is the pot calling the kettle black.
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