Choose Life
The floor to ceiling mustard curtains focused my gaze. I had a top which was a similar shade. It went well with the black skirt I wore…that day. He slid his hand over my forearm and gripped my hand. His hands have always been soft and strong; today, they trembled softly. I begged my mouth to break into a smile to reassure him that I was ok. I urged my hand to wrap around his. Neither moved.
He stood up before I did when she called me into the room. I still didn’t move. That’s when he bent down in front of me, clasped both of his hands around mine and whispered, “I am here, whatever you want to do.” When I woke up, his hands were still wrapped around my hands.
Weeks prior to this, I was sexually assaulted by someone I believed was a friend. That day, I was just a thing; something to satisfy his raw selfish animality.
My boyfriend at the time was away. My shame brought him home. His guilt that he hadn’t “protected me” manifested itself in many different forms, sometimes within hours of one following the other. When we found out that that day had left me with more than the act of sexual assault, it finally took both of us to new emotional depths.
We were both young. As far as I was concerned, there was only one option and I made an appointment with my GP to get it into place. My boyfriend, though, was hesitant. He viewed two options including going ahead with becoming a mother and he a father to a child that neither of us had a connection to. To this day, I still cannot get my head around the enormity of what he was willing to do. What I do know is that I not only had a choice but shared an experience of abortion after rape that is often silent on how it affects men. Disorientation, disempowerment, desolation.
Fast forward, about 20 years later, and I once again received the news that I was pregnant. This time, the circumstances were met with enough jubilation to light the Oxford Street Christmas lights for at least a decade. This time, my choice was to embrace motherhood. At six weeks, I was taken to hospital upon the sight of bleeding. The doctor was concerned that, what became my son, had started to come away from the wall of the uterus. It was a blissful but high-risk pregnancy which can be a common experience for black women. This time, I was empowered by the intense emotional and physical strength I had harnessed since my sexual assault.
Life is full of a lot of emotions, decisions and choices. I once had a conversation about abortion with a passionate Christian woman who anchored her stance onto the words, “…and you shall choose life.” I smiled because, to me, much of the Torah is about the choice of a meaningful and productive life — the power of free choice. Where we make positive choices in the face of adverse challenges. In a rights-based society, it is not for anyone to disempower us from these efficacious choices that we define for ourselves.
