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"Editor&amp;amp;#8217;s note: After watching one of the most passionate and thoughtful debates erupt in the comments of &amp;amp;#8220;The Pregnancy-Termination Story That Moved Me to Tears,&amp;amp;#8221; a blog entry I posted in The Conversation on March 26, 2012, I reached out to Carolyn Jones, the author of the original story on which the post reported. I wanted to express not only my personal sympathy for her heartbreak but also a thank-you for the bravery that sparked one of the most poignant moments I&amp;amp;#8217;ve witnessed in more than two years with Glamour.com. I asked Jones to read commenters&amp;amp;#8217; responses, and she was also moved by the spirit demonstrated in the more than 50 responses, in addition to the thousands more she&amp;amp;#8217;s garnered both elsewhere online and via email. Exclusively for Glamour.com, Jones composed the following to respond to those of you who took the time to read and react to her story. Please note, these views reflect those of the writer and not necessarily those of Glamour magazine. However, no matter what your perspective on this issue, I think we can all agree it&amp;amp;#8217;s a good idea to keep the conversation going here in the comments&amp;amp;#8212;if you have a different point of view, I encourage you to post it below&amp;amp;#8212;as well as with your local and national representatives, and with your vote in November. Always fight for what you believe in. &amp;amp;bull; &amp;amp;bull; &amp;amp;bull; At the beginning of February 2012, I terminated my pregnancy. In mid-March, I wrote about it for the Texas Observer. Since then, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve watched in astonishment as online reaction to my piece continues to grow: here on Glamour.com, on Time Healthland, the New York Times Opinionator blog, the Texas Observer&amp;amp;#8217;s site, Jezebel, The Daily Beast, and beyond. Maybe my story spread because it&amp;amp;#8217;s not just about the devastating loss of a much-wanted baby. It&amp;amp;#8217;s not just about the distress of interrupting a pregnancy. And it&amp;amp;#8217;s not just about having an abortion in Texas. Rather, my experience seems to have sparked conversation because it also wrestles with questions of politics, ethics, and morality. It makes readers wonder how those three things ought to combine to make a society they&amp;amp;#8217;re proud of, and allow one to be proud to be a woman within it. Not surprisingly, there are impassioned voices on all sides of the debate. Despite being open about my choice, and the negative effect of Texas choosing to moralize politics with regards to abortion, the loss of my baby is still a very private heartbreak for me. As I write, I&amp;amp;#8217;m only two months out from the worst experience of my life. Nonetheless, the conversation we&amp;amp;#8217;re having about women&amp;amp;#8217;s reproductive rights and the role the government plays in it is so important that, despite my heartache, I believe we need to keep talking. Glamour has offered me a space to respond to some of the online discussion in the original post that ran in the Glamour.com blog and to commentary left elsewhere online. I believe that civil and thoughtful debate is the only way for society to solve its most divisive issues. I&amp;amp;#8217;m grateful for a channel for us to talk. First, I&amp;amp;#8217;d like to thank some of Glamour&amp;amp;#8217;s readers for being able to capture so succinctly the nuance of my story. As mura42 notes: Cases like these remind me of just how important it is not to apply black-and-white thinking and legislature to a very complex issue. Geekybutgirly puts it well when she states: Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, can we all agree that politicians with no medical background have no place mandating how doctors do their jobs? Many readers sympathized with my situation, but others, like architectgirl, thought that women seeking to abort an unwanted pregnancy deserved condemnation: I am pro-life. However, in a circumstance like this, or if the mother is facing a life-or-death situation, who am I to make such a heart-wrenching decision like that for them? My problem lies when a woman aborts her baby because it is an &amp;amp;#8220;inconvenience.&amp;amp;#8221; Now THAT is murder. Other commenters&amp;amp;#8212;NamelessAria, BensMomHeather, and tesgirl123&amp;amp;#8212;agree with architectgirl. To all of you, I thank you for your compassion for my situation but respectfully disagree with you. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t imagine any woman takes the decision to abort lightly, and the reasons for doing so are as different as there are women in the world. Mrsfoose06 distills it well when she says: Pro-choice is not pro-abortion. It&amp;amp;#8217;s giving the woman/family a chance to make the decision that is right for them. Just as a woman has the right to control her career, for whom she votes, and how she spends her money, I believe she has the right to control when she becomes a mother, too. What allthingsglamour says captures this sentiment: It&amp;amp;#8217;s my body and I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want babies until I know I&amp;amp;#8217;m ready to have them. Despite the numerous challenges I&amp;amp;#8217;ve heard from each side, I maintain that though we might not like a woman&amp;amp;#8217;s reason for ending a pregnancy, her right to privacy means that her choice has nothing to do with us. Whether she&amp;amp;#8217;s a 35-year-old faced with the prospect of having to care for a severely disabled and suffering child, or a 17-year-old not ready to start a family, her decision to have an abortion is intensely private and has nothing to do with strangers or politicians or people of a different faith. But this leads me onto the rocky ground of religion. Glamour reader tiffanyblair said: I know there are awful situations sometimes, like this one, but that&amp;amp;#8217;s when you have to put your faith in God. SofiaLF said: You can&amp;amp;#8217;t possibly convince me that abortion is any different than murdering &amp;amp;#8220;born&amp;amp;#8221; children. And in the instance of the couple in this article, there is a purpose for every single life conceived! It&amp;amp;#8217;s not our right to say that one life is worth less than another. Across the Internet I&amp;amp;#8217;ve seen comments like this, recommendations that I should have trusted God to cure my son outright of the molecular flaw that would leave him with an incorrectly developed brain, spine, and legs&amp;amp;#8212;or to at least have faith that God would have lessened my baby&amp;amp;#8217;s pain when the baby died of natural causes. Many of these commenters believe that my son&amp;amp;#8217;s illness was a blessing, that it was part of God&amp;amp;#8217;s larger plan&amp;amp;#8212;one that I interfered with at my peril. This argument is one I&amp;amp;#8217;ve come across often, especially with my story based in a right-leaning state in which religion and politics so often overlap. To those commenters, both here and elsewhere, I&amp;amp;#8217;m glad that your faith provides guidance during life&amp;amp;#8217;s dark times. As well as giving you a framework within which to live, it also offers solace when your heart is broken. However, not everyone follows your faith, and for those of us who have a different spiritual ethos, our personal choices don&amp;amp;#8217;t make us bad, just different from you. However, some commenters expressed that my inability to observe their degree of faith to guide my choices makes me more than bad&amp;amp;#8212;it makes me evil. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been accused of &amp;amp;#8220;slaughter,&amp;amp;#8221; of &amp;amp;#8220;extermination,&amp;amp;#8221; and of murdering my baby because he didn&amp;amp;#8217;t &amp;amp;#8220;live up to my standards.&amp;amp;#8221; At least one online commenter (not a Glamour reader) even compared me to Hitler. While these vicious personal attacks are hurtful, I see a greater harm done. In the polarized and impassioned world of abortion politics, readers might connect virulent anti-choice views to anyone of religious faith. Yet the vast majority of religious people are kind, compassionate folk trying their hardest to live the best lives they can. Glamour readers like moonshadow8705, faith289e, and ileana0621 are three such women. I agree with what another reader, ambardsley, says: As I read the comments, I&amp;amp;#8217;m so heartened by the number of faith-based posts that DON&amp;amp;#8217;T judge/show a wish to impose their beliefs on others. Goes to show how a few extremists and their loud/violent views can lead to the misrepresentation and misunderstanding of people of faith as a group&amp;amp;#8212;a real shame. But most of us aren&amp;amp;#8217;t like that, and our voices will prevail. To ambardsley: I sincerely hope so. Of course, reactions to my article have stirred up more than just commentary about religion. Kristina703, like many other readers, I&amp;amp;#8217;d imagine, is facing a big question mark about the intersection of personal faith and the government&amp;amp;#8217;s role in her life: I would never have an abortion unless the circumstances were dire, placing my faith in God to give the baby a good life. I also, however, do not want my government telling me what moral behavior on the pretext that they are protecting my unborn baby. That legislators can mandate a woman&amp;amp;#8217;s privacy because they disagree with her moral choices has enraged readers across the U.S. As we&amp;amp;#8217;ve seen with the comments in the blog post, women are incensed by the injustice of Texas&amp;amp;#8217; sonogram laws. As evidenced by the backlash arising across the country, we&amp;amp;#8217;re alarmed at the nationwide restrictions on reproductive rights, and we&amp;amp;#8217;re furious about the politicians who are waging a war against women. Women&amp;amp;#8217;s bodies, and what we choose to do with them, are on the front line of the culture war. That, frankly, is scary. And that brings me to the heart of the issue. Whether one morally agrees with it or not, the right to have an abortion is protected under the Constitution, which means that the decision to make the choice lies only with the woman and her doctor, and her family or the baby&amp;amp;#8217;s father, but only if she wants to involve them. She&amp;amp;#8217;s not required to justify her choices to anyone but herself because having an abortion is her legal right. However, recent developments in state-level politics have included politicians attempting to chip away at these rights by adding legal, logistical, and emotional barriers between women and the private, sometimes heartbreaking, choices they make. Removing oneself from personal beliefs for a moment consider this: As a nation that emphasizes upholding religious freedom, the rule of law, and the privacy of the individual, doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t revoking the right to choose sound like a terrible contradiction? It does to me, and to many other readers, like faye18: Many who call themselves pro-life are pro-death penalty or pro-war. Those events kill people that are innocent as well. Isn&amp;amp;#8217;t that a contradiction of what life is? Canuck suggests a different approach: Instead of focusing on abortion, we should focus our energies on providing birth control and sex education for people, especially the young ones. Let&amp;amp;#8217;s teach people how to have less unwanted pregnancies. Shoponadime agrees, saying: Fewer unwanted pregnancies = fewer abortions of healthy pregnancies. I&amp;amp;#8217;m on the same page with you ladies. One more thing while we&amp;amp;#8217;re talking&amp;amp;#8212;and it&amp;amp;#8217;s about words. Loaded words, to be exact. Everyone wants choice, and everyone is &amp;amp;#8220;pro&amp;amp;#8221;-life, but the complexity of our positions in the abortion debate isn&amp;amp;#8217;t always reflected in the language we use. If only saying what we mean were so easy. However, the conversation that&amp;amp;#8217;s arisen as a result of my article reminds me that important issues like abortion never have an easy, black-and-white solution, in the same way that words can&amp;amp;#8217;t always frame exactly what we want to express on the subject. Readers, let&amp;amp;#8217;s not allow ourselves to be reduced by terms like &amp;amp;#8220;pro-choice&amp;amp;#8221; or &amp;amp;#8220;pro-life&amp;amp;#8221; if they simplify the texture of our opinions. Surely abortion rights are about our reproductive rights, which are at the heart of our fundamental rights as women, no? Maybe we can find a way in which identifying as women transcends politics and religion in a way that unites us all. Or, maybe we can&amp;amp;#8217;t. But either way, let&amp;amp;#8217;s keep talking about politics and abortion and what rights we want for ourselves and for our daughters. Most important, when the elections come, let&amp;amp;#8217;s vote for those who&amp;amp;#8217;ll uphold the rights of more than half of America&amp;amp;#8217;s population. As women, raising our voices is the most powerful thing we can do. Carolyn Jones is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Read her original story in the Texas Observer at texasobserver.com."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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