Warning: This is a deeply emotional post. I will not be allowing comments on it due to the sensitive nature of this topic for me. Once again, those of us who suffer and experience the pain are being forced to talk through our pain for the greater good of education and for a brighter, progressive future. For those who have followed my blog, you know I’m an open book, however this topic is one that I refuse to accept any negativity towards to my point of view.

WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW BETTER.

I’m going to say this only once, because I should never have had to say it at all.

But, due to my rising concerns over the loss of healthcare for girls and women across the United States (and let’s face it, the world) regarding reproductive rights, I’m compelled to bring up this topic regarding girl’s and women’s access to free, safe, and easily attainable abortion(s) and to contraceptive care. I feel like society and the degrading direction we’re heading toward as a nation terrifies me and compels me to suffer through decades of deeply rooted pain to educate.

DO NOT USE THE PHRASE, “YOU CAN GIVE IT UP FOR ADOPTION” AS ANY TYPE OF LAME ASS EXCUSE TO PREVENT A GIRL OR WOMAN FROM HAVING A FREE, SAFE, EASILY ATTAINABLE ABORTION OR PREVENTING CONTRACEPTIVE CARE.

No girl (child) or woman should have to go through pregnancy if they don’t want to or are too young to understand what is happening to their body.

As someone who is the direct result of a teen pregnancy, having been internationally adopted, and also as a transracial (adopted outside of my race) adoptee, this flippant response is NOT OK.

As an adoptee, this argument is offensive, disgusting, disrespectful, shows a complete lack of research around adoptees, the birth parents, the lack of psychological support for both the adoptee and birth parents, the lack of studying or obtaining any knowledge about real kids who are in the system, who never leave it, who age out of it, and issues and lack of privileges as they navigate the world with no help It shows a complete disinterest in the lack of care many orphans and adoptees receive, the horrors of our needs-to-be-reformed-decades-ago foster care system.

Frankly, that offhanded remark is a huge slap to my face. ME. My face.

Abortions should be legal everywhere.

I’ve always felt this, and have been quite vocal about it, loooong before I required a medically necessary one to save my life.

Don’t casually toss out or throw around my abandonment issues, my loss/confusion/pain of racial identity, my loss of country—my Korean culture, language, history, heritage—my family, my unknown biological family, nor the financial, emotional, and physical sacrifices my parents went through to adopt me, etc….

DO NOT USE MY LIFE AND EXPERIENCES as any type of reason for endangering the lives of millions of girls and women. Using MY LIFE as a reason is not for YOU to decide.

I DECIDE.

As GOP/Republican voters and government officials have reversed Roe v. Wade (codify Roe v. Wade!), have removed abortion as an option at any stage of a pregnancy, have removed scientifically-based health/sex education out of schools, as they are burning books and sacrificing our children’s right to education—a full, multi-perspective-based, and scientifically backed education—I DECIDE. NOT YOU about how to use the phrase, “Just give it up for adoption.”

ME. I DECIDE. NOT YOU.

Keep my trauma, my childhood, every racially charged moment I’ve experienced, every time a bully yelled at me or hit me because I wasn’t White, keep the time I was once a pregnancy that derailed a teenage girl’s life, my time as an orphan, the process of my adoption that severed my ties to anything related to my birth country and culture, the history of my hardworking parents who adopted me, my family, my unknown biological family, KEEP ALL OF THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH. YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO USE IT. I AM NOT YOUR “TOKEN” FOR DESTROYING HUMANE HEALTHCARE.

KEEP MY LIFE OUT OF YOUR FILTHY MOUTH, especially as you sentence millions of girls (children) and women to physical trauma, psychological trauma, and to many what WILL (not might, WILL) be their deaths.

Just as much as you have ZERO RIGHTS to control MY BODY, you also have ZERO RIGHTS to use MY LIFE EXPERIENCE for your so-called “pro life” views and agenda.

#AbortionIsHealthcare #Abortion #Adoption #Adoptee #InternationalAdoption #TransracialAdoption #WomensHealth #WomensRights #ContraceptionIsHealthcare #Planned Parenthood #SupportWomen #WomenUpliftingWomen #UpliftingWomen