Maya Angelo and Crisis Preganancies

The following post from Maya Angelo on Facebook got me right in the feels and reminded me of some important things:

“When I was 16, a boy in high school evinced interest in me, so I had sex with him — just once. And after I came out of that room, I thought, Is that all there is to it? My goodness, I’ll never do that again! Then, when I found out I was pregnant, I went to the boy and asked him for help, but he said it wasn’t his baby and he didn’t want any part of it.

I was scared to pieces. Back then, if you had money, there were some girls who got abortions, but I couldn’t deal with that idea. Oh, no. No. I knew there was somebody inside me. So I decided to keep the baby.

My older brother, Bailey, my confidant, told me not to tell my mother or she’d take me out of school. So I hid it the whole time with big blouses! Finally, three weeks before I was due, I left a note on my stepfather’s pillow telling him I was pregnant. He told my mother, and when she came home, she calmly asked me to run her bath.

I’ll never forget what she said: “Now tell me this — do you love the boy?” I said no. “Does he love you?” I said no. “Then there’s no point in ruining three lives. We are going to have our baby!”

What a knockout she was as a mother of teens. Very loving. Very accepting. Not one minute of recrimination. And I never felt any shame.

I’m telling you that the best decision I ever made was keeping that baby! Yes, absolutely. Guy was a delight from the start — so good, so bright, and I can’t imagine my life without him.

At 17 I got a job as a cook and later as a nightclub waitress. I found a room with cooking privileges, because I was a woman with a baby and needed my own place. My mother, who had a 14-room house, looked at me as if I was crazy! She said, “Remember this: You can always come home.” She kept that door open. And every time life kicked me in the belly, I would go home for a few weeks.

I struggled, sure. We lived hand-to-mouth, but it was really heart-to-hand. Guy had love and laughter and a lot of good reading and poetry as a child. Having my son brought out the best in me and enlarged my life. Whatever he missed, he himself is a great father today. He was once asked what it was like growing up in Maya Angelou’s shadow, and he said, “I always thought I was in her light.”

Years later, when I was married, I wanted to have more children, but I couldn’t conceive. Isn’t it wonderful that I had a child at 16? Praise God!”

Maya Angelou from the essay “The Decision That Changed My Life: Keeping My Baby” in 2001 found in the Family Circle Magazine. 

Today you have the best opportunity to make the best out of the life you have right now. Don't wait for things to get better, make them better. The Angelou Johnson Family.

I'd never heard this story before, but I am an admirer of Maya Angelo. I think it's good to be reminded that just because abortion is legal, that doesn't mean it's the best solution to a crisis pregnancy. I've heard many stories like this, how keeping the baby saved the mother, often because she was willing to work hard and do things for her child that she did not have the self worth to do for herself. What made the difference for Maya was the loving support of her mother. 

We need more of that kind of support for women who choose to keep their babies. I love the work being done by Pregnancy Counseling Center in Santa Rosa. From high school sex education programs to free pregnancy tests, counseling and resource help, sexual abuse recovery groups, post abortion counseling, to the medical clinic with on site ultrasound services, they provide substantial care and resources to every woman who comes, and even support for their partners. Often a woman will have a dozen voices surrounding her that are pressuring her to have an abortion, but her heart is unsure. PCC is a safe place where everything is confidential so all the pressure comes off, and she can see clearly that she really has multiple options and support for whatever she chooses. We can't call abortion a choice if there is no provision for other options. 

What we've learned from surveys of counseling centers like PCC is that when women in crisis pregnancies are given accurate and complete information, and support for all their options, 95% choose to keep their babies. When they are able to see the fetus by ultrasound, 98% will choose to keep their babies. A small percentage (approx. 3%) of those will choose to give their baby up for adoption. I believe that women all have a strong instinct to protect our unborn children. Deep inside we know them to be unique living beings. But we also have a strong instinct for self-preservation. It's appalling to me that we as a culture are okay with putting women in a situation that requires them to choose between their own lives and the lives of their unborn children. 

If you are pro-life, or pro choice, or just pro-women, you should be looking for places like PCC to support. Because the issue is bigger than whether abortion should be legal or not. It's bigger than having autonomy over our own bodies. The issue includes how we treat women in a crisis they did not create all by themselves. It includes having autonomy over our minds to gather accurate information and make clear decisions without pressure from partners and friends who have their own motivations. It's about the life women have to keep living after they've made their decision, and the lives their children will live if we punish them socioeconomically for their choice. It's about the shame and other abuse we heap on them, as if the natural consequences of that decision are not difficult and deterrent enough. With the majority of women now having abortions being those who already have children, it's about the massive increase in poverty forcing women to choose between the survival of their whole current family and that of one more tiny member. It's not just uneducated teenagers who made a mistake that we're talking about.

When we balance the ambition and wealth creation of capitalism with a social safety net that ensures worker protections like a fair minimum wage, universal health care, and access to as much education as anyone wants to pursue, we create a pathway out of poverty for all of our citizens and remove the crushing weight, now unfairly carried by women, to provide what her village ought to. The whole country benefits economically from the steady addition of healthy educated young adults. Furthermore, the surest solution to overpopulation is not abortion among the impoverished, but the higher education of women. Around the world we see birth rates drop as women have increased equality and access to education. 

When we support women in crisis pregnancies with unconditional acceptance and a safety net to fall back on, like Maya's mother gave her, we help them to succeed in raising more beautiful people that will be friends and co-laborers on earth with our children, that we can hand our world over to some day with joy and pride.