Did Kimberly Think it was a Choice?

I know I shouldn't get almost all of my posts via After Abortion but Emily is linking to some sites and stories that I can't help but throw my 2 cents at.

The American Prospect has a story called "The Woman's View" by Jodi Enda.

Enda shares the story of a woman named Kimberly, a mother of 2, who was raped by her estranged husband, wanted an abortion but struggled to come up with the money and eventually had an abortion at around 20 weeks.

Here's how Kimberly's "choice" is described:

She wanted an abortion, but she couldn’t afford one. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “There was no way I could have had that baby. My ex would have killed me. That was never an option.” Adoption wasn’t, either.

Later on, Enda says this:

While the right has appealed to our sentiments, the left has relied on dry legal arguments, abandoning the 1960s-style speak-outs that so successfully demonstrated why women like Kimberly need choices.

Does it sound like Kimberly thought she had a choice? Much less choices? From what Kimberly says it sounds like she felt she had absolutely no choice. There was only one option. She felt she had to have an abortion.

More from Kimberly:

“I felt guilty,” Kimberly said, more so as the fetus grew and she felt familiar tummy flutters. “I felt I was going to be killing a baby. And there was a baby. ... I had two kids. I knew what I was feeling. ... It was a matter of choosing my children or this person. My children’s lives would have been turned upside down. We might not be safe; we would have been worse off financially. They were already there. I had to take care of them … . I just had to choose.”

Doesn't sound like freedom of choice, does it? Or a great civil or political right? Notice how Kimberly calls her unborn child a "baby" and "this person." She knows what abortion is and does yet her concerns for her born children override any concerns for her unborn child's life. She feels that she couldn't have the child. The last sentence sounds like she really should have said, "I just had to have an abortion."

More from Enda:

Babies crying. Unborn children. The opposition has done a lot to humanize fetuses.

Done a lot to humanize organisms that are human? The better statement would be that pro-choice organizations and pro-choice stories did and do a lot to dehumanize unborn human beings.

The choice itself -- the opportunity to decide -- is essential to women’s lives.

But did Kimberly "decide?" Or did she think that the decision was already made for her?

Frances Kissling from Catholics for a Free Choice describes women who have abortions:

"They come in fully aware that the life that is developing within them has value. To me that doesn’t give it rights, that doesn’t make it a person. Its developing humanity still comes into conflict with women’s lives and aspirations.”

What if an infant's developing humanity comes into conflict with a woman's life or aspirations? It seems that pieces like Enda's which can't admit the unborn are human will be continually harder to write as more people on the pro-choice side admit the reality of the unborn's life and humanity.