Friends have started telling me "All you talk about is abortion, can't you think of anything else?" and I really can't. My family is all anti choice and their careless comments surrounding their lack of support for reproductive rights hit me ten fold now. They make comments about what a selfish decision it is, how easy that route is, the lack of responsibility and I just crumple under their words. Only one person in my family knows about the abortion (my mother) and while she doesn't defend, she no longer makes comments around me.

I'm terrified of my Ethics class (requirement) I'm taking this semester because of how emotional I am surrounding the topic and I'm just dreading the 5th week of class (Abortion).

I feel so bad saying these things because I'm feeling emotions plugged by anti-choice people but I don't think there's any correlation. I can't be around pregnant woman or babies because I keep thinking "What if?" And I know if I had continued the pregnancy, I wouldn't be in school, I'd be 8 months pregnant and about to become parents with someone I don't even like, I know I wouldn't be happy and I don't wish I had continued the pregnancy.

I start to wonder who would and wouldn't be accepting of my choice, people I don't know. The Wal Mart employee, the people in my class, my cat (I'm actually not kidding). I just keep going back and thinking "Wow, I wish I would have used birth control in addition to the condoms", "What if I hadn't had that fling, he was a jerk any ways."

I don't know why I suddenly can't get my mind off of it, why I'm sad where their wasn't negative emotions before. I'm looking for pro choice support because I still am both accepting of every woman's right to choose and do not regret my personal choice. Does anyone know a good place to go? I even worry about individual counseling because of a possible bias and all the group therapy around here pertaining to women having difficultly with abortion is funded by the church. Any suggestions, similiar stories are greatly appreciated.

First things first: cut yourself a break.

Think about it this way: how many women in the world WOULD feel good about themselves and their bodies if they were not inudated 24/7, everywhere they look, with fascist beauty standards, with mainstream media and business needing to do everything to convince them something is wrong with them that needs fixing, with pervasive messages that sex is their primary value?

You've got the same sort of thing going on here: if everywhere you turn you see nonsupportive messages, of COURSE they are going to have some effect on you. If nowehere you trun can you find any support, that effect is likely to be pretty profound.

Has anyone in your family ever HAD an abortion? Chances are good, if you have even three other women in your family, that one has, or at least someone close to them has. How do you feel about possibly just speaking out, even by very blatantly saying, "I had an abortion." Sometimes, tough as that can be at first, it's a really powerful thing to do. I know my mother got her whole (Irish catholic) family to give it a rest for good by simply mentioning that she had at a group dinner where all the men were talking crap about abortion and birth control.

Even if you aren't up for that, simply saying you don't agree with their stances and would prefer it not be discussed around you is still sage and may be of help.

What I'm mostly hearing from you, for the record, is that you feel bad about becoming pregnant in the first place, more so than the abortion. Based on what you're saying here, anyway. And most women feel that way about accidental pregnancies, no matter WHAT choice they made, even when it wasn't their fault, when they were careful, the whole works. Becoming PREGNANT -- no matter what you do with the pregnancy -- is a big deal, it tends to have ripples for a while, and in our culture, that's rarely addressed. Pregnancy, period, the experience of pregnancy, is rarely even brought up unless it's about carrying a child to term, and even then, it's mostly the hearts and flowers stuff, not the harder realities women deal with, the tricky emotions, the regrets, what have you.

Per more support, at your college, is there a feminist group or a women's activism group, anything like that? In a setting like that, you're likely to find both some good support and some good community.

I'm sure my family knows people who have had abortions but they don't know they do. I despise that it's such a taboo topic. Only when I came right out and told two close co-workers bad mouthing emergency contraception about my abortion did they quietly talk about their own. I was shocked! Never in a million years would I have imagined from the way they were speaking so negatively about reproductive rights that they themselves had both had an abortion.

My college is difficult because only once have they put together a "liberal" group (Gay-Straight Alliance) and that flopped hard because other students were vandalizing our posters and because of threats on them, the group stopped meeting. Young Republicans of America are doing wonderfully on the other hand. I've made numerous suggestions concerning any sort of women's group and I have received no more than "That's a good idea...you should talk with..." and it ends.

In the Fall I'm transferring to a University so hopefully that will be better!

Thanks again.