TO abort or not to abort is a choice many women have been faced with while perhaps not having legal access to a procedure that has been criminalised for longer than it has been legal.

On the other hand, for teenage girls faced with the dilemma of an unwanted pregnancy at such a nebulous stage of their lives, the option of aborting their unborn child becomes their only way out from between a rock and a hard place. But must an unwanted pregnancy always equate a blighted future?

Mary Bailey, a Jamaican mother now living abroad who was once a teenager with an unwanted pregnancy, shared with the Jamaica Observer her experience of living through the shame and humiliation of getting pregnant while still in high school, and yet being able to overcome that hurdle and fulfil her goals, while raising a daughter who later on became a huge success.

Bailey explained that she felt compelled to share her experience initially through a post on Facebook when she learned of a friend whose teenage daughter was struggling with whether or not to have an abortion.

“In the post I said to the young lady and to anybody who is grappling with such an important decision in their life, I am not able to say go through with it or keep the baby because everybody’s experience is different. I know of people who have been molested by their fathers, by their uncles, people who got pregnant by their relatives. And for those people, I would never presume to say to them keep that baby, especially if they got pregnant in a violent way. I have no idea what that feels like. I would never presume to say keep and love that child,” Bailey said.

While in the middle of preparing for crucial exams in her last year of high school, Bailey said she found out she was pregnant only after her mother had pointed it out to her, having noticed that she had missed her menstrual period.

“I got pregnant when I was in high school getting ready for O’ Level’s. I’m not saying if it had happened later in life that I would have kept my pregnancy, but at 16 what did I know about abortion? It was never even a thought in my head. And when my mother said to me, ‘you are pregnant’, because she knew I was pregnant — she was the one who always bought the pads for me, and we lived in a one room, and she looked in the drawer and she saw that they were still there. I didn’t even have the presence of mind to toss it out it was still there. and she said ‘you are pregnant’, and I said I am not. And she said to me, just to show you how it was back then, she said to me the reason why I disown the pregnancy is because I want to commit abortion”, White said, emphasising that “commit” was the word her mother used in reference to having an abortion, which at the time was never an option for a teenage girl growing up in a small, rural community in Clarendon.

“It was viewed as a crime or grave sin. So she said, ‘you better own it up and stop hiding it because when you do that is abortion you want commit’. And I was shell-shocked because how would I even know where to go to do anything like that — I didn’t even know what that (an abortion) entailed. I was a child. I was made to feel like I had committed the crime of the century because in my little district where I was born, only very few girls got to go to one of those top high schools. My mother was really hopeful about my future and my pregnancy was a blow, not only to her but to the church people, teachers from Primary school and all those people. The only solution I saw was to run away because I could not look in the faces of those people who had such high hopes for me. I didn’t want to be in my district because people looked you differently, it’s a stigma that would never leave. It doesn’t matter how successful you are afterwards, you’re always going to be known as that girl who got pregnant at age 16. And that to me is a really horrible thing, to have to live with. So that was my choice”, Bailey said.

While abortion was never an option, Bailey explained that her mother encouraged her to have her baby and continue her schooling and offered to take care of the newborn while she went off to Kingston to further her studies.

“When my daughter was born I went to teacher’s college and my mom kept her for the years that I was there. When I was done, I took her and we moved to Kingston. After that I went to UWI and did mass communication. And then after I was successful in getting good jobs,” Bailey shared, adding that she was able to land positions at the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), and the Jamaica Gleaner before migrating to Canada.

Bailey admitted that her saving grace was her mother’s determination to help her through a challenging period, while acknowledging that other teenage girls may not have the same support.

“My mother gave me that reassurance. But I couldn’t really tell anybody what to do because it all depends on the circumstance under which the conception took place. And when you’re young and alone and don’t have supportive parents that is one of the most devastating factors — when you do not have anybody to fall back on. So I would never say keep your baby or say abort your baby.”

However, Bailey offered her experience as an example to show that teenage pregnancy or unwanted pregnancy for that matter does not have to spell disaster.

“I’m just saying to somebody, if you decide to keep your baby, if that is the decision you make, it doesn’t have to end badly. You just have to be prepared to put the child above everybody else. Once you decide to keep that child, then you have to start planning. All is not hunky-dory. My daughter was a good child, in spite of the fact that she was the product of a single-parent household. She went to university at the age of 17, then she went to teacher’s college, then she went on to her master’s degree, and now she is in law school,” Bailey said.

Here in Jamaica where abortion remains illegal, although the law is rarely enforced women, and teenage girls especially, who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy risk having critical complications or worse, death from botched abortions. Bailey also acknowledged other circumstances under which an abortion for many women is the only option.

“I know people who had medical conditions, and as I said before, other conditions under which conception happens, but me, I was a healthy 16-year-old and I don’t know that I would have done the same thing had I been 25 or 30, or in the middle of a career. I totally understand that part of it so I cannot judge. I don’t know that when I got in ‘mass comm’ that it would have been a problem to keep my pregnancy and still go in. I don’t know what I would have done. But my daughter turned out right. If that’s the reason you’re going to abort, because you feel like your child as a product of a single-parent household may be at a disadvantage, I’m here to tell you no. that cannot be the only reason. That cannot be a reason to abort because mine turned out well. The point I’m making is, don’t think that the child is going to turn out worse than those whose parents who are married or who have both supportive parents.

“So keep or abort, but once you decide to keep, it doesn’t mean that your life is over. So I’m hoping that my experience will help somebody to make the right decision and not choose to abort out of fear, because your life is not over if you do decide to keep your child,” Bailey concluded.