I kept my baby because of ‘pro-lifers’ and raised it in poverty. Then they called me selfish

While motherhood gave me several precious, lovely, and powerful moments, it also cost me so much

Abortion rights activists and anti-abortion activists rally at the Supreme Court (EPA)

A few years ago, I found out something common to many people with wombs: I was expecting. What exactly I was “expecting”, however, was open for debate. My conservative mother was sure it was a “blessing”. I wasn’t so sure. For one thing, I was poor — really poor. I was told that if I aborted my baby, I’d be selfish. But as a poor woman, I was also told it would be selfish to raise a child in poverty. It was even suggested to me that, considering my financial circumstances, it would be selfish for me not to put my child up for adoption.

I did give birth to my children, and I don’t regret it — I love them more than anything in the world. But I was pushed down the path of motherhood by Christian conservatives who described themselves as “pro-life”. Pro-life meant convincing me to continue my pregnancy. It did not, as I soon found out, mean supporting me to raise my child when I lived in poverty.

Being a poor parent meant standing in lines for hours in cold and crowded rooms, waiting for services which would fail to be supportive. It meant sitting in welfare offices for hours, waiting to be called on, to try to get assistance for welfare benefits that weren’t enough for our basic costs of living. It meant pouring through pages of paperwork and sitting for hours at outdated computers in public libraries or state offices hoping to find subsidized childcare assistance, only be left disappointed as only a fraction of folks in need qualify and, even when you do, those programs have months-long waiting lists.

Have trouble affording the cost of living as a single parent? Too bad. When I was made homeless, shelters didn’t know how to accommodate me as a parent. As a single mother without any drug or alcohol issues or major mental health concerns, I fell through the cracks of all the usual systems that were mostly set up to help addicts or the severely ill (laudable programs, but none that provided for me.) When I did find some housing assistance, it was dependent on me working certain kinds of jobs with hours that weren’t compatible with parenting. And of course, I was still on the waiting list for childcare, so I couldn’t rely on that. I could have taken a different job — but then I would have lost my housing. The bureaucracy was impossible to navigate.

Being poor with housing worries means if you’re lucky enough to find a short window to even apply to wait numerous years for the chance to get a Section 8 housing voucher, you may not even be able to redeem it because many modern landlords don’t even take them. I placed myself on one of those lists in 2015 during a two-day opening for a waitlist. I still haven’t heard back. Being a poor parent means our only existence is to work tirelessly, jumping through hoop after hoop with no guarantee that any of it will go anywhere. All the while, we are repeatedly called selfish and unfit to parent by the same people who wanted us to have babies when we were pregnant. Both family courts and dependency courts operate in ways that are stacked against impoverished parents. Your struggles will be used against you at every single turn.

While motherhood gave me several precious, lovely, and powerful moments, it also cost me so much. Though there has been joy, there has also been unbearable pain, unnecessary suffering, harsh judgements, and repeated dehumanization. The systems in place did not want me to be a parent even though they insisted that they wanted me to be a parent. They wanted my body to be a vessel for other people to be parents who better fit society’s desired mould: wealthy and with two people present. I fear that that’s what the Supreme Court judges overturning Roe v Wade also imagine — not that people like me will be able to successfully parent and be lived out of poverty when they continue their pregnancies, but that we will supply infants to others who want to adopt and are tired of being on a waiting list. I wouldn’t wish the plight of being a poor parent on anyone. Enduring motherhood in this country, under these systems, has been almost unbearable. It simply never stops.

I yearn for a world where families are truly supported to raise their children if they choose to continue their pregnancies. I yearn for a country that looks at a scared mother who is unexpectedly pregnant but wants to parent and sees a vulnerable person to support, rather than a target for insults or someone else’s opportunity. The overturning of Roe means thousands of more women living lives like mine. It was hard for me even after I made the choice to have my children. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live this kind of a life after being denied access to an abortion.