Recently, Judge James Ho, a Trump-appointed judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, spoke for many on the religious far-right when he said: “Pregnancy is not a serious illness.”
I view his argument with irony.
I grew up within the South Carolina Moral Majority-led anti-abortion movement. I have always treated pregnancy as a disease to be avoided at all costs. I am childless because of the anti-abortion movement.
Courtesy of Andra Watkins
In the far-right church of my youth, I was indoctrinated to believe I had one God-given duty: My female duty to reproduce. Motherhood was not an option or a choice; it was my duty to bear as many children as my “Good Christian husband” demanded.
If God gave me a pregnancy, even if I was raped at 11 or 12 years old, who was I to choose to terminate God’s holy gift?
I heard variations on this refrain starting in Christian school kindergarten. In elementary school, I was forced to watch blood-soaked anti-abortion films. When I hit puberty, I attended mandatory girls-only chapel services, where I was lectured on how to avoid tempting men and boys with my body.
When I got my period at the age of ten, I didn’t know it was part of the baby-making cycle. I bumbled into my teens, clueless about how babies happened until a random encounter with a bookstore copy of The Joy of Sex Illustrated enlightened me. Penis and vagina equals baby.
My mother insisted that birth control pills aborted babies, a common refrain on the far-right. But had I been given birth control as a teen, I would not have trusted it. If I had sex, I was certain my birth control would fail and I would get pregnant. I forbade boys to put anything—fingers, accessories, sex organs—into my vagina.
I did not have to imagine the consequences of my potential teenage pregnancy. My parents and my pastor preached it. I would be expelled from Christian school and would not be allowed to complete my education.
My pastor would parade me before my church of thousands and call me a harlot, a modern-day Hester Prynne. Friends would shun me. My parents would be humiliated. Everyone would avert their eyes and talk behind their hands as my belly grew.
No matter how it happened or whose fault it was, I would be forced to mother that baby.
From the time I was ten until I married at 23 years old, I stopped my horny, hormonal body from having intercourse by repeating the following mantra: “Pregnancy is a disease to be avoided at all costs. It will ruin my life before my life even starts. I cannot allow myself to get pregnant.”
I had my first gynecologist appointment before I married. His first comment upon seeing my nethers was: “Let me get a smaller speculum.”
I defied my mother’s campaign against birth control pills and asked my doctor for a prescription. He offered them, with a candid discussion of how to avoid a most painful wedding night. I left his office with one more thing to dread.
Almost fifteen formative years of telling myself pregnancy is a disease had consequences. I became obsessive about contraception. I carried my pills on my person and swallowed them at the same time every day. I panicked if I took a pill late, and I never missed a day.
Whenever I could pleasure my husband without intercourse, I gave dutifully, relieved for one more release anywhere but inside me. Many things contributed to that marriage’s demise, but my stunted approach to sex and abject horror at the possibility of pregnancy were factors.
My divorce at 27 years old was the perfect prompt to seek therapy. But I grew up in a home and church where I heard: “Christians do not need therapy. Why seek worldly advice when one can read the Bible and pray?”
Courtesy of Andra Watkins
Several years of Bible reading and prayer failed to heal me. At every turn, I heard this regimen wasn’t working because I attended the wrong church. Or I did not spend enough time on my knees with my bible. Or God knew my heart and saw how misguided and insincere my prayers were.
Still, I was convinced a switch would flip in my brain on my 30th birthday, and I would suddenly see pregnancy as a miracle, not a disease. Not that I longed to reproduce.
In my thirties, the thought of pregnancy gave me panic attacks. My fear of pregnancy did not abate after I married a man who loves me despite my emotional wreckage.
Exhausted from decades of meltdowns every time my period was late, my husband and I both opted for sterilization in our forties.
The anti-abortion movement taught me to view pregnancy with horror, dread, and fear. I never unraveled those decades of religious abuse.
My heart hurts for potential pregnant people across the United States who will be forced to take similar measures. Some will avoid pregnancy as I did; others will become mothers against their will.
We will all carry the damage and pass it on to future generations. That’s the real disease, isn’t it?
Andra Watkins is a bestselling author who lives in Charleston, South Carolina. You can follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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