Crossroads Humanities Café 36.5˚:
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By Hong Seung-eun
Published Oct. 10, 2016
Translated by Marilyn
Hook
Editor’s note: Hong Seung-eun, who runs Humanities Café 36.5˚ in Chuncheon
publishes the serial column “Crossroads”, casting questions about given
concepts big and small.
Fear
of pregnancy
“You
have to guard your body carefully. In the end, the woman is the one who is
damaged.”
This
is what my mom said to me on the first day that blood stained my underwear. She
entreated me to take care of my body, because men are all the same. I felt a
vague sense of rebellion. Why is the woman the only one who is damaged? Isn’t
that expression meant to make women cower? Times have changed since my mother
was young, so why does she still think that way?
Being rebellious,
I chose to “guard” my body by more freely enjoying sex. But no matter how much
I tried to be free, I was hindered by the possibility of becoming pregnant. After
I first started having sex with my boyfriend, I spent a lot of days of tensely
checking when I was ovulating [to avoid having sex during that time] and when
my period was supposed to come. We used several different contraceptive
methods, like condoms and the pill, but we didn’t always use them perfectly.
Sometimes I would forget to take the pill, or we would have sex spontaneously
without a condom. I only took the morning-after pill when I felt anxious. I
also bought and used pregnancy tests a few times.
I was
21. My friend said she had a bad feeling, so I went with her to the ob-gyn. After
seeing the doctor, she sank to the floor and started to cry. “What am I going
to do? And I was so careful... my life is over.” She was four weeks pregnant.
It was an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. I spent the day consoling her and
telling her, “No, this kind of thing can happen no matter how careful you are.
Your life isn’t over. Just have a procedure. You can do it.” I spoke calmly but
found that I was also shaking.
I was
reminded of the times when I had waited anxiously for my period. I thought of
my ex-boyfriend, who would say, “Aw, you can’t get pregnant that easily.” The
truth of what I had told my friend, that it could happen no matter how careful
you were, really dawned on me.
My
friend had her pregnancy terminated the next day. Because abortion is illegal,
she had to do it at an ob-gyn that she found with difficulty after asking
around, and after the procedure she had severe nausea and a headache as a side
effect of the anesthesia. But she couldn’t complain to the doctor about it,
because the whole procedure had been illegal. In this way, my closest friend’s
experience made my once-vague fear of pregnancy much more real.
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| Korean women demanding the right to terminate a pregnancy. ⓒHumanities Café 36.5˚ |
Terminating a pregnancy
Three years
ago, in late spring, my period was a week late. The pregnancy test that I
bought with the usual “you never know” mindset showed two clear lines. After an
examination, the ob-gyn said I was in my third week. My body had become
pregnant. I couldn’t believe it, but my body was already changing.
I had
morning sickness. Whether I stood or sat, my stomach roiled as if I were riding
a bus on a twisty mountain road after eating an entire greasy pizza. I even
said to my boyfriend, before I knew that I was pregnant, “I’m so nauseated that
I’m worried that I might be pregnant.” He told me not to worry, because “even
if you’re pregnant, you wouldn’t have morning sickness so soon.”
When I
found out that I was pregnant, he held my hand and stayed with me, but he
wasn’t much of a comfort. They say that women who get pregnant before marriage
are worried that their partner will immediately suggest an abortion, but I
didn’t feel much better when my boyfriend suggested having the baby. (Of
course, if he had immediately suggested an abortion, I also would have been
hurt.) Whatever we chose to do would happen in my body, and I alone would have
to deal with it. The relationship that I had thought was close started to fade,
and I felt alone.
My
boyfriend confidently said he was sure we could give the baby a good life, but
I was so green from morning sickness that I couldn’t think. I didn’t feel
confident about having the baby, and I didn’t want to. I decided to get an
abortion the next day. I asked around and found an ob-gyn that would do it. It
was a shabby place that I had never heard of before. They asked for 500,000 won
(about 430 USD) in cash, because paying by card could be traced and lead to the
doctor losing their medical license. It was no small sum, but there was no
other way.
When I
stepped into the operating room, I felt cold air and a dreary atmosphere. I lay
down on the hard operating table and was soon deeply asleep. When I opened my
eyes, I was bleeding from below. The morning sickness that had tortured me for
days was gone, as if it had never really existed.
Men’s
abortion talk vs. women’s abortion talk
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A picket sign seen at
the Black Monday protests,
held by Polish women against a proposed abortion
ban.
The government eventually scrapped the bill.
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I once
talked with some graduate school classmates about abortion. “A”, an older male
student who was a devout Christian, said, “If abortion is legalized, the sexual
assault rate will rise. And more than anything, life can’t be treated so
carelessly.” Of course, fellow older male student “B” agreed: “Yeah, and men
would probably wear condoms even less often. It would be worse for women.” B
was a politically conservative atheist who always quibbled with A, but the two
of them were able to unite on this issue.
I
said, “Why should the state step in to decide whether what happens in a woman’s
body is legal or illegal? Why are you two interfering in what happens in my
body? I’ll be the one to decide what happens to my body. Even if I have a
child, is there a proper environment to raise it in? How would society look at
me? The irresponsible side is really the people who blindly tell women to give
birth. And why does preventing abortions prevent sex crimes? If that’s what you
want to do, it’s men’s bodies that you have to control, not women’s!” The two
men smiled at my appalled reaction and said, “You think that way because you
don’t know what the world’s like. Abortion has to be illegal for your sake.”
In
South Korea, abortion is illegal. This was true seven years ago when my friend
had one, three years ago when I did, and last year when my younger sister did. My
sister’s boyfriend ghosted two weeks after the procedure, and I sent him an
e-mail saying: “You did it together, but it is only my sister’s body that has
become illegal.”
The
thing that becomes illegal is the woman’s body. The body of the man who slept
with her does not. He even becomes a “guardian” whose consent is required for
the procedure. Some men use this point to threaten women who plan to get an abortion.
And they say that abortion is illegal for my sake! “It has to be illegal
because it prevents rape, encourages ethical sex, and protects the lives of
unborn children.” Interesting how there’s no mention of me in there, even
though this is all for my sake.
A few
days ago, I had some drinks with friends for the first time in a while. One
friend spoke up: “My period is late. He wore a condom, so I can’t be pregnant,
right? But I still feel kind of nervous.” Other friends jumped in. “Don’t be
silly, if you use a condom you’ll almost never get pregnant. Um, but they do
say that no contraception is 100% effective.” “Are you sure he wore a condom?
Not many guys do. I’ve seen some take it off secretly halfway through.”
“Really?! Then you will get pregnant. Like her.” “Oh, she’s been pregnant? Me
too.”
At my
sudden confession(?), my friends asked in surprised, “Oh? You were pregnant?”
“Yes, I was,” I replied. “Me too,” another friend said. “Wow, really? So was my
friend so-and-so.” “Wasn’t it hard to find a clinic? And expensive.” “Yeah, but
most places do offer it, secretly. It’s good business, because they get paid in
cash.” “Mm-hm, and if you don’t have the money on you, you can’t get the
procedure.”
“My friend got married because she was
pregnant, and now they’re divorcing. And both of them are trying to avoid
having custody.” “Really? I can’t believe there are people who still get
married just because of a pregnancy... is it enough to take the responsibility
for giving birth? What about the long years it takes for the child to grow up?
Isn’t it less responsible to have the child when you’re not really ready?” Even
as our conversation continued on, the taboo nature of this subject was
inescapable.
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American voters
demanding the right to terminate a pregnancy.
ⓒNARAL
Pro-Choice America
‘Unethical medical practices’ – who are these ethics for?
The
Ministry of Health and Welfare’s including of “performing a pregnancy
termination (in violation of the Mother and Child Health Law)” in a proposed
amendment to administrative rules regarding health care has drawn protests from
ob-gyns. They [the ob-gyns] say that doctors must not be punished, and if the
law is passed as written, they will refuse to perform any terminations. Both
pregnancy and abortion are things that happen in women’s bodies, yet it is the
government and the medical field that are making the decision – it’s
dumbfounding.
The
government wants to take abortion off of the list of acceptable treatments and
equate it instead with “unethical medical practices” like prescribing illegal
drugs or sexually assaulting a patient. It makes you wonder whom these “ethics”
are for. There is a lot of talk about ethics that prioritize a being that has
no ability to survive on its own and whose status as a “life” lacks a social
consensus, but there’s no sign of ethics that support women who face physical
and social disruption and danger because of unwanted pregnancies.
Since my first period,
I’ve disliked my body for its ability to get pregnant. What I’ve hated more
than that is the feeling of deprivation that comes from not being able to do
what I want with my body. At moments when I feel that my body is not mine, even
though I know it better than anyone, I think of the advice from my mother that
I rejected. “The woman is the only one who is damaged.” I want to say this in
turn to society. “We are the only ones who are damaged.” I still want to
confidently refute my mother’s advice, but now that I’m not the owner of my
body, I know better. I’m illegal.
*Original
article: http://www.ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7620§ion=sc83§ion2=
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