In The Darkness of a Massage Room, She Said....

"I've had fifteen abortions." She said it matter-of-factly, without a smidgen of embarrassment or guilt. She could have just as easily been saying, "I washed my car fifteen times."

I don't know if she noticed my hands stopped massaging her back and, in fact, they almost left her body completely. I felt like I had been hit with a blast of sound and heat. I never would have expected the story I heard that day from a woman who looked like she came from one of Manhattan Beach's mansions. She was a tall, blond, blue-eyed beauty queen. But her story was more like a crack whore from a "Law and Order" episode.

Her childhood wasn't easy. Her father ran off early but not after leaving a few scars, both emotional and physical. He liked touching his beautiful baby when he was drunk. He sometimes liked throwing her around. He left the house when she was eight years old. She managed to get through high school and soon there after, she caught the eye of a successful doctor. He gave her everything money could buy, she was that beautiful. But, she met a woman, a fun friend, who took her to a bar one day for her first drink and a little fun. Over a very short period of time she was drinking regularly, partying often and sleeping around. Drugs appeared on the scene and she became an addict. Her husband tried to help her with some of the fanciest recovery programs but she was damaged and couldn't keep it together. By the time she was 36, she was divorced, had one child, 15 abortions, and a liver disease that eventually took her life before her 40th birthday.

I've heard some dramatic stories in the 30 years of practice. The details, of which, I try not to think about. One such case was a man, a divorced father of a teen aged girl. He was so stressed out he could hardly lay still. He found out his 15 year old girl was pregnant but she had waited until she was six months along before she told him. He forced her to have an abortion. He forced her. Well, he said he 'convinced' her. He told her that having a baby at her age would ruin her life. He was a yeller. Where did he find a doctor who would perform an abortion at six months? It wasn't an abortion to save the life of the mother. It wasn't because the fetus was unable to survive to full term, but, simply because the grandfather insisted. Whether it was legal or not, this father would have found a way, found a doctor, found a coat hanger if he had to do it himself.

I felt sick to my stomach listening to him, feeling his body. I tried very hard not to be judgmental. I tried very hard to be a higher-self healer. I'm not so sure I succeeded. I never saw him again after that confession.

I used to volunteer in a shelter for victims of domestic violence. I was also a Big Sister for an inner city girl. I studied child psychology and for one of my term papers I wrote about McLaren Hall, an institution that was more of a warehouse for unwanted, throw away children. They were treated worse than animals. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands of them over the years.

Between the teenage runaways, throw aways, and foster kids and orphans, we're talking about a million kids without homes or permanent parents.

It's like being between a hard place and a rock. Our system can't take care of the children being born yet our conservative inclination is to prevent any alternatives.

My friend wants to pass a law requiring all 13 year old girls to get an IUD and all 13 year old boys to get a reversible vasectomy. In order to have the IUD removed or the surgery reversed they would have to take a two year course on parenting and financial planning. She and I read, "Walden Two", by B.F. Skinner, in college. We thought it made perfect sense in this senseless situation.

Abortions, as awful as they are, need to remain legal, safe, and accessible. The alternative is unimaginable.