Emerging Courageous Online Magazine – Poetry

A Woman’s Right To Choose by Nell Berry    

No one can take away “a woman’s right to choose”.
“After all, it’s her body, that much”, they said, “is true”.
My self-esteem, my pride, my feminist point of view,
I will not let them tell me, what I can and cannot do.

 That’s what I’ve heard, over and over, since ever I could talk.
That I shouldn’t allow a man to tell ME what pathways I could walk.
I made MY own decisions. I exercised MY rights.
I went out with anyone I wanted and wore dresses short and tight.

 So, now I find myself in a real predicament.
I’m all alone and frightened and more than two months pregnant.
Oh, I know they give counseling. But that isn’t the issue.
To them it isn’t a baby; it’s just a blob of tissue.

 I’m too young to make the choice. I’m just sixteen years old.
“Just have an abortion, get rid of it,” that’s what I was told.
So, I sit here undecided, in a cold abortion mill.
This butcher they call a doctor, my baby, wants to kill.

 Soon they will come to prep me, my hands are cold and clammy,
I feel sick, I don’t want them to take my baby from me.
Please, won’t someone help me? I just want to run.
The ultra sound revealed I would have a son.

 My parents don’t know; it would only break their hearts.
I guess it’s too late to change my mind; too late for a new start.

I’m not capable, I’m too young this serious choice to make.
I don’t know what to do, “Please help me, God, for my baby’s sake.”

 It seemed a Voice from nowhere thundered in my ear,
“Go home,” He said, “tell your parents. They deserve to hear.”
Now I’m on my way home. Not knowing what to say.
But with God’s help, my parents will do what’s right, I pray.

 “A woman’s right to choose, it’s her body,” they said.
A right she forfeits by crawling into his bed.

  Nell Berry [email protected]

1/31/2002

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