As an infant, my son attended more than a few pro-choice rallies with me, usually while strapped to my chest and drooling as he slept. The news is on near-constantly inside our home—the background noise of our lives—and he's heard his mother and father talk politics at the dinner table.
I then told him about my abortion, and why abortion access made it possible for me to one day be his mom.After a slight beat, he replied:"Makes sense. OK thanks mom, I'm going to go play!"which overturned the constitutional right to access abortion care, entire generations are growing up without the right to full and complete bodily autonomy.
"But when an adult discusses the topic appropriately and is patient, empathic, and straightforward," she adds,"those conversations can be incredibly beneficial."Steph Herold, 36, told her oldest child about abortion when the now 5-year-old was 4. Herold, who lives in New York and works in abortion-related research, had just given birth a year prior and says her son was"on a strong campaign to have another sibling.
"Abortion encompasses so many of life's big issues and questions—love, sex, death, religion, power, family," she says."All of those are complicated topics to talk about with adults, much less children, so I'm just hoping that it was the start of lifelong conversations about these issues, and an open door to discuss it all together.
"I'm an abortion activist, so abortion has always been part of our lives," McMaster, who lives in Ohio, says."It's just something that he's used to hearing us talk about all the time. I take him to public events with me. He's marched in the Women's March with me. He's heard me speak publicly about my abortion."