1970s Rocker’s memoir tells of being haunted by her abortion, regretting her abortion, but defends “right” to abortion anyway
By Dave Andrusko
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in late April, I ran across a blurb for a forthcoming book, “Clothes,
Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys,” the memoir of
Viv Albertine.As I said at the time, I didn’t have a clue who she was. Turns out Albertine was the star of the 1970s all-girl punk band, “The Slits,” a group that was hugely influential in breaking through in a very much male-dominated industry.
Albertine had an abortion in 1978 “rather than give up her career,” as publicity blurb for the book puts it. In the years to come Albertine tried IVF treatments eleven times and “lost two babies before finally becoming mother to a little girl in 1999.”
In the book, she writes, “I didn’t regret the abortion for 20 years. But eventually I did and I still regret it now. I wish I’d kept the baby, whatever the cost. It’s hard to live with.”
Well today I ran across a long excerpt from the book in which she described her abortion. What else do we learn?
To begin with Albertine is remarkably articulate and brutally honest. When she becomes pregnant, she tells us that her “mum” offered to help raise the baby and, if not that, suggested adoption as an alternative. Read the following section and how Albertine (looking back at her much younger self) recalls what she was thinking… the rationalizations she employed
Mum suggests adoption, but I
think that’s crueller than death. That’s my opinion. To burden a child
with abandonment and rejection right from the start. A living death. All
or nothing, that’s me. I choose nothing. Nothingness for baby. I think
this is a responsible decision. I will not countenance any other option.
“Nothingness”—a desire for emotional numbness–is the unmistakable
theme that runs through her very sad and very revealing account. Before
she leaves for the abortion clinic, Albertine calls her boyfriend to
tell him
that I’m pregnant and I’m off to
the hospital to deal with it on my own. He offers to come with me but I
don’t want him to. I don’t want to feel anything. If he’s there I might
feel something.
I can’t sleep. I think about the
terrifying power that women and mothers have. We don’t need to fight in
wars. We have nothing to prove. We have the power to kill and lots of us
have used it. How many of you boys have ever killed anyone? I have.
I’ve killed a baby. It doesn’t get much worse than that. Maybe your
mother has secretly used her power to kill in the past and not told you.
Maybe she even thought about doing it to you. It’s a secret and a
burden she carries with her.
I laugh it off but inside I’m
crushed. I have no confidence. It’s been sucked out of me with the baby.
Jeannot offers me heroin. I’m tempted. Not because I want to forget
what I’ve done, or because I’m so down, even though both are true, but
because I’ve lost my identity. I haven’t a clue who I am. I feel like a
nothing. But I know without a doubt, if I take heroin now, I will
destroy the tiny morsel of myself that is left, I will be lost forever.
She will subsequently have plenty of trouble with drugs but this time
she says no. She describes looking out her hotel window and considering
the tradeoffs:So this is what I’ve chosen over a baby: the Slits [her band], gigging, hotel rooms, music, self-expression, loneliness. It was the right decision – wasn’t it? I wish I was at home with Mum.
As I wrote back in April, Albertine ends on a semi-defiant note. Having said all of the above (how “I wish I’d kept the baby, whatever the cost. It’s hard to live with”), she ends, “I still defend a woman’s right to choose. To have control over her own body and life. That cannot and must not ever be taken away from us.”
Really? Is that her head speaking? Is that her heart speaking?
I think it is neither.
Source: NRLC News
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