Our first assignment in creative writing is to write about our name. My name (Dominique) means "Belonging to God" so I decided to write why I don't "belong" to God. One of my reasons was because my views on abortion contradict the Roman Catholic (the religion I was raised with) Church's views.
I'm pro-choice and I think abortion should stay legal. This was my paragraph about it in the essay:
Many Christians consider abortion murder and since murder is a sin, that’s why they’re against it. I was always told that life begins at contraception but I don’t believe that. A fetus (I'm talking about first trimester since that's when abortions are usually performed) doesn’t have a functioning brain so how is it alive? Therefore, I don’t consider something is living until it is out of the womb. That’s why I don’t consider abortion murder. How can you kill something that’s not alive? My views on abortion is to keep it legal. Women need to be allowed to do whatever they want with their body. Whatever the reason for the abortion is – whether it’s because of rape or she doesn’t like the gender of the baby – it’s none of my business.
I noticed during class that it sounds cocky so I was planning on editing it (the first draft was due today. Final is due Wednesday) once I checked it in with my teacher.
All my teacher did was skim the draft and she told me to remind her she had to talk to me about it. She stressed I did nothing wrong but I was still worried.
So we talked about it. My teacher noticed the word "abortion" in the draft and she said I could trigger someone. So I got a little confused. Then boom. She announced we're reading the final products to the class. She told me that abortion was one of the very few topics she never allowed students to talk about so it's in my "best interest" to delete the paragraph. She said she noticed how I worded it and she's scared I may offend someone.
To be honest, judging by the way she talked to me, I think she skimmed through the paragraph wrong and left thinking I was pro-life. Because she started saying things like, "You don't know people's stories. I mean, there's rape and more happens."
I sat there thinking, "...I know I don't know people's stories behind their abortions. That's why I'm pro-choice."
I didn't realize she could've misinterpreted it until after class so that's why I didn't talk to her about it. But in the end she said it was my call and thanked me for being understanding.
I talked about many other controversial topics. Evolution, homosexuality, Jesus, things I find contradicting in the Bible. But she seemed really sensitive when talking to me about the paragraph on abortion so now I'm worried I may have triggered her in a way. Ya feel me? I mean, the last thing I want to do is trigger a teacher.
We had to answer surveys the first week and one question was is there something she should know about when it comes to our writing. So I did use that as an advantage to warn her I write about controversial things but I don't think she realized how controversial.
She also reminded me that I said I tend to be sarcastic when writing narratives so I had to watch out for that. I reread my draft and ended like:
So now I have to do some major editing because there's sarcasm everywhere.
All my friends and my dad said to just leave my paragraph (and sarcasm) as it is because I have the right to share my opinion (and my dad knows that a topic like that is going to be brought up sometime down the line). I decided to take out my explanation as to why I'm pro-choice and just leave it at "I'm pro-choice" and maybe add "Because what someone does with their body is none of my business". Maybe. That way I can get my opinion across but make my teacher feel comfortable (or at least somewhat) at the same time.
I was going to show this teacher my story 635798. But now I'm having second thoughts. The fact that it takes place during the Holocaust is controversial enough. Besides that, I added some pretty realistic facts that makes it even more controversial. We'll see though.
This whole thing has me taken aback. Not because my teacher told me to not write about something, but because reality is setting in. I signed up for a creative writing class. An actual class taught by an actual teacher who has actual rules. Now I need to limit myself when it comes to writing and I've never done that before.
I'm going to leave it at that.
Ciao a tutti!