I’ll Make You Have an Abortion

When you’re neither pro-choice nor pro-life but just plain vile

Me with a few Romani children | May 2021 | Image by author

Last year, I befriended a community of the most despised ethnicity in Europe: Romani/ Gypsy. This year, I am in a happy relationship with a man from this community.

Racism against the Romani is pretty vile and unacknowledged here in my home country but for a long time I thought that the people in my immediate circle, at least, were “open-minded.”

They knew I grew close to the Roma community. They knew I took part in activities for the children. They knew I helped in the fight against the municipality which was trying to leave 30 families on the street. They were very supportive.

But then, I crossed a line. I fell in love.

All of a sudden, I’d stopped being superior to the Romani. I had demoted myself somehow, left “my place.” The immediate reactions I faced when I told then-close people about my relationship ranged from hilariously ignorant to downright vile.

And on the far extreme of this spectrum, past vile and well into the territory of revolting, was this.

If you get pregnant by him, I’ll make you have an abortion.

But you see, this is not racist