This Summer someone I was close to found out she was pregnant and made the hard decision to get an abortion. It killed her to give up the baby but she believed it was the best decision for her, the father and the baby.
It seemed like every time we hung out after that she pointed out that there were babies everywhere which was really hard for her to deal with. Because she was close to me and we were together so much I also began to notice babies everywhere we went. It was almost like there was a baby boom in progress. In addition, it also seemed as though anti-abortion advertising had becoming increasingly popular, on t.v and on billboards etc.
Although there is a possibility that anti-abortion advertising had increased and that we were in the middle of a baby boom it is more likely that we were just primed to notice these things. Priming is an increased awareness for something because of a past experience. As my friend was dealing with the hardest decision she had ever had to make it is very likely that it was on our minds and we were more sensitive to anti-abortion advertising and more aware of all of the babies around which previously were not as important.
Wow Stef. Thank you for sharing. I can’t imagine being primed to seeing babies and pregnant mothers after having an abortion, a decision that was already excruciating to your friend. I hope that she has come to peace with her decision and that counterfactual thinking doesn’t plague her mind and that she has become unprimed to babies.
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