I have just read the diary on the Rec List about the closing of Dr. Tiller's clinic, and although this is an issue that often leaves me angry, right now I am truly chilled at this development.
The so-called "second-wave" feminists of the 1960s and 1970s have often warned the women of my generation, born after Roe vs, Wade, to not take legal abortion for granted. I have always had tremendous respect and admiration for the activists who fought for women's rights in that era, but I believed their fear was unwarranted, merely a product of having grown up in the discriminatory 1950s and early 60s.
Now I see they are right to be afraid.
For the first time in my life, I feel truly scared that we are going backwards on this issue, and that women's right to safe and legal abortions is being infringed upon. The fanatics seeking to stigmatize abortion, the doctors who perform them, and the women who have them, are, unbelievably to me, succeeding.
Many here have called on women who have had abortions to tell their story. I never considered doing so publicly before, but enough is enough. This is too important, and everyone needs to understand what is at stake.
By the way, what I am going to write is an extremely honest account, with details that may not be appropriate for everyone. If you're squeamish, stop reading.
OK (deep breath):
When I was a senior in college, I became unexpectantly pregnant. I wish I could say I was on the pill at the time (which happened to a friend of mine) or that the condom broke (another friend), but the plain truth is, I had unprotected sex. I couldn't use the pill for health reasons, and while I generally insisted my boyfriend use a condom, he didn't have one this day, we had been dating exclusively for months, and my period had just ended a couple of days earlier, so I thought it was safe. (What I didn't know at the time, but learned afterwards, is that sperm can live for several days inside a healthy woman, so that even if you're not fertile until Day 14 of your cycle, you could get pregnant if you had sex on day 10 or Day 11.)
Stupid, yes. (Later I would get fitted for a diaphragm, determined to never again leave birth control up to anyone else but me.) But I knew my cycle, and truly thought I was having sex at a "safe" time. I was so shocked when I found out I was pregnant, even though I suspected it as soon as my period was only a few days late, because I am normally so regular.
The timing could not have been worse. When you're 22, you don't always pick a partner--at least I didn't--based on the best criteria. The guy I was dating was a bartender at the restaurant where I worked. He was sweet, funny, and gorgeous. He literally looked like George Clooney, only darker, with intense blue eyes.
He was also an alcoholic, something it took me several months to realize. After all, it is certainly not unusual for guys in their mid-twenties (he was a few years older than me) to drink a fair amount.
But this guy had a problem. While my guy friends frequently drank, I had never seen them "out of control." But every time my boyfriend drank, it seemed like he literally couldn't stop. He would drink until he couldn't stand up straight or speak intelligibly. Once at a party, he literally fell over onto the stereo. His whole personality would change. It was starting to worry me, and then he was arrested for drunk driving.
Now, my dad grew up with an alcoholic father, and ever since my sister and I were young girls, he had said to us: "Never marry an alcoholic. It will ruin your life." I decide, after the DUI, that I needed to get out of this relationship, despite how cute and charming he was (when sober). I even told my best friends I had decided to break up with him. This is while he was out of town, visiting relatives during the holidays. That same week, I found out I was pregnant.
To those who have never been in this situation, it is impossible to describe. It is a horrible, horrible feeling, that I would not wish on my worst enemy. One of the things that has always enraged me about the anti-choice movement--from the pope on down--is that so many of the most outspoken individuals, who are so busy lecturing women loudly and vehemently about the morality of abortion, are men, who, by definition, will never have to face this choice. Even if they impregnate a woman, they still have the option of catching the next flight to Mexico, if they so choose. Maybe they wouldn't want to, but they COULD. A woman faced with an unintended pregnancy is completely trapped, and there is NO easy way out. There are NO "good" options.
So, what was I going to do?
I knew I could not have a child with an alcoholic bartender. I knew I did not have the resources, maturity, or family support to raise a child on my own. I actually considered adoption, but felt that I probably would not be able to carry a baby to term and give it away.
That left abortion. Although I was a progressive, a feminist, and strongly pro-choice, I was personally ambivalent about having an abortion. I did not feel that the fertilized egg growing inside me was a baby, but it was a potential human life. Did I have the right to rob this potential person of his or her future life?
I made an appointment, but the day before the procedure, I called to cancel the abortion. "You're not scheduled for an abortion," the woman on the phone said. "Because you're not six weeks pregnant, you can't have a surgical abortion. You're scheduled for a menstrual extraction."
The procedure, which I ended up going through with, involved no drugs, no dilation of the cervix (it wasn't necessary), no surgical equipment. Instead of a "vaccuum aspiration" done with a machine, a syringe was used to manually, and gently, remove the contents of my uterus. It was a very simple procedure, done without doctors. There were two fabulous nurses, who were so supportive, but at the same time did not make light of the situation. I cried, not from pain or discomfort, but from grief at losing the tiny life growing inside me. I felt like I had let that tiny life down. That I had let myself down. It was a very sad day.
And yet, I felt strongly that I had made the right decision, and not just for me. Those were terrible circumstances for any child to be born into.
I read an essay about abortion about a year later that helped me come to peace with my decision. The writer pointed out that often a pregnancy will be aborted by a woman's body for a variety of reasons: a genetic flaw, perhaps, or illness on the part of the mother, or even poor nutrition. If the conditions for the pregnancy aren't right, it is aborted. If the woman's mind enters into the equation, choosing to end a pregnancy in terrible circumstances, why does that make the decision so much worse?
I did not choose to end my pregnancy because it was "inconvenient." I felt literally incapable of raising a child as a single, 22-year old waitress, and I did not want to condemn myself to the misery of an alcoholic partner, or my child to an alcoholic father. (And by the way, we are still in touch over ten years later, and he is still an alcoholic. He's no longer a bartender, though--he's a line cook.)
I want to emphasize the fact that there are no easy answers in this situation, because the anti-choice movement--and movies like Juno--so often make it seem like there are. I knew a girl in college who put up her baby for adoption--and regretted it. She was severely depressed and ended up leaving school--one of the reasons I did not go that route.
One of my closest friends, "Sarah," got pregnant in college, and was talked out of having an abortion by her anti-choice friends, who convinced her to put her baby up for adoption. She carried the baby to term, and the adoptive parents had already been chosen, when she felt, upon the birth of a beautiful baby girl who looked just like her, that she just couldn't do it. But this was not a Hollywood movie, and being a single mom was so hard, that years later she confided to me, that as much as she loves her daughter--and she does, and she is a great mother, married now and with two other kids--if she had to do it again, she would have had the abortion.
I also have a friend who did choose abortion, and was so wracked with guilt and grief over her decision that she once took an overdose of pills. She said the abortion was a mistake, but considering the father was her married boss, she also did not have any good options. (She is OK now, also married with two kids.)
I also know many other women who had abortions, and who did not regret them. In fact, as I found out after my own experience, ALMOST EVERY WOMAN I KNOW has had an abortion. I was truly amazed by how many women, including good friends of mine who I would never have suspected it of--they seemed so together, not like me!--had had abortions. It is MUCH more common than people realize.
In fact, one of the "pro-life" friends of Sarah, who persuaded her NOT to have an abortion, later got pregnant herself and had an abortion! This was a girl who was extremely active in the "pro-life" movement at our school, and even published anti-abortion poems in a right-wing campus newspaper. She told me that when she got pregnant herself, "I didn't even ask myself what I would do. There was never any doubt. I knew immediately I would have an abortion." I swear to God this is true. This is what I mean about, it is so easy to have the moral certitude when you know you will never be placed in this situation. (She never regretted her decision, and is now a mother and happily married, although still a Republican.)
My point is that there are no easy, obvious answers when faced with an unintended pregnancy. Which is why we need a CHOICE. Abortion is not the right choice for many women, but it was right for me. I am grateful that there was a procedure available for such an early pregnancy (less than three weeks) at my university's clinic. It provided a choice that was hard, but right for me. This was a very progressive, feminist clinic that was protested all the time by activists from Kansas, one state over, and if it had been closed, I would have had to wait longer--until I was at least six weeks pregnant-- or travel further for a more invasive, complicated procedure.
Women in this country need MORE access to birth control, MORE access to the morning after pill--can I just say to the pharmacists who want the right to refuse to prescribe this perfectly legal drug to grown women--f*ck you, we are not your daughters or second-class citizens needing your approval of our decisions--we need MORE abortion clinics and greater access to early, safe procedures such as menstrual extraction.
And we need more heroes like Dr. Tiller, willing to risk his life to provide late-term abortions to women facing the hardest choice of all.
EDITED TO ADD: In the comments, quadmom provided a link to Medical Students for Choice. Let's fight back by supporting the training of doctors to provide abortions.