Claiming Control

This post is of a speech I gave on the steps of the Washington State Capitol on this year's anniversary of Roe V. Wade. I was surrounded by about 30? supporters and facing the Pro-Lifers standing on the steps of the justice building with their graphic and hateful signs. It was a somewhat transcendent experience.

Last summer I got pregnant. When I told my friends the first question most of them asked was “How did you your boyfriend react when you told him?”

And I didn’t know how to answer this question. I didn’t “tell” him, he was sitting there on the edge of the bathtub when I peed on the stick. He sat with me in anticipation while it changed; he cried with me when we read the results, and he knew like I did what our decision was before we’d even spoken. We had talked about this scenario before, more than once.

This doesn’t mean that it was an easy decision. My partner and I in particular seem to be besieged with the baby bug. When a child comes near neither of us can hardly contain our glee, but a broke baker and a striving student make for terrible parents, and that’s what we were.

Hell, that’s what we ARE!

At least for now.

Now this little story is sort of sweet and heartbreaking, a young couple in love making a difficult decision, but this part of my story does not completely highlight the point I want to make here today. Not every experience with unwanted pregnancy goes that way. Depending on how old you are, where you live, who you’re having sex with, who your parents are, how much money you have, what other people perceive you to be, the list could go on…you could have an entirely different experience.

When I actually had my abortion I was in Texas visiting my parents; they were supportive and understanding. My only remaining friend from high school dropped me off and picked me up because my parents were working. I had to pay in cash. When the receptionists and nurses talked to me it was with coldness at best, condescension at worst. The friends I had talked to about their experiences in the Northwest told me that they had been approached warmly and openly. During their surgeries they were put completely under anesthesia, they had felt nothing. I was only given a shot of pain medication (morphine, maybe?), and it definitely hurt. Neither the doctor nor the nurse said much of anything to me, and I stared at a cheesy Hallmark-esque inspirational poster on the ceiling. I felt almost as if I were being punished.

A friend who had had an abortion at Eastside Women’s Health a few years ago had a picture from the ultrasound that she showed me when I asked her about her experience. She said that it was nice to have as physical evidence that this had happened to her. I wanted to have that evidence also, but when I asked the nurse who gave me my ultrasound before the procedure if I could keep the picture she printed out she gasped at me horrified.

“We only give it to you if you keep the baby!” she almost shouted at me.

So, if we don’t keep it, it hasn’t happened?

Afterward I sat in a small room full of drugged women in medical gowns and La-Z-Boys who had just had the same experience I had. I wanted to talk to them about what had just happened to us, about what they had gone through before they came in, and how they were reacting to the entire experience, but the drugs and the social taboos wouldn’t let me. Who knows what the staff would have done if I had.

Instead I’m here today. I’m exposing this very personal thing that happened to me to all of you here because I think one of the biggest reasons that our reproductive rights are being threatened right now is silence. Women and men are discouraged from discussing their direct experiences with abortion. As a matter of fact, I’d go so far as to say that people in the United States are discouraged from talking about abortion period. In our culture (popular or otherwise) it’s either a huge horrific tragedy, or an invisibility altogether. Women feel afraid to talk about what they have gone through, positive or negative, out of fear of judgment, or even threat of bodily harm.

What would happen if we left that fear behind us? What would happen if people talked about abortion? Maybe movies could even say the word “abortion.” Maybe if your conservative uncle from Pasco knew you’d had an abortion he’d think a little bit more before voting for a legislator who threatens your rights.

So, I didn’t get to keep my ultrasound picture, although the thought of trying to forcibly obtain it has definitely crossed my mind. My sister did give me a t-shirt, though, after this happened, and I think that it gets at why I had to make the choice that I did. I wanted to wear it today, but I couldn’t find it. The shirt says “Wonderful Mother” across the chest. Maybe some would think that an odd sentiment, but I like to think that by making this choice I am a wonderful mother, both to the child that I wasn’t prepared for and the one I hope to raise in the future.