I wept for you and your baby. I’m so sorry you went through this. I don’t think we should be allowed to do this to ourselves and our children. I rage against a world and society that makes it easier to give death than to give life.
My own grandmother was a devout Protestant Christian, but also a suffragette and firm believer in birth control. She was sure all would be well if only women could limit their children to one or maybe two. She married and had just her daughter. My grandmother never knew her own paternal grandmother, who had died in 1866 at age 33 giving birth to her 8th child, when my grandmother's father was only five. He became a doctor because of that experience. She also told me the heart wrenching story of the black washerwoman in her hometown (already mother of eight, the woman made a precarious living during the Depression by going from house to house doing laundry in the back yard wringer washer) who had died after an illegal abortion in the 1930's. My grandmother sympathized with her completely. So reasonable, yes? She would be aghast at today's inhuman world which she never could have foreseen, and yet everything she believed led to this place.
Could you please explain your disagreements with my comment with more clarity? I cannot tell from which side you are charging incoherently. Why do you think I am living in fantasyland? Am I too pro-life or too pro-choice? Thank you. Have a good evening.
Stop killing your kids in the womb. This is precisely why you shouldn't have the vote. The first thing you did when free to act politically was to kill your children.
You can't be allowed to live in leqce because you won't let anyone else do the same. You've used nagging and screeching to remake society but make men pay for the consequences. It's not going to last.
Ok, so you're pro choice. My own position is nuanced, or perhaps tortured. If you are doctrinaire pro choice, you are going to have to eventually explain to women, or your gf, that this procedure, while sometimes necessary (and we can discuss why and when, and the answer won't please everybody or anybody) is most decidedly not like "pulling a tooth" - the impossibly stupid analogy from the stupid tv show Maude years ago. It's invasive surgery that women have been convinced by PP they can mostly endure without anesthesia, which right there is physical torture. Then there is the mental torture this woman has endured. She was trying to use the rhythm method (!) and then back it up with abortion if necessary if I'm reading the piece correctly. And it turned out to be harder than expected. Women have been lied to. Be pro choice, keep it legal, but stop lying. Just stop lying.
"Happy ending"? This is sick. It's not a happy ending for the dead child is it? Why didn't you give your baby up? Were you so poor that death was preferable for your bahy?
Your reply is precisely why women shouldn't be trusted. The child is not hypothetical, it's growing inside you. Referring to a child as "a clump of cells" makes my skin crawl - a verruca is a mass of tissue, a foetus is a developing child. You logic would allow babies and toddlers to be killed as well. Do you think your "sisters" feel the same? Many regard you with repugnance as you put yourself before your own child and prefer to kill it rather than give it a chance.
Was your situation such that your child was better off dead? Even if you were incapable lf raising him or her no-one else could have done?
Your statement, "women shouldn't be trusted" brings up a lot of questions. If you mean women do bad things like recklessly get abortions to get rid of pregnancies they might well have been able to prevent, and therefore shouldn't be trusted, then neither should the men who pay for abortions. If you mean women disappointed you by jumping feet first into the sexual revolution, and now 2% of them are, according to Newsweek, on OnlyFans, well I seem to remember guys were real happy about the sexual revolution once upon a time. Probably no one should actually be trusted, tbh. Women have basically been birthing and raising 100% of the people since forever, so if you don't trust them, you're up a creek, dude. If women suck because they do bad stuff and men suck too, who do you trust? A conundrum.
Michael, Pro-life advocates, first, need to turn their focus to reforming the adoption and foster care system, which right now are in shambles, and in no state to take on more children
I feel sorry for you that you can say it was the best thing you ever did. You have no concept of how truly detached you are from yourself. As a woman, your own link to womanhood’s d is to protect your child. To kill it is to kill that part of yourself. It’s not fascism to ban abortion. Abortion actually targets people who are poor. That’s fascism. My parents came from poverty. My dad was 1 of 17 kids. Only one died of sickness, not poverty. My mother also came from poor parents. If they thought like you then I never would’ve been born. More than half the world wouldn’t be here. So only people with money deserve to have a child? Do you see how abortion is fascist? It works to target poor, desperate people. Who typically, after an abortion go out and get pregnant again because of the guilt that they feel. Why is that? Honestly we did a disservice to kids from the 70’s until now. We lied to a generation of young women and empowered them to kill their own child. Absolutely horrible. If people waited until they were finically secure then no one would be born.
The "wrong choice" was made at conception. After that, it's a human life.
You have to keep telling yourself that it was something lesser, in vague ways that wouldn't hold water if applied to any of the human lives that *you* think deserve to life.
Abortion kills innocent humans. Is poverty worse? Is some diversity statistic worse?
PP targets black women because the founder hated blacks; now, maybe it's shifted because blacks are making more bad choices (see the first sentence). Violent crime is another area where they are disproportionately the aggressor. Do you care about that?
If you're in a bad relationship or poor, use 2 methods of birth control together: pill+ condom or any other 2. Planned Parenthood won't tell you this because they are in the abortion business. It's a business. They are practically giving away pills over the counter at CVS here in TN, or you can go to the health department where they are super cheap. IUDs + spermicide or condom, the list is endless. Personally, I don't want any woman to feel this sad, and even if only a few do it's too many. However, I've had several friends who suffered like this.
One of the largest studies about women’s emotions after an abortion finds that most feel relieved and don’t regret their choice, even if they struggled beforehand
Who is saying unmarried pregnant women don't feel relieved after ending an unwanted pregnancy? I certainly would have felt relief. I'm not even talking about regret. What I've seen is deep mourning and sorrow. This is a fundamental bodily function of women that feminism has taught young women to fear and repress. This has happened in my lifetime. Repression never works, though, which is *partly* why there are so many accidents. The other reasons are that birth control is tricky and biology wins in the end. Further edit: I don't even believe that early abortion is murder; I'm just not buying the "clump of cells" business. Yes, it's a clump of cells, destroy it if you must, but it's a part of *you*. When you destroy it, you are like the rabbit locked in a hutch stomping her own babies out of fear and terror (I saw that happen once). Peace and have a good weekend.
Thank you for sharing your experience. As a mother I honor your decision that was made. To experience the depth of postpartum without having to care still for a child alone. I am grateful for the ritual in which you are holding your grief. Using this radical act of magic to heal and put the pieces back together again. Maybe one day the world will destroy all the aspects of which why women aren’t honored, to make the act of having children a worthy endeavor again and worth the risks. But as of today, the stakes are too high, and the risks too great.
You missed the point of her essay which was she didn’t realize she would feel that way because nobody talks about the feelings of sadness and regret that is a possible outcome one of abortion.
But it wasn't really a "loss" was it? I think she articulates very clearly that she chose to terminate her baby's life. She and her boyfriend even quipped a few jokes about it.
It's a very well written and moving essay. But she still killed someone. Just like I did way back in my twenties. It's not only grief that goes out to dinner with her and accompanies her for evening walks; it's Guilt. And, Romy, the guilt will never, ever go away until you confess it to the Only One Who has already done something about it.
This was beautiful, and so many pieces resonated with me.
“I can imagine a parent reading this, scoffing at the suggestion that my weeks spent gestating a little lizard-like embryo could amount to even a shadow of what they’ve experienced, wishing to tell me that parenthood is so much more than I could possibly imagine. My answer: I believe you.
My question: can you imagine standing on the bank of this sacred sea and then walking away?”
I am a new mother to a 5-month-old. I suspect the gap in understanding of what it means to be a parent between someone who’s never conceived and you, between you and me, and between me and someone with a five-year-old, are all massive. It’s not so binary. I remember, especially late in pregnancy, sometimes filling out surveys and it would ask if I was a parent and it felt sort of bizarre to say no? Like this person inside of me that I've never met is also the one I feel most protective over, that I put so much literal energy into, that it would be most tragic to lose. I sure felt like a parent.
Before I was a parent, like you, I walked away from it once a few years ago. As you describe, I really did get a taste for it. Being so close to parenthood made it easier to imagine. Like you, I had wanted kids badly since I was a child, and the possibility was so tempting, so hard to give up.
For me, it was actually the experience of the accidental pregnancy and abortion that made me realize how within reach having children was. Not just that I was fertile (though this was also a thing I joked about at the time), but that even at twenty I could have followed through with it and had a wonderful life, I could have made it work okay. Then with a couple years, I could really set myself up right to start a family, so that’s what I set out to do and I did it. I’m not sure if that specific takeaway was live for you, but the intensity of the experience and the love that you describe actually convey remarkably well why the experience was so life-altering for me, better than I’ve been able to explain before. Thank you :)
I am a parent (4X- oldest being 19) and I did not scoff at your experience of parenthood. I thought “yes, yes that’s it”. So sorry for your loss.♥️❤️🩹
Absolutely incredible and brave of you to dare to put your experience into words and share with the world. Our culture has such disrespect for life and I am sorry for your immense loss.
I had an abortion and didn't experience any of this angst or emotional turmoil. It was a pretty prosaic experience, and honestly, the most important emotional consequence I had from it was a sense of relief that my body was clearly very fertile. (It's easy to start worrying about fertility in your late 20s/early 30s, so honestly I was pretty glad to have the knowledge!)
I'm sorry your experience was so awful, but it's simply not true that conception is this intrinsically important event or that women will automatically have complex feelings about abortion. Since such feelings are clearly not universal, it must be that they are a consequence of social beliefs about abortion, not something intrinsic to the hormones or physical processes involved.
I was moved and have a deep understanding of the author’s perspective and recognize her emotions as absolutely valid. However, the comment section seemingly exploiting these complex emotions to fit a strict pro-life narrative is quite unsettling. People love to get up in arms about the “sacredness” of life but what about the “sacredness” of the responsibility for life? Only the future mother can critically assess her relationships, financial standing, mental state, priorities, and environment well enough to decide if proceeding with the pregnancy is the right option- as it has always been, whether moralists now want to face the reality of abortion existing in all cultures, throughout all of modern human history or not.
As you mentioned, not all women will have any doubts or emotional turmoil after an abortion. Some however will, but that does not inherently make the decision “wrong” in hindsight. Many forget (or neglect to admit) that these same contradictions and senses of grief often arise for women after deciding to have a child as well. As women there always seems to be an inherent moral burden we place on ourselves and if not that society feels more than justified to place for us. What is imperative is that we are the ones to make the decisions in our own lives.
Apologies for standing on a soapbox as a reply to your comment- I really wanted to also engage with your situation as well as the author’s and to invite nuance to the overall rhetoric following this piece.
I completely agree. I routinely forget I ever had an abortion, and the greatest emotion I felt afterward was relief. I experienced more stress over the potential for protesters outside, and more grief over the $1000 bill. I didn't feel any attachment to a 5 week-old fetus and I don't consider an abortion at that point much different from Plan B or even hormonal birth control.
I've always felt like society has built up abortion to be something that is going to affect you so deeply, and accounts like these make me feel pressured to react to something that was, for me, less dramatic than a colonoscopy.
Thanks for this - I feel similarly. I take a matter of fact approach to abortion: if you're a young woman with a healthy sex drive and a working reproductive system, there's a good chance you will need an abortion at some point in your life. It doesn't have to be built up into this intense emotionally fraught experience. For a lot of women, it's just one small part of their reproductive lives.
“ …if you're a young woman with a healthy sex drive and a working reproductive system, there's a good chance you will need an abortion at some point in your life.”
I don’t believe that having an active sex life necessarily makes having an abortion sometimes that “there’s a good chance you will need…”. Birth control is readily available, both permanent and temporary, and is extremely effective when practiced responsibly by both parties. Abortion has become birth control for the lazy and irresponsible.
It is so dispiriting to read the article and the comments. We behave like children who’ve done something naughty but we liked it but we don’t want to like it because we know it was wrong and it made us feel empowered. Women, it turns out, are just as vicious and violent as the most toxic man; just in a different key with a different rhythm, sung to a song of kindness. God have mercy.
Interesting that a “defender” of feminism would completely write off another woman’s experience simply because you did not have the same experience yourself.
Or… you merely provided a shit take in defense of your own closely held ideology. That’s OK, we get it, it’s the Internet. Less generously, your lack of emotion when terminating your pregnancy was more indicative of your emotional sterility. Perhaps feminism as you define it and emotional sterility go hand-in-hand? But since I don’t really know you, I don’t really have the right to judge you that way. Do I?
I'm aware posts like this are bait for pro-lifers, but I think it's important to push back on the idea there's anything intrinsically traumatic to abortion.
Whether you experienced abortion as “intrinsically traumatic” or not, it pretty much categorically is. To consume medication that interrupts your hormones to the point where a pregnancy ends or whether you have your cervix forcibly dilated to remove the contents of one’s uterus is experienced as a trauma by the body, whether your mind registers it as such or not.
Women have had the knowledge of abortion for a very long time now, before our dependence on medical providers. I think women should be able to release a pregnancy if they choose, but to pretend like this is not absolutely devastating to our bodies is not helpful.
Birth control pills are another example of this. Are we so dulled to the workings of our own bodies that we can’t tell that altering our hormonal makeup is profoundly fucking us up?
Do we not understand that forcible dilation of the cervix can cause permanent structural weakness that can make it hard to carry any future pregnancies to term? People just aren’t talking about these things. Abortions have risks that go beyond our current conversation.
Thank you. This is what I thought of...our hormones from natural miscarriage and post-plunge in progesterone are bad enough...add to it 4x the amount needed to expel once, and not a substance our body is accustomed to...no wonder the extreme depression and delusion. I feel extremely awful for women who are not told the risks of any kind of abortion and furious that the medical industry gaslights us and then steals that fetal tissue and sells it to "science."
"Since such feelings are clearly not universal, it must be that they are a consequence of social beliefs about abortion, not something intrinsic to the hormones or physical processes involved." Here's the deal with this... clearly, one's feelings (or lack thereof) about something do not in themselves constitute an argument about the ethics of that thing. You're attempting to argue from the same place that you claim OP is, and OP isn't even making a coherent argument, politically speaking. She's sharing her experience. I also am not getting any sort of vibe one way or the other as to how she'd been "socialized" regarding abortion. If anything, it seems to me to be the complete opposite of what you're suggesting--she seems fine with it to begin with, from a purely moral perspective.
Even if true, this wouldn't disprove my point that such feelings are clearly not universal and therefore must be socially constructed. You can easily go to sites like Shout My Abortion and see that plenty of women have experiences like mine.
But beyond that, I disagree that this is even an unusual experience. The writer's description of her life suggests that she is rather adrift, floating among casual boyfriends, short term jobs, and drugged out parties. It's not at all surprising that a person with a somewhat disorganized life like that would latch onto a powerful patriarchal narrative that tells her her abortion was this incredibly meaningful and important event. From a feminist perspective, this is an unfortunate but predictable consequence of the fact many women are desperate for deeper meaning and purpose in their lives. But it doesn't show anything deeper about the physical process of abortion itself.
Interestingly, biology is not universal. People have different biology. Importantly, people have different genotypes and different phenotypes.
These different genotypes and phenotypes can cause different reactions to pharmaceuticals. This is why, for example, some people don't respond in the ordinary way to abortion pills.
This is also why, for example, people experience different pregnancy symptoms. Believe it or not, morning sickness is not experienced by all pregnant women, and is not socially constructed. Perhaps then you can see why "feelings are clearly not universal and therefore must be socially constructed" is a stupid thing to say.
I'm obviously talking about the author feeling that her conception was an intrinsically important and meaningful event. That's her belief, not a physical symptom with a clear physical cause like nausea is.
It should be obvious that her specific set of genes didn't cause her to develop this set of thoughts about her abortion and its significance, any more than a set of genes would cause someone else to develop a belief in Christianity. These complex psychological beliefs and feelings about abortion are not somehow biologically programmed in some women but not others.
Do you think that sexual attraction is socially constructed, or that it is a feeling present in some people but not in others which is caused by biology? (Or that it is a middle ground and contributed to by both?)
Thank you for your immense courage in writing such a beautiful, heart-wrenching, honest essay. I read it while lying next to my 18-month-old daughter. Should you ever want to become a mother again, I hope you can and do. You will be wonderful. I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through.
“Anti-abortion activists are correct that abortion is terrible, but they are wrong about the frame. Abortion does not exist in the domain of pointed fingers and defendants, but rather that of cancer and wildfires. In a better world abortion would not happen not because it would be criminalized, but because it would be unnecessary. No person should find themselves performing the grim arithmetic of an axe hanging between two lives.”
22 years ago, i was the beneficiary of Australian laws that allowed my then-girlfriend to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. My personal perspective is that the decision we made was simultaneously both right, and fundamentally wrong. That may seem illogical, but whilst i can acknowledge the rank horror and injustice at the idea of terminating an inconvenient life, i’d do exactly the same thing if i had my time again.
To be fair you don’t know me. Those that do would tell you I would’ve been a catastrophically bad dad at 19.
I think what you’re getting at is that we put ourselves first, where we should’ve been more willing to make sacrifices. Maybe there’s something to that. It is clear that the decision would’ve almost certainly led to my ex and i having worse lives.
I wouldn’t have been able to travel and live overseas, have the freedom to go back to uni and change careers in my late 20s, work in a job i like earning good money, and freely choose to start a family with a woman i’m prepared to live the rest of my life with.
Between my ex and I, we now have five happy healthy children, born into our respective stable families. Is it possible that the cancellation of an inconvenient life 25 years ago is more than offset by the creation of five more in far more stable circumstances a few decades later?
Ultimately, i’m pretty confident that a world where people have the right to make the heartbreaking choice to abort a fetus is better than one in which we’re forced to sacrifice our hopes and dreams because we made a mistake.
Men typically are the beneficiary of abortions. Women have been brainwashed to believe it's liberating but all we're doing is denying our nature for the convenience of our baby's father.
The baby's father can find it as convenient as he chooses. He can leave. Single mothers are far more likely to end up in lifelong poverty. Your understanding is oversimplified and romanticized at best.
No. You wanted to make some broad brush comment opposing abortion and didn't even bother to address what I said. This is why people like you never manage to convince anyone -- you don't listen.
I have to confess, I don’t understand this at all. In what sense was this particular abortion necessary, and what could have been done to make it unnecessary? And certainly one does not want to find oneself “performing the grim arithmetic,” etc., etc., but to say no one should find themselves in this position is an inexplicable protest against, what, the free choices of two individuals and resulting biological processes? How does this make any sense?
It was a motte and bailey. They were playing russian roulette with pregnancy - clearly not even using BC and then doing napkin calculations to avoid taking Plan B either. Head-in-the-clouds irresponsibility couched in purple prose.
I find it interesting that of what I have read thus far, none have offered the alternative, the selfless act of giving that life to others who cannot give birth on their own. I am forever grateful to those women who make this difficult decision. While the alternative can be a literal hell, it is a difficult decision, either way with life long ramifications. As a healthcare professional I’ve witnessed a life conceived at an “inconvenient” time, lovingly “given” to couples who have desperately tried for their own. There is no amount of gratitude that can be adequately expressed by these couples and those who care for them when you witness the miracle of a newborn placed in their arms. There also is the other half of the coin, the grief of giving life and then choosing to give that life away. Difficult decisions for sure, each with unimaginable impact.
adoption is an alternative to parenthood, not pregnancy. she can be satisfied with her decision to have and abortion and still reflect on the pain, the same way someone can be satisfied with the choice to end a romantic relationship and still be heartbroken. sometimes, it just isn’t the right time.
if you speak to them, there are many in anti-abortion groups who have seen and felt that "cancer and wildfire" themselves. clumsily, braying and flailing about attempting to protect others from what they were not protected from, what they were lied to about, when their lived experience were viciously silenced for political(or some cad's) "expediency". "wrong about the frame" some sometimes(and some who would exploit it), but many others who are simply inarticulate, distressed, where clear nuanced communication is outlawed and impossible, not many other routes are left for howling and fears of the broken. A time for mending of many broken souls is needed.
Phew. I was unprepared for the way grief would knock me over after my abortion. Totally unprepared. I find myself angry sometimes at the lack of conversation around this reality of abortion. (Also how brutal the abortion physically is, and the hormonal comedown after). I also did not successfully pass my baby the first time, and though I did not have to have a D&C, I did have to walk around with the knowledge that the baby I was so desperately grieving was still dead inside of me until, eventually, it did pass.
That was… 7? Years ago? I have a husband, and a house, a daughter and a bachelors, and half of a masters, a different self. I have a life that would be wholly and completely different if I had kept that baby.
Once the grief passed (and it took over a year, a temporary breakup, an eating disorder relapse etc for that to happen), I do not hold regret because I love my life now and I sit in gratitude for what that baby taught me- how absolutely incredible, primordial and sacred being a mother is. How much we should treasure it. And how nuanced the entire conversation about abortion actually is. My entire life changed when I realized I needed to have a baby, and that I had to rotorooter my entire life and heart to create a space that I felt comfortable welcoming a baby into. So I did. Big and hard medicine that would have been impossible without that pregnancy.
I think you’ll feel better, and one day, maybe, you’ll be able to look back to now with a tender heart, gratitude, and awe at the way your baby shifted and changed you… the way every single child (whether they live to full term or not) inexplicably changes their mother.
Love to you. Thank you for writing the piece I’ve been trying to write for years ❤️
What did your baby teach you about being chosen to die? About being unloved by your own mother? Did he or she teach you anything about the pain of being unjustly killed?
Romy this is so stunningly, harrowingly, beautiful. I'm so, so sorry for your pain. And I so appreciate you putting words to this; it is eerie how little discussion of abortion (and postpartum depression) as anything more than political weaponry exists out there. As usual you have a precise clarity and candor in phrasing things such that they hit particularly close to the heart.
This was the line that struck me the hardest:
> My grief has settled into a shape small enough to carry around the world. It goes out with me to dinner, and seems to like it when we take evening walks around the neighborhood. Sometimes, when I know it won’t cause too much trouble, I take it out and marvel at it. It’s heavier than it looks, the weight of it on my chest enough to knock the breath out of me if I’m not prepared. Many nights, my grief unfurls and wraps its long tendrils around me. I wake sweating and tangled in my blankets, planets still bright in the sky. Soon enough, it will learn to sleep through the night.
Thank you for this incredibly honest piece of writing. This has become such a black and white subject, and I really appreciate the nuance here. This might be one of the best things I've ever read.
While I've never had an abortion, I have assisted women to terminate their pregnancies, usually due to fetal anomalies through my role in healthcare. Like you, I had a somewhat abstract, even flippant view of abortion prior to my exposure to it. The tactile and visual reality of it, the helping families wade through their unimaginable grief and then giving birth to my own 2 kids has brought me to a completely different view of it. It's all so heavy. I dont even know how else to describe it, so thank you again for putting this together. It was beautifully articulate. I'm sorry you were faced with this decision. You were/are absolutely a mother and you always will be.
Thank you for expressing the horror of abortion. I disagree with your view about the legality of this practice. Almost every abortion is elective. There are hardly any abortions that are the result of rape. There are no medically necessary abortions. There may be the need for early delivery which the child may not survive, but there isn’t any need to purposely kill the child. Abortion is a tragedy for both mother & child. The best thing you did in this article is acknowledge that a woman is a mother from conception of the child. I feel great sadness for you because you were not told the truth about how ending the life of your child would impact you forever.
Have you read about the women with non-viable pregnancies who have died or nearly died because doctors were afraid to treat them until they were at death’s door?
Women are who died due to lack of abortion access (after miscarriage)
These cases were not due to anything other than medical negligence made political by pro-abortion activists. In each and every ‘abortion ban’ there are clear exceptions for miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and life of the mother.
The “life” of the mother language is the problem, instead of the **health** of the mother. How close does a woman need to be to death to be treated? Women are sent away because they aren’t close enough to death, and suffer immensely or die.
There is *no* expectation or phrasing that says the woman must be close to death. The phrasing is also probably ‘health’ and not life as I used. The exact phrasing is “A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that a medical emergency exists”…”A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that the pregnancy is medically futile.” There are even protections for medical professionals: doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants, pharmacist provides care that accidentally results in the death of the unborn child. This same protection is given to the woman if she “reasonably believed that an abortion was the only way to prevent a medical emergency.”
These are quotes from Georgia HB 481 (that was in place in 2021), but similar sections are present in the Texas bill. Contrary to belief, “medical emergency” does not require the woman to literally be near death. No physician worth his license should have that as their “reasonable medical judgment“. Although I do not live in Georgia or Texas, I live in a state with similar abortion restrictions. Yet, I had absolutely no trouble receiving care for my 4 miscarriages. In fact, I had to restrain my doctor from performing a D&C while one of my babies still had a heartbeat (weak and much slower than normal)…despite having a similar heartbeat law. Any doctor claiming inability to treat women for medical emergencies during her pregnancy is guilty of medical negligence and/or malpractice.
Erika, I’m sorry for your losses, that must be really difficult. Perhaps you are right about those deaths being politicized. They did happen though, and another view is that light was being shed on them. You say pro-abortion, I say pro-choice and pro women’s health. I had other things to write, but thank you for your viewpoint as it did make me stop 🛑 and think more. I’m glad you got good care (except for that pushy doctor).
This may be the finest piece of writing I’ve ever read. I was once as you describe, impish and flippant with a capacity for the sacred, recast by a latticework of grief upon a pyre
Deeply moved to tears by the words you’ve chosen to capture a harrowing experience - I had an abortion at 20 and it sent me into a decade of depression, suicidal thoughts and drug abuse. I’m so sick of people defending something they have never experienced. I wouldn’t wish the aftermath of abortion on my worst enemy.
Please name your baby - you will never go a day without thinking of that precious soul - it helps with healing to honor them with a name ❤️🩹
I wept for you and your baby. I’m so sorry you went through this. I don’t think we should be allowed to do this to ourselves and our children. I rage against a world and society that makes it easier to give death than to give life.
Yet when men say we want to ban abortion you call us fascists and cut us off
Many women, especially educated, upper middle class women, have been propagandized heavily to hate the very idea of motherhood.
Yes, it's barbaric really
My own grandmother was a devout Protestant Christian, but also a suffragette and firm believer in birth control. She was sure all would be well if only women could limit their children to one or maybe two. She married and had just her daughter. My grandmother never knew her own paternal grandmother, who had died in 1866 at age 33 giving birth to her 8th child, when my grandmother's father was only five. He became a doctor because of that experience. She also told me the heart wrenching story of the black washerwoman in her hometown (already mother of eight, the woman made a precarious living during the Depression by going from house to house doing laundry in the back yard wringer washer) who had died after an illegal abortion in the 1930's. My grandmother sympathized with her completely. So reasonable, yes? She would be aghast at today's inhuman world which she never could have foreseen, and yet everything she believed led to this place.
Can you send me the directions to fantasyland? I’ve always wondered how it is there and you seem to be so deep, you have to know the way right?
Could you please explain your disagreements with my comment with more clarity? I cannot tell from which side you are charging incoherently. Why do you think I am living in fantasyland? Am I too pro-life or too pro-choice? Thank you. Have a good evening.
Dude just get a vasectomy and let us live in peace ✌🏾
Stop killing your kids in the womb. This is precisely why you shouldn't have the vote. The first thing you did when free to act politically was to kill your children.
You can't be allowed to live in leqce because you won't let anyone else do the same. You've used nagging and screeching to remake society but make men pay for the consequences. It's not going to last.
Only a man can make abortion about men 🤣🤣🤣🤣 have a wank
50% of the DNA is ours, only a woman could ignore a man's contribution
Woah woah there little man, no need to get hysterical. I think you need to calm down a little bit, just try smiling luv
Ger yer tits oot... Maybe not
I'd ask you to get your tits out but I'll bet they're minging
I eat losers like you for breakfast Michael Danbury, you’re only making yourself look more and more stupid on the internet. keep it coming 🤣🤣
Banning abortion is anti American
Ok, so you're pro choice. My own position is nuanced, or perhaps tortured. If you are doctrinaire pro choice, you are going to have to eventually explain to women, or your gf, that this procedure, while sometimes necessary (and we can discuss why and when, and the answer won't please everybody or anybody) is most decidedly not like "pulling a tooth" - the impossibly stupid analogy from the stupid tv show Maude years ago. It's invasive surgery that women have been convinced by PP they can mostly endure without anesthesia, which right there is physical torture. Then there is the mental torture this woman has endured. She was trying to use the rhythm method (!) and then back it up with abortion if necessary if I'm reading the piece correctly. And it turned out to be harder than expected. Women have been lied to. Be pro choice, keep it legal, but stop lying. Just stop lying.
Well, yeah, but that's because you ARE fascists who need to be cut off. That's pretty damn obvious. This comment will be deleted by a fascist.
"Happy ending"? This is sick. It's not a happy ending for the dead child is it? Why didn't you give your baby up? Were you so poor that death was preferable for your bahy?
Your reply is precisely why women shouldn't be trusted. The child is not hypothetical, it's growing inside you. Referring to a child as "a clump of cells" makes my skin crawl - a verruca is a mass of tissue, a foetus is a developing child. You logic would allow babies and toddlers to be killed as well. Do you think your "sisters" feel the same? Many regard you with repugnance as you put yourself before your own child and prefer to kill it rather than give it a chance.
Was your situation such that your child was better off dead? Even if you were incapable lf raising him or her no-one else could have done?
Your statement, "women shouldn't be trusted" brings up a lot of questions. If you mean women do bad things like recklessly get abortions to get rid of pregnancies they might well have been able to prevent, and therefore shouldn't be trusted, then neither should the men who pay for abortions. If you mean women disappointed you by jumping feet first into the sexual revolution, and now 2% of them are, according to Newsweek, on OnlyFans, well I seem to remember guys were real happy about the sexual revolution once upon a time. Probably no one should actually be trusted, tbh. Women have basically been birthing and raising 100% of the people since forever, so if you don't trust them, you're up a creek, dude. If women suck because they do bad stuff and men suck too, who do you trust? A conundrum.
Michael, Pro-life advocates, first, need to turn their focus to reforming the adoption and foster care system, which right now are in shambles, and in no state to take on more children
It's almost like we've completely disconnected sex from babies. Hmmmm
I feel sorry for you that you can say it was the best thing you ever did. You have no concept of how truly detached you are from yourself. As a woman, your own link to womanhood’s d is to protect your child. To kill it is to kill that part of yourself. It’s not fascism to ban abortion. Abortion actually targets people who are poor. That’s fascism. My parents came from poverty. My dad was 1 of 17 kids. Only one died of sickness, not poverty. My mother also came from poor parents. If they thought like you then I never would’ve been born. More than half the world wouldn’t be here. So only people with money deserve to have a child? Do you see how abortion is fascist? It works to target poor, desperate people. Who typically, after an abortion go out and get pregnant again because of the guilt that they feel. Why is that? Honestly we did a disservice to kids from the 70’s until now. We lied to a generation of young women and empowered them to kill their own child. Absolutely horrible. If people waited until they were finically secure then no one would be born.
The "wrong choice" was made at conception. After that, it's a human life.
You have to keep telling yourself that it was something lesser, in vague ways that wouldn't hold water if applied to any of the human lives that *you* think deserve to life.
Abortion kills innocent humans. Is poverty worse? Is some diversity statistic worse?
PP targets black women because the founder hated blacks; now, maybe it's shifted because blacks are making more bad choices (see the first sentence). Violent crime is another area where they are disproportionately the aggressor. Do you care about that?
> choice and autonomy
Not for the babies, of course.
If you're in a bad relationship or poor, use 2 methods of birth control together: pill+ condom or any other 2. Planned Parenthood won't tell you this because they are in the abortion business. It's a business. They are practically giving away pills over the counter at CVS here in TN, or you can go to the health department where they are super cheap. IUDs + spermicide or condom, the list is endless. Personally, I don't want any woman to feel this sad, and even if only a few do it's too many. However, I've had several friends who suffered like this.
One of the largest studies about women’s emotions after an abortion finds that most feel relieved and don’t regret their choice, even if they struggled beforehand
Who is saying unmarried pregnant women don't feel relieved after ending an unwanted pregnancy? I certainly would have felt relief. I'm not even talking about regret. What I've seen is deep mourning and sorrow. This is a fundamental bodily function of women that feminism has taught young women to fear and repress. This has happened in my lifetime. Repression never works, though, which is *partly* why there are so many accidents. The other reasons are that birth control is tricky and biology wins in the end. Further edit: I don't even believe that early abortion is murder; I'm just not buying the "clump of cells" business. Yes, it's a clump of cells, destroy it if you must, but it's a part of *you*. When you destroy it, you are like the rabbit locked in a hutch stomping her own babies out of fear and terror (I saw that happen once). Peace and have a good weekend.
I see, I think I kinda got the wrong idea on what you were saying! Thanks for keeping it civil, have a good weekend :)
Thank you for sharing your experience. As a mother I honor your decision that was made. To experience the depth of postpartum without having to care still for a child alone. I am grateful for the ritual in which you are holding your grief. Using this radical act of magic to heal and put the pieces back together again. Maybe one day the world will destroy all the aspects of which why women aren’t honored, to make the act of having children a worthy endeavor again and worth the risks. But as of today, the stakes are too high, and the risks too great.
I've had an abortion and it was the best choice I ever made. If you feel that way don't have one.
You missed the point of her essay which was she didn’t realize she would feel that way because nobody talks about the feelings of sadness and regret that is a possible outcome one of abortion.
I'm responding to the comment saying women shouldn't be allowed to have abortions. Not the essay as a whole. Check the thread lines.
Yes to all of your thoughts.
really moving, extremely well articulated, i didnt realize it was possible to empathize this much through text on a screen
i'm sorry for your loss
But it wasn't really a "loss" was it? I think she articulates very clearly that she chose to terminate her baby's life. She and her boyfriend even quipped a few jokes about it.
It's a very well written and moving essay. But she still killed someone. Just like I did way back in my twenties. It's not only grief that goes out to dinner with her and accompanies her for evening walks; it's Guilt. And, Romy, the guilt will never, ever go away until you confess it to the Only One Who has already done something about it.
This was beautiful, and so many pieces resonated with me.
“I can imagine a parent reading this, scoffing at the suggestion that my weeks spent gestating a little lizard-like embryo could amount to even a shadow of what they’ve experienced, wishing to tell me that parenthood is so much more than I could possibly imagine. My answer: I believe you.
My question: can you imagine standing on the bank of this sacred sea and then walking away?”
I am a new mother to a 5-month-old. I suspect the gap in understanding of what it means to be a parent between someone who’s never conceived and you, between you and me, and between me and someone with a five-year-old, are all massive. It’s not so binary. I remember, especially late in pregnancy, sometimes filling out surveys and it would ask if I was a parent and it felt sort of bizarre to say no? Like this person inside of me that I've never met is also the one I feel most protective over, that I put so much literal energy into, that it would be most tragic to lose. I sure felt like a parent.
Before I was a parent, like you, I walked away from it once a few years ago. As you describe, I really did get a taste for it. Being so close to parenthood made it easier to imagine. Like you, I had wanted kids badly since I was a child, and the possibility was so tempting, so hard to give up.
For me, it was actually the experience of the accidental pregnancy and abortion that made me realize how within reach having children was. Not just that I was fertile (though this was also a thing I joked about at the time), but that even at twenty I could have followed through with it and had a wonderful life, I could have made it work okay. Then with a couple years, I could really set myself up right to start a family, so that’s what I set out to do and I did it. I’m not sure if that specific takeaway was live for you, but the intensity of the experience and the love that you describe actually convey remarkably well why the experience was so life-altering for me, better than I’ve been able to explain before. Thank you :)
I am a parent (4X- oldest being 19) and I did not scoff at your experience of parenthood. I thought “yes, yes that’s it”. So sorry for your loss.♥️❤️🩹
I am a pro-lifer, I have lots of things to say, but I will stick to thanking you for your honesty and heartfelt writing style.
then why say anything at all?
Because of the free speech thing, maybe? BH had as much right to post as you did.
‘Thank you!’ we all say in unison
Absolutely incredible and brave of you to dare to put your experience into words and share with the world. Our culture has such disrespect for life and I am sorry for your immense loss.
I had an abortion and didn't experience any of this angst or emotional turmoil. It was a pretty prosaic experience, and honestly, the most important emotional consequence I had from it was a sense of relief that my body was clearly very fertile. (It's easy to start worrying about fertility in your late 20s/early 30s, so honestly I was pretty glad to have the knowledge!)
I'm sorry your experience was so awful, but it's simply not true that conception is this intrinsically important event or that women will automatically have complex feelings about abortion. Since such feelings are clearly not universal, it must be that they are a consequence of social beliefs about abortion, not something intrinsic to the hormones or physical processes involved.
I was moved and have a deep understanding of the author’s perspective and recognize her emotions as absolutely valid. However, the comment section seemingly exploiting these complex emotions to fit a strict pro-life narrative is quite unsettling. People love to get up in arms about the “sacredness” of life but what about the “sacredness” of the responsibility for life? Only the future mother can critically assess her relationships, financial standing, mental state, priorities, and environment well enough to decide if proceeding with the pregnancy is the right option- as it has always been, whether moralists now want to face the reality of abortion existing in all cultures, throughout all of modern human history or not.
As you mentioned, not all women will have any doubts or emotional turmoil after an abortion. Some however will, but that does not inherently make the decision “wrong” in hindsight. Many forget (or neglect to admit) that these same contradictions and senses of grief often arise for women after deciding to have a child as well. As women there always seems to be an inherent moral burden we place on ourselves and if not that society feels more than justified to place for us. What is imperative is that we are the ones to make the decisions in our own lives.
Apologies for standing on a soapbox as a reply to your comment- I really wanted to also engage with your situation as well as the author’s and to invite nuance to the overall rhetoric following this piece.
Not to be weird but I really
like your comment
I completely agree. I routinely forget I ever had an abortion, and the greatest emotion I felt afterward was relief. I experienced more stress over the potential for protesters outside, and more grief over the $1000 bill. I didn't feel any attachment to a 5 week-old fetus and I don't consider an abortion at that point much different from Plan B or even hormonal birth control.
I've always felt like society has built up abortion to be something that is going to affect you so deeply, and accounts like these make me feel pressured to react to something that was, for me, less dramatic than a colonoscopy.
Thanks for this - I feel similarly. I take a matter of fact approach to abortion: if you're a young woman with a healthy sex drive and a working reproductive system, there's a good chance you will need an abortion at some point in your life. It doesn't have to be built up into this intense emotionally fraught experience. For a lot of women, it's just one small part of their reproductive lives.
“ …if you're a young woman with a healthy sex drive and a working reproductive system, there's a good chance you will need an abortion at some point in your life.”
I don’t believe that having an active sex life necessarily makes having an abortion sometimes that “there’s a good chance you will need…”. Birth control is readily available, both permanent and temporary, and is extremely effective when practiced responsibly by both parties. Abortion has become birth control for the lazy and irresponsible.
It is so dispiriting to read the article and the comments. We behave like children who’ve done something naughty but we liked it but we don’t want to like it because we know it was wrong and it made us feel empowered. Women, it turns out, are just as vicious and violent as the most toxic man; just in a different key with a different rhythm, sung to a song of kindness. God have mercy.
Sorry we don't get emotional in the way you'd prefer us to, Graham.
Interesting that a “defender” of feminism would completely write off another woman’s experience simply because you did not have the same experience yourself.
I did not write off her experience. I merely pointed out that her claim her feelings are intrinsic to the process is false.
Or… you merely provided a shit take in defense of your own closely held ideology. That’s OK, we get it, it’s the Internet. Less generously, your lack of emotion when terminating your pregnancy was more indicative of your emotional sterility. Perhaps feminism as you define it and emotional sterility go hand-in-hand? But since I don’t really know you, I don’t really have the right to judge you that way. Do I?
Or perhaps the conditioning of social beliefs is what causes others to not have these feelings and reactions. Something to think about.
This is such a weird comment. Read the room.
I'm aware posts like this are bait for pro-lifers, but I think it's important to push back on the idea there's anything intrinsically traumatic to abortion.
Whether you experienced abortion as “intrinsically traumatic” or not, it pretty much categorically is. To consume medication that interrupts your hormones to the point where a pregnancy ends or whether you have your cervix forcibly dilated to remove the contents of one’s uterus is experienced as a trauma by the body, whether your mind registers it as such or not.
Women have had the knowledge of abortion for a very long time now, before our dependence on medical providers. I think women should be able to release a pregnancy if they choose, but to pretend like this is not absolutely devastating to our bodies is not helpful.
Birth control pills are another example of this. Are we so dulled to the workings of our own bodies that we can’t tell that altering our hormonal makeup is profoundly fucking us up?
Do we not understand that forcible dilation of the cervix can cause permanent structural weakness that can make it hard to carry any future pregnancies to term? People just aren’t talking about these things. Abortions have risks that go beyond our current conversation.
Thank you. This is what I thought of...our hormones from natural miscarriage and post-plunge in progesterone are bad enough...add to it 4x the amount needed to expel once, and not a substance our body is accustomed to...no wonder the extreme depression and delusion. I feel extremely awful for women who are not told the risks of any kind of abortion and furious that the medical industry gaslights us and then steals that fetal tissue and sells it to "science."
"Since such feelings are clearly not universal, it must be that they are a consequence of social beliefs about abortion, not something intrinsic to the hormones or physical processes involved." Here's the deal with this... clearly, one's feelings (or lack thereof) about something do not in themselves constitute an argument about the ethics of that thing. You're attempting to argue from the same place that you claim OP is, and OP isn't even making a coherent argument, politically speaking. She's sharing her experience. I also am not getting any sort of vibe one way or the other as to how she'd been "socialized" regarding abortion. If anything, it seems to me to be the complete opposite of what you're suggesting--she seems fine with it to begin with, from a purely moral perspective.
Even if true, this wouldn't disprove my point that such feelings are clearly not universal and therefore must be socially constructed. You can easily go to sites like Shout My Abortion and see that plenty of women have experiences like mine.
But beyond that, I disagree that this is even an unusual experience. The writer's description of her life suggests that she is rather adrift, floating among casual boyfriends, short term jobs, and drugged out parties. It's not at all surprising that a person with a somewhat disorganized life like that would latch onto a powerful patriarchal narrative that tells her her abortion was this incredibly meaningful and important event. From a feminist perspective, this is an unfortunate but predictable consequence of the fact many women are desperate for deeper meaning and purpose in their lives. But it doesn't show anything deeper about the physical process of abortion itself.
Interestingly, biology is not universal. People have different biology. Importantly, people have different genotypes and different phenotypes.
These different genotypes and phenotypes can cause different reactions to pharmaceuticals. This is why, for example, some people don't respond in the ordinary way to abortion pills.
This is also why, for example, people experience different pregnancy symptoms. Believe it or not, morning sickness is not experienced by all pregnant women, and is not socially constructed. Perhaps then you can see why "feelings are clearly not universal and therefore must be socially constructed" is a stupid thing to say.
I'm obviously talking about the author feeling that her conception was an intrinsically important and meaningful event. That's her belief, not a physical symptom with a clear physical cause like nausea is.
It should be obvious that her specific set of genes didn't cause her to develop this set of thoughts about her abortion and its significance, any more than a set of genes would cause someone else to develop a belief in Christianity. These complex psychological beliefs and feelings about abortion are not somehow biologically programmed in some women but not others.
Do you think that sexual attraction is socially constructed, or that it is a feeling present in some people but not in others which is caused by biology? (Or that it is a middle ground and contributed to by both?)
Are you suggesting that sexual attraction is a belief in the way belief in God is?
Thank you for your immense courage in writing such a beautiful, heart-wrenching, honest essay. I read it while lying next to my 18-month-old daughter. Should you ever want to become a mother again, I hope you can and do. You will be wonderful. I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through.
You nailed it with this:
“Anti-abortion activists are correct that abortion is terrible, but they are wrong about the frame. Abortion does not exist in the domain of pointed fingers and defendants, but rather that of cancer and wildfires. In a better world abortion would not happen not because it would be criminalized, but because it would be unnecessary. No person should find themselves performing the grim arithmetic of an axe hanging between two lives.”
22 years ago, i was the beneficiary of Australian laws that allowed my then-girlfriend to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. My personal perspective is that the decision we made was simultaneously both right, and fundamentally wrong. That may seem illogical, but whilst i can acknowledge the rank horror and injustice at the idea of terminating an inconvenient life, i’d do exactly the same thing if i had my time again.
Good luck with the future.
Maybe like millions of other young parents all around the world, you'd have done just fine and had a happy child.
Maybe
Definitely. You're not a psycho or a retard. You are conscientious. That and avoiding catastrophically bad luck is all it takes.
To be fair you don’t know me. Those that do would tell you I would’ve been a catastrophically bad dad at 19.
I think what you’re getting at is that we put ourselves first, where we should’ve been more willing to make sacrifices. Maybe there’s something to that. It is clear that the decision would’ve almost certainly led to my ex and i having worse lives.
I wouldn’t have been able to travel and live overseas, have the freedom to go back to uni and change careers in my late 20s, work in a job i like earning good money, and freely choose to start a family with a woman i’m prepared to live the rest of my life with.
Between my ex and I, we now have five happy healthy children, born into our respective stable families. Is it possible that the cancellation of an inconvenient life 25 years ago is more than offset by the creation of five more in far more stable circumstances a few decades later?
Ultimately, i’m pretty confident that a world where people have the right to make the heartbreaking choice to abort a fetus is better than one in which we’re forced to sacrifice our hopes and dreams because we made a mistake.
“Fetus.”
Ah, like you once were, James?
And all of your other children you let live?
Dehumanizing your first preborn son or daughter, but why?
Men typically are the beneficiary of abortions. Women have been brainwashed to believe it's liberating but all we're doing is denying our nature for the convenience of our baby's father.
The baby's father can find it as convenient as he chooses. He can leave. Single mothers are far more likely to end up in lifelong poverty. Your understanding is oversimplified and romanticized at best.
Thank you for your understanding. Don’t forget to flush!
If you can’t make it out of the womb alive, nothing else matters.
This is in no way responsive to my comment.
Actually it is.
No. You wanted to make some broad brush comment opposing abortion and didn't even bother to address what I said. This is why people like you never manage to convince anyone -- you don't listen.
This is a naive take. Having a child is a huge responsibility. There's nothing liberating about it.
this is so ignorant and dismissive of women that have been reproductive slaves
I'm sorry I can't help you find meaning in life by arguing with strangers online. Good luck though!
I have to confess, I don’t understand this at all. In what sense was this particular abortion necessary, and what could have been done to make it unnecessary? And certainly one does not want to find oneself “performing the grim arithmetic,” etc., etc., but to say no one should find themselves in this position is an inexplicable protest against, what, the free choices of two individuals and resulting biological processes? How does this make any sense?
It was a motte and bailey. They were playing russian roulette with pregnancy - clearly not even using BC and then doing napkin calculations to avoid taking Plan B either. Head-in-the-clouds irresponsibility couched in purple prose.
I find it interesting that of what I have read thus far, none have offered the alternative, the selfless act of giving that life to others who cannot give birth on their own. I am forever grateful to those women who make this difficult decision. While the alternative can be a literal hell, it is a difficult decision, either way with life long ramifications. As a healthcare professional I’ve witnessed a life conceived at an “inconvenient” time, lovingly “given” to couples who have desperately tried for their own. There is no amount of gratitude that can be adequately expressed by these couples and those who care for them when you witness the miracle of a newborn placed in their arms. There also is the other half of the coin, the grief of giving life and then choosing to give that life away. Difficult decisions for sure, each with unimaginable impact.
adoption is an alternative to parenthood, not pregnancy. she can be satisfied with her decision to have and abortion and still reflect on the pain, the same way someone can be satisfied with the choice to end a romantic relationship and still be heartbroken. sometimes, it just isn’t the right time.
Cancer and wildfires? No. No. No.
if you speak to them, there are many in anti-abortion groups who have seen and felt that "cancer and wildfire" themselves. clumsily, braying and flailing about attempting to protect others from what they were not protected from, what they were lied to about, when their lived experience were viciously silenced for political(or some cad's) "expediency". "wrong about the frame" some sometimes(and some who would exploit it), but many others who are simply inarticulate, distressed, where clear nuanced communication is outlawed and impossible, not many other routes are left for howling and fears of the broken. A time for mending of many broken souls is needed.
very nice, and very true
Phew. I was unprepared for the way grief would knock me over after my abortion. Totally unprepared. I find myself angry sometimes at the lack of conversation around this reality of abortion. (Also how brutal the abortion physically is, and the hormonal comedown after). I also did not successfully pass my baby the first time, and though I did not have to have a D&C, I did have to walk around with the knowledge that the baby I was so desperately grieving was still dead inside of me until, eventually, it did pass.
That was… 7? Years ago? I have a husband, and a house, a daughter and a bachelors, and half of a masters, a different self. I have a life that would be wholly and completely different if I had kept that baby.
Once the grief passed (and it took over a year, a temporary breakup, an eating disorder relapse etc for that to happen), I do not hold regret because I love my life now and I sit in gratitude for what that baby taught me- how absolutely incredible, primordial and sacred being a mother is. How much we should treasure it. And how nuanced the entire conversation about abortion actually is. My entire life changed when I realized I needed to have a baby, and that I had to rotorooter my entire life and heart to create a space that I felt comfortable welcoming a baby into. So I did. Big and hard medicine that would have been impossible without that pregnancy.
I think you’ll feel better, and one day, maybe, you’ll be able to look back to now with a tender heart, gratitude, and awe at the way your baby shifted and changed you… the way every single child (whether they live to full term or not) inexplicably changes their mother.
Love to you. Thank you for writing the piece I’ve been trying to write for years ❤️
What did your baby teach you about being chosen to die? About being unloved by your own mother? Did he or she teach you anything about the pain of being unjustly killed?
Hello?
Romy this is so stunningly, harrowingly, beautiful. I'm so, so sorry for your pain. And I so appreciate you putting words to this; it is eerie how little discussion of abortion (and postpartum depression) as anything more than political weaponry exists out there. As usual you have a precise clarity and candor in phrasing things such that they hit particularly close to the heart.
This was the line that struck me the hardest:
> My grief has settled into a shape small enough to carry around the world. It goes out with me to dinner, and seems to like it when we take evening walks around the neighborhood. Sometimes, when I know it won’t cause too much trouble, I take it out and marvel at it. It’s heavier than it looks, the weight of it on my chest enough to knock the breath out of me if I’m not prepared. Many nights, my grief unfurls and wraps its long tendrils around me. I wake sweating and tangled in my blankets, planets still bright in the sky. Soon enough, it will learn to sleep through the night.
Thank you for this incredibly honest piece of writing. This has become such a black and white subject, and I really appreciate the nuance here. This might be one of the best things I've ever read.
While I've never had an abortion, I have assisted women to terminate their pregnancies, usually due to fetal anomalies through my role in healthcare. Like you, I had a somewhat abstract, even flippant view of abortion prior to my exposure to it. The tactile and visual reality of it, the helping families wade through their unimaginable grief and then giving birth to my own 2 kids has brought me to a completely different view of it. It's all so heavy. I dont even know how else to describe it, so thank you again for putting this together. It was beautifully articulate. I'm sorry you were faced with this decision. You were/are absolutely a mother and you always will be.
Thank you for expressing the horror of abortion. I disagree with your view about the legality of this practice. Almost every abortion is elective. There are hardly any abortions that are the result of rape. There are no medically necessary abortions. There may be the need for early delivery which the child may not survive, but there isn’t any need to purposely kill the child. Abortion is a tragedy for both mother & child. The best thing you did in this article is acknowledge that a woman is a mother from conception of the child. I feel great sadness for you because you were not told the truth about how ending the life of your child would impact you forever.
Have you read about the women with non-viable pregnancies who have died or nearly died because doctors were afraid to treat them until they were at death’s door?
Women are who died due to lack of abortion access (after miscarriage)
J. Barnica, 2021 Texas
Nevaeh Crain, 2023 Texas
Amber Thurman, 2022 Georgia
These cases were not due to anything other than medical negligence made political by pro-abortion activists. In each and every ‘abortion ban’ there are clear exceptions for miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and life of the mother.
The “life” of the mother language is the problem, instead of the **health** of the mother. How close does a woman need to be to death to be treated? Women are sent away because they aren’t close enough to death, and suffer immensely or die.
There is *no* expectation or phrasing that says the woman must be close to death. The phrasing is also probably ‘health’ and not life as I used. The exact phrasing is “A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that a medical emergency exists”…”A physician determines, in reasonable medical judgment, that the pregnancy is medically futile.” There are even protections for medical professionals: doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants, pharmacist provides care that accidentally results in the death of the unborn child. This same protection is given to the woman if she “reasonably believed that an abortion was the only way to prevent a medical emergency.”
These are quotes from Georgia HB 481 (that was in place in 2021), but similar sections are present in the Texas bill. Contrary to belief, “medical emergency” does not require the woman to literally be near death. No physician worth his license should have that as their “reasonable medical judgment“. Although I do not live in Georgia or Texas, I live in a state with similar abortion restrictions. Yet, I had absolutely no trouble receiving care for my 4 miscarriages. In fact, I had to restrain my doctor from performing a D&C while one of my babies still had a heartbeat (weak and much slower than normal)…despite having a similar heartbeat law. Any doctor claiming inability to treat women for medical emergencies during her pregnancy is guilty of medical negligence and/or malpractice.
Erika, I’m sorry for your losses, that must be really difficult. Perhaps you are right about those deaths being politicized. They did happen though, and another view is that light was being shed on them. You say pro-abortion, I say pro-choice and pro women’s health. I had other things to write, but thank you for your viewpoint as it did make me stop 🛑 and think more. I’m glad you got good care (except for that pushy doctor).
Thank you for your brutal, naked honesty. This essay is going to stick with me for a long time. I am so sorry for your loss.
This may be the finest piece of writing I’ve ever read. I was once as you describe, impish and flippant with a capacity for the sacred, recast by a latticework of grief upon a pyre
Deeply moved to tears by the words you’ve chosen to capture a harrowing experience - I had an abortion at 20 and it sent me into a decade of depression, suicidal thoughts and drug abuse. I’m so sick of people defending something they have never experienced. I wouldn’t wish the aftermath of abortion on my worst enemy.
Please name your baby - you will never go a day without thinking of that precious soul - it helps with healing to honor them with a name ❤️🩹