Sex Selection

Are there ever times you feel a little – uncomfortable – with a woman’s reason for having an abortion? We’re not all Saints of Non-judgment, though some of us may strive to be. (Err…maybe some of us don’t…)

Last week, a recent immigrant from an Asian country (I won’t say which) came to our clinic for an abortion. I was the abortion counselor that day. She was in her second trimester and wanted to know if we could figure out the sex of the fetus. This isn’t a completely strange question, but I don’t get asked that often.

Because she was less than 18 weeks and because we don’t perform diagnostic ultrasounds, I explained we wouldn’t be able to identify the sex. I let her know that usually diagnostic ultrasounds to determine the sex are done between 18-22 weeks and that if she had a physician/midwife, she could schedule an ultrasound with them at that time (as it is standard practice).

She wasn’t willing to wait at least another month to have an abortion. You know the drill: she’d have to travel out of state; the cost would be much higher; she’d have to spend time away from home; someone would have to watch her small daughter while she left the area (and explain why she needed a babysitter); and her husband would have to get a lot of time off work.

We don’t ask patients why they want to have an abortion. Really, it’s none of our business. Still, lots of women offer their reasons when we ask if they’re sure of their decision, if they have support, etc.

The woman from last week calmly offered she didn’t want to have a girl.

Look, I’m about as pro-choice as they come. As long as it is a patient’s own decision to have an abortion, I’m cool with it regardless of the circumstances or gestation. I’ll admit though, it took me a slight second to register what the patient was telling me. My brain hitched.

I nodded at her and she explained herself, though she didn’t owe me any explanation at all.

In her country (like in many), girls do not have as many opportunities as boys and are considered a burden. She and her family plan to go back to their country soon and they wouldn’t be able to afford another girl (it costs a lot of money to have girls marry/dowries).

There’s been some national controversy about this (like, in May); even the pro-choicers didn’t want to really talk about sex selection abortion occurring. The reality is, though: it does. It’s not very common in our country, and I’ve never heard anyone – except someone who is from an Asian country – even mention it, at work. And I’ve been doing abortion work a long time.

The concept seems very foreign to us; but, is it really? Globally, there is underlying sexism that drives the devaluation of women. It happens here, too. Please, how many people have raised their hands saying women in this country don’t deserve to be paid equally to men? (Rolling eyes.)

It was a good reminder for me that we’re here to support women, in whatever it is they want, and trust that they know what they need for themselves, even if we may not understand it. We don’t need to understand. We just need to be there.

Hey! Don't I Recognize You? Oh! You're One of Our Protesters!

In my last blog post, I discussed how I outted myself as an abortioneer to a friend. I also mentioned that one of my hints to her that I do abortion work was that I had asked her to find out if guests at a recent dinner party we both attended could be uber pro-life…

…That dinner party was loads of fun, but there was an older couple who looked an awful lot like infrequent Catholic protesters at our clinic. During the dinner, I just couldn’t figure out if they were protesters or not. I searched for hints on whether they were politically conservative. No one mentioned politics. I heard a whisper of “Planned Parenthood” once, but didn’t catch what was said and this only heightened my paranoia. I kept wondering if they thought I, too, looked familiar and whether they would out me to the host of the party (whom I hadn’t told about my abortion clinic work). Conflicted, the only things I could surmise were that they were educated, well travelled, soft spoken, unassuming, and very, very, very nice. I kept playing out in my head a scenario where I would see them the following week outside the building, not knowing whether to quickly duck into the clinic, hoping they wouldn’t see me, or wave and say, “Hey! Hi! How are you? What a great dinner party that was last week, huh? It was lovely to meet you.” In this scenario, I could actually imagine this couple shaking my hand and have a friendly little chat about the dinner, how things are getting on, etc. Part of me wondered: is it possible to be friendly and admire to some extent people who would actually protest at the clinic? Could I really be enjoying these people, liking them, and wanting to continue to hear their stories…even if they protested my clinic?

It was a mind fuck, let me tell you. It would be a better story if my friend confirmed to me that they were, yes, in fact quite conservative and frequently attended pro-life gatherings. The story doesn’t end that way: I was told they were super liberal and would never protest a clinic. I apologize if my story is now a bit anti-climatic, but still, I think it’s a good story. I think it tells a few things (aside from that I have a warped brain): we want to reach out and connect with others; we want to find common ground (even though I don’t think there’s common ground on abortion); there’s this desire to see past differences, beyond values, even, if there are many other things you agree on (maybe that’s the common ground thing); and mostly, I think it shows how by doing the work we do, we can get very worried and concerned about how others in our community view us/see us. It can cause us to be guarded. Not completely open. And we might lose out on relationships with others as a result. I was not as candid with this couple as I could’ve been - or even wanted to be – because I wasn’t sure who they were!

Do you guys have experiences where you feel not quite as open to others, especially strangers, in social situations, because of your work?