The story of the time I was a dick

Why does she keep shouting ABORTION at me? 

Yesterday our guest blogger Amy mentioned that phone calls about abortion care often sound like this:

"Um...I wanted to know how much it costs?" and "Hi...I'm looking for some information about...abortion?" (spoken as a question, with the word "abortion" issued in a whisper)

And that her responses sometimes sounded like this:

"I would be happy to answer any questions you have about ABORTION! What type of ABORTION do you think you might be interested in having?"

I can totally relate. Who hasn't had this kind of call? It was one of the first patterns I noticed about callers when I started working on the phone lines.

Maybe Amy was more mature or less self-centered than me when she started her clinic work. But for my part, there was a real evolution in how I understood such callers. Initially, I felt frustrated to pick up the phone at my work and hear that the person on the other end of the line couldn't bring themselves to speak about my work. I experienced it as stigmatizing of ME, like they were attempting to distance themselves from my work even as they were asking me to tell them about it.

Sometimes they would ask with words like "terminations" or "D&C" instead of "abortion" -- maybe those words sounded more genteel or more like medicalese.

I'm ashamed to say that, early on, if someone called and said, "Hi, I need to know how much it costs," I would reply, "For what kind of services?" Even though it soon became clear that, if someone was calling about, say, a Pap smear, they simply said "Hi, I need to know how much a Pap smear costs." For a brief period of time, I believed that it was more important for the caller to say the word abortion than to feel comfortable asking about it.

At least that phase ended rather quickly. When a woman called and I heard echoes as she asked me questions, I mentioned her voice was sounding funny, as though she was in a bathroom or something -- and she said yes, she was at work and this was the only private place she could duck into. Duh, me.

Whether because they're not sure they've called the right place, they can't believe they're in this situation, or they can't risk being overheard by a coworker or family member, callers can't always discuss abortion openly and explicitly over the phone.

There will be time for that at their appointment, if they make one, when they meet with the counselor or health educator to express any questions or concerns about their health, the procedure itself, their experiences leading up to the appointment and how they will fare afterward. Usually patients can bring a loved one or support person into the counseling/education session, but a portion is also dedicated to one-on-one time with the staff person, in case the patient has something that might not be easy or safe to express in front of their companion. These sessions can be conducted as part of an abortion appointment, or prior to deciding whether or not to have an abortion. It's dramatically different from a phone call that might by necessity be taking place in public.

So now I know better. I learned to respond to "I need to know how much you charge" with something like, "Sure, I can talk to you about our different fees, but we provide many kinds of care here. Were you asking about a Pap smear, or...an abortion, or...?" If they are asking about an abortion, they normally stop me there and say "Yes, that's it." Easy peasy. It's okay for me to do the talking, if that's what the caller is looking for.

Not that every caller is in this situation! It runs the gamut: on one end is this (or even, as Amy writes, the ones who never call), and on the other end is someone calling to set up their appointment while also ordering dinner for five from the drive-through. But that's a story for another post.

What Brought You to This Work?

Recently, someone asked me how I became involved in abortion care work and who or what has guided my journey in that work. After writing to her I thought I would share that story here.

As a child my mother took me to clinic defense rallies. I didn't really understand what it was were defending but I knew that it was important to my mom. I don't really remember a time when I learned about abortion or choice. Abortion was always a part of life just like pregnancy, miscarriage, or childbirth is a part of life.

I sort of fell into abortion work, or rather it chose me. I wrote a personal narrative about coming out as gay and being from a multi-racial family for an adjunct professor my freshman year in college. She encouraged me to attempt to publish the piece, but I didn't follow through. As the school year came to an end, I told her I was looking for part time work and asked if she had any suggestions. She told me she didn't know where I stood in regards to choice but she worked for a pro-choice organization while in school and gave me the information, and I pursued a job working in direct service with women seeking abortions.

The question of where I stood in regards to choice was not really a question for me. The understanding that women should be able to control their bodies and lives seemed like something very basic and unquestionable. I distinctly remember having a crush on a boy in first grade, who I then saw in the midst of a huge pro-life rally with his family. My mom and I were on the clinic defense team. At that moment my 6-year-old heart was crushed, because I knew he was on the wrong side of something really important and my infatuation with him was over. As a child, when my mom told me she had an abortion a few years before having me as a single parent, I told her it was me. I told her this because it made sense to me that I was meant to be my mother's child. It just wasn't the right time when she found herself pregnant the first time at 20 years old. I told her it was me and I came back when the time was right.

When I was hired in abortionland I did not feel particularly passionate about the work. I had just come out as gay and I was hired the week of a catastrophic disaster in my hometown, so it was really the least of my concerns. But I needed a part-time job, and I was all about helping other people regardless of how much or little it had to do with my life.

I had to have an ovary removed within the first 6 months of working in abortionland, and as time went on I was just going through the motions. I knew I was good at the kind of phone counseling I was doing, but I felt highly disconnected from abortion. My supervisor during most of the time I worked for this organization was definitely instrumental in solidifying my understanding of how abortion was important to me personally. My supervisor and the women I spoke to each day are the primary people who shaped my journey.

One day I went to my supervisor for a new security card because I had been robbed. She looked at me and said, "Your life has never been easy, has it?" I responded, "No, not really." This authority figure's acknowledgment of my personal circumstance made the work I was doing to help women seeking abortions feel more important to me.

Some of the staff and I began joking that I would win the award for having the most pregnant friends of anyone in abortionland. During the first few years that I worked in abortion care, I had several friends who had abortions and several more who had babies. I had a friend call me on my personal cell phone one day when I was at work to tell me she had been raped and she was pregnant. I was able to leave my break, call her from a work phone and attempt to assist her. I ended up lending her half the cost of her procedure from my next check so she could be seen as quickly as possible.

The many women in my family and friendship circle who have made the difficult choice to have a baby or an abortion have guided my journey too as I have become passionate about reproductive choice, health, and education. For me this work is the closest thing to what a lot of people, especially Christians, might identify as a calling.

I would love to hear others' stories of what brought you to this work, so please share.