A woman is a living, growing human being

In our sidebar we link to blogs of people who have had an abortion and want to write about their experience. Here's a new (to me) one: My Journey Through Abortion. The post I'm linking begins like this: "I think I am going to talk about what I have learned."

This is a wonderful, fascinating topic. How the abortion was good for me. Not just, How it sucked less than the alternative; not just, How it didn't really suck any more than getting wisdom teeth out sucks and I'm damn glad that both services exist in safe legal settings. Yes, those are interesting too. But those are already part of the public rhetoric about abortion, and the one that people who've never experienced abortion feel most comfortable joining in. It's wonderful and fascinating when a woman who's had an abortion feels able to say out loud that she is a better person after her abortion -- not in spite of it or in opposition to it or in penance for it, but thanks to it.

She is better after her abortion than she was before it. How remarkable! This exists completely outside the discourse where, no matter what else you believe, abortion must be a loss, and a taking-away -- where mathematically, and thus objectively, and thus morally, she is less than when she was pregnant. (You < You+embryo. More is more. Very baroque.) But women know this isn't true, especially when we are at our healthiest: being "good" doesn't mean saying Yes to every request; it doesn't mean taking on more than you can just-because; it does mean being true to yourself.

In the documentary "The Coat Hanger Project," interviewee Jeannie Ludlow says something remarkable that people don't discuss enough. I'll have to paraphrase: In her experience as a clinic counselor, she says, abortion can be a good thing for women; it allows some women to grow in ways that they otherwise would not have had the chance to grow. This doesn't mean, though, that no women feel wistful about their pregnancy, or that no women think of their embryo or fetus. Of course some of them don't; and some of them do but also feel joyous about returning to non-pregnancy, some of them do but also think of themselves or of their born or future children.

A friend told me about her recent experience with abortion and how it is changing her life already -- from a series of crises and dangerous disregard for self, to a new stream of moments where you face the same old decisions and this time you choose life: your life.

~

I'm willing to bet that some of our patients, if they had a blog or a diary, would express something similar to this blogger's words:

"I have learned that I am not really good at pulling the trigger on moving forward. It is like I am sitting in my car, flat tire, spare in the trunk. And I am too damn lazy to get out, open the trunk, get the jack out, and get to work. It is not because the view from the car is spectacular or because there are good tunes on the radio. It is because I am scared to move forward. I am too focused on the fact that I have a flat tire, and I have forgotten that I can FIX THE FLAT."

Especially when talk turns to second-trimester abortion, so many people seem to imagine women as two-dimensional things. If anyone ever asks you "why did she wait so long?" -- remind them of three things:
1) Health care is expensive, abortion isn't covered, and most people aren't rich.
2) Sometimes biology is sneaky and pregnancy isn't discovered quickly.
3) Women are people: sometimes they're unsure what to do, or they freeze, or panic, or they take time to weigh an important decision. Just like you.

Needy

Last week, after talking with a patient about coping and depression, I implored her, "Please call me at the clinic if you need to. I'm happy to listen if you need someone." She hesitated and responded, "REALLY?  I won't bother you?"  "I promise, you will not bother me," I assured her.  This week, after receiving the confirmation of her unplanned pregnancy, I asked a patient, "What's going through your head right now?  What do you need?"  She sighed and said, "I need to go to McDonald's.  That's what I need.   I'll think about the rest later.  Where's the closest McDonald's?"

Women are, either by nature or by nurture (or both), self-sacrificing people.  Like the patient I had last week, we don't want to inconvenience anyone.  We've all seen the Weight Watchers ads that tell us to "do something for [our]selves," because we're so busy caring for others, we never do that.  And Weight Watchers suggests that we remedy that by making sure we take up no extra space, thus inconveniencing no one.  (And there's my plug for Fat Acceptance.)  It's completely against nature, not to mention against Weight Watchers to just want to go and eat a cheeseburger in an effort to be--GASP--selfish.

My McDonald's aficionado of a patient was an anomaly because I've gotten so accustomed to hearing women saying, "I can't have another child right now, and I don't really want one, either. But my daughter would just love a sibling, so I feel like I'm being really selfish."  I hear, "I guess I could ask the sperm donor [that's what they call 'em, and it's brilliant] for some cash to help pay, but I don't want to inconvenience him," never mind the fact that he has inconvenienced her with an unintended pregnancy that he won't deal with either way.  Women fret, "I talk to my mom about everything, but I can't tell her about this.  She already has too much to worry about," not thinking that a daughter in crisis might be the most important thing to worry about.  I've seen women who say, "I'm going to have local anesthesia only because my best friend has to go to work and I'd feel bad asking her to drive me to my abortion," even though a best friend probably wouldn't think twice.  Even when the patient is feeling so alone and helpless, the first concern is that she will make someone else uncomfortable or obligated or even responsible.

Maybe a lot of those responses stem from what women hear from anti-choicers: That women who have abortions are selfish monsters.  They internalize it and they will do anything they can to prove that they are the furthest thing from selfish and needy.  When I counsel them, I suggest that everything they've told me about why they can't be pregnant right now indicates that they're anything but selfish.  They are so selfless that they will work through whatever feelings might surround an abortion to ensure that they will not bring someone into the world under the wrong circumstances.  And sometimes, I just want to tell them that if this is selfishness, then be selfish.  I'm pro-choice, pro-abortion, and pro-'selfishness'.