First Impressions

Can someone please come up with a "Tripadvisor" for abortion clinics? Who wouldn't want to rate their clinic experience? It would be cool, in an ideal world, if women felt safe enough to "rate" their experience. (Check out Abortion Care Network's Advice on choosing a clinic.)

- Were the staff friendly on the phone and in person?
- Was the doctor warm?
- Was it efficient and informative?
- Was it in a good location?
- Was the clinic clean?
- How was the website?
- What did you like and dislike?

First impressions count. They count when your clients call your clinic or your abortion fund. They are listening for something. Anything. Any detection that the person on the other end of the phone might judge them. She's trying to decide if you're the right place for her.

Abortion is riddled with stigma. People think of back alley abortions and dirty instruments. If your clinic is in a bad neighborhood, needs a paint job, and your staff aren't warm and professional (maybe they answer their phone too quickly and sound apathetic), it just adds to the nasty abortion stigma. On the other hand, if you have a modern, clean facility out-of-reach from hassling protesters, affordable prices, and kind staff, you're rockin' it. Right?

Women don't share their abortion experiences, but it would make a difference, I think, for women to weigh-in and provide online referrals. I use all sorts of websites like Yelp! that help me determine whether I want to go to a certain restaurant or not. Do I want someone's opinion on the abortion clinic they went to? Yes, please.

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.

Guest post: Caring for the Ones Who Never Call

I'm incredibly pleased to introduce a guest writer today. Amy Littlefield is a former abortion counselor and founder of The Provider Project: Stories From the Abortion-Providing Community, an excellent and groundbreaking endeavor that really strikes a chord with our own blog's founding mission.

Stay tuned to the Provider Project, where Amy's piece is cross-posted, and you might see an Abortioneers post there soon!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy Littlefield

Caring for the Ones Who Never Call

It can be a scary prospect to call up an abortion clinic and make an appointment for what has become one of our society's most stigmatized -- and yet one of its most common -- medical procedures.

Which is probably why some patients don't immediately admit that's why they're calling.

As a former phone counselor at a clinic, I used to hear a lot of: "Um...I wanted to know how much it costs?" and "Hi...I'm looking for some information about...abortion?"

(This last one was spoken as a question, with the word "abortion" issued in a whisper, like a big, bad, ugly secret.)

I sometimes tried to use the word as much as possible when I answered those tentative calls.

"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?"

Often, these patients weren’t simply calling for information; they knew they wanted an abortion, but they were scared and confused about what the process might entail.

I sometimes felt like women called just to test us out. Maybe they had always believed abortion was murder and they wanted to know whether we would tell them what they were doing was wrong or try to make them feel guilty. Maybe they were wondering whether the women who worked in the Big, Bad Baby-Killing Center were human beings like them. Many were scared they wouldn't be able to have children in the future, or that we would do something violent and terrible to remove their unwanted pregnancies.

They were certain we would judge them, just as others in their life had judged them. They were wondering whether they could trust us with their stories.

They ached to justify themselves.

"Look, I have to do this, I have a nine-month-old at home."

"I'm homeless and I already have two kids."

"I've never believed in abortion, but I just can't have a baby right now."

I was sometimes amazed at how relieved women were to tell their stories. To a stranger. Over the phone. And to have that stranger accept their stories Without judgment. Without telling them what was right and what was wrong. So listening became part of the process of making an appointment. When I finished booking the appointment and asked if they had any other questions, I could sometimes hear the relief in their voices.

Given how terrifying that first step can be for many patients, I often wondered how many women wanted to call, but never did.

The abortion rate has been declining among almost all groups of women across the country (although a recent study [pdf] showed that the global abortion rate has stalled after a period of decline). Many in the abortion-providing community believe this decline is a result of rising stigma, not of improved access to birth control or sex education (since, by and large, those things are not improving). Nor is it happening because women's economic situations have magically improved, since the abortion rate is still rising among poor women (which proves, by the way, that you can't advocate for reproductive justice without combating capitalist exploitation of the poor).

Brigit Ordway, a veteran counselor whom I interviewed as part of an audio project compiling voices from the abortion-providing community told me she thinks women face more stigma now than they did back in the decade or so after it was legalized.

She said:

"That's the biggest difference now -- women aren't telling each other about this. We all did and we got support, for the most part. Now, probably most women would get support from their friends and family, but they’re assuming that they won't. They're assuming that everybody is not pro-choice and that they're going to be judged and maybe even worse, you know, maybe somebody's going to come throw something at them. So women are silent about it now. They don't get the support of each other or society, because they don't talk about it, I think. It's a huge difference. It's all now secret and shameful for people."

So abortion counseling, for me, whether it was done on the phone or in person, became largely about trying to lift the burden of guilt that women thought they were obligated to feel for having an abortion. It was about helping them realize that they were still good, still loving, still worthy of respect. They drove past protesters and graphic posters of chopped-up babies to get into the clinic, but once they were inside, they were treated with respect.

Every so often we would get a call from a woman who wanted to come to the clinic, but couldn't bring herself to enter the doors after she saw the protesters' signs. Those women reminded me how limited my understanding of abortion is. I saw women who were beating themselves up emotionally for having an abortion they felt was necessary. But I never saw the women who were too scared to come in, too scared to even call.

One abortion provider whom I interviewed has found a way to help those women.

Dr. Deborah Oyer, who owns a clinic in Seattle, Washington, created a series of videos describing the process of an abortion at her clinic. In a soothing and straightforward voice, she describes the steps a patient goes through, from the moment she enters the door until she leaves. This is the kind of education I tried to do with patients over the phone -- but she has found a way to do it without requiring women to take that scary first step. Instead, wrapped in the Internet's comfy blanket of anonymity, they can learn that abortion is not as scary as they might have imagined.

The videos provide basic education about abortion and birth control that counteract common and harmful myths. They also show women that -- contrary to popular mythology -- the doctor who will be performing their abortion is a friendly and approachable woman, not a crazy, rabid devil-monster with horns (Oyer told me she often sees women relax visibly after she enters the room, since she is so un-monsterlike). She has one video that consists entirely of her introducing herself. That video, uploaded two years ago, has 550 views on YouTube.

The video about surgical abortion has 58,816.

The one on medication abortion has 27,668.

Clearly, people need this information.

I'm grateful to Deborah Oyer for putting her voice and face out there, despite the risks that it could mean for her in a world where abortion providers are targeted with hate speech and harassment, and even sometimes with bullets. I'm grateful that there is accurate information out there about abortion for everyone -- of every gender -- who wonders how it is done. But I’m especially grateful that there is education for the patients whom I never got to talk to -- for the ones who never call.

Listen to Deborah Oyer discussing the videos at The Provider Project, www.theproviderproject.org.

You deserve high-quality abortion care regardless of your gender (Or..."Man in the clinic" Pt. 2!)

I'm a bit behind in sharing this, so you may have read about it at other blogs already -- which is great. But just in case you didn't, here's a thing to mull over. At the CLPP conference two weeks ago, Jos Truitt mentioned at one panel (on feminism and trans people and, eventually, reproductive justice) that it's important to recognize that it's not only women who have abortions. This spurred Lori at Feministing to write "Why I won't be talking about abortion as a women's issue anymore." You should go read it all, but it boils down to this:

Trans men have abortions. Gender-queer people have abortions. Two-spirit people have abortions. People who do not fit into the box of 'woman' have abortions. This is the reality we live in, and the more we pretend otherwise, the more dangerous it is for other people.

I'd add to this that, also, lesbian women have abortions. (I know sexual orientation wasn't the focus of Jos's remarks or the panel's subject, and don't mean to dilute those remarks, only to point out that our language can be erasing in multiple ways at once.)

I'm happy that my abortion clinic, which also offers reproductive wellness care, realized it has the capability to provide this care for transgender men and for women who have sex with women just as well as we do straight, cisgender women [cis is the opposite of trans], and has spent time training and seeking staff who feel the same way. (Extending our services for trans women, however, is unfortunately taking time.) So it's not that I'm unaware. But, it's true, when I talk about the social realities of abortion I find I'm almost always saying "women," and talking about experiences common to many straight cis women, which erases other women as well as men and people who identify as neither. Just because cis women compose the majority of our patients doesn't mean we can ignore the existence of others. I've noticed that the New York Abortion Doula Project is very consistent about referring to "pregnant people," which is highly accurate and perfectly inclusive, but they're about the only group who do this.

When we talk about how people who oppose abortion are underestimating women or being callous to women's realities, well, yes, they ARE doing that to women. But they're also underestimating and being callous to trans men and intersex people and other people on the gender spectrum -- and in many cases, are doing a lot worse to them. Like not even believing they exist. Or believing that not only are they not entitled to abortion care, but they're not entitled to ANY medical care until they conform to the gender assigned to them upon birth (or upon strangers' snap judgments). Or doing violence to them in more direct, terrifying ways. In sum, it's not just cis women whose mental health, physical health and survival are in danger.

So as long as we abortioneers owe it to women to provide abortion care that is welcoming, non-stigmatizing, non-judgmental, and as non-traumatic as possible given each particular patient's own circumstances, we will owe the same thing to men. And to gender-queer, neutrois and intersex people. How a patient identifies and presents their gender doesn't dictate what kind of care they will need or what quality of care they deserve to receive. 

Recently a coworker said something oppressive about gender-transitioning and trans people "passing," and continued to say it even when I and another colleague responded with reasons that we disagreed. She relented after a time, but I was still frustrated that even my workplace isn't everything I know it can be. (We do occasional "values clarification" sessions to identify our individual values about abortion; I wonder if any abortion providers incorporate issues of gender and sexuality in such workshops?) But I'm aware that the trans* and queer- friendliness of abortion providers can vary widely, (almost?) as widely as in any other medical field, and so I worry that other places I may work in the future, wherever they may be, might not live up to my generally-positive experiences to date. 

Full disclosure?

As a rule, I don't keep my status as an abortioneer a secret. I mean, my identity as an Abortioneer blogger is a secret, but as someone in the abortion field, I am out and proud. I've never had an abortion so I can't talk freely about that to erase the stigma, but I sure can talk about my job as a way to show that people who are pro-choice (or super-duper pro-choice) aren't the devil incarnate. The only times I can recall not disclosing my line of work were when the person I was talking to was wearing an "It's a child, not a choice T-shirt" (in that case, I ran away) or when I was at a party and starving and wanted to focus on my chips and dip rather than talk about the job where I'd been all day. I mean, I have my limits.

So, I've introduced myself to a group by saying, "I'm [Desembarazarme], I like to run, I paint in my spare time, and I work at an abortion clinic." I've told the woman in line at the grocery store, "I work at [abortion clinic name]. What do you do?" It's seamless and matter-of-act because that's how it is for me.

But during one of my standard introductions recently, I had the thought that my attitude might not be serving everyone. It occurred to me that the woman sitting next to me at the dinner party might be pro-choice, but she might be processing her own recent abortion. The older woman in the vintage NOW shirt might seem to me like an ally, but she might be an ally because her friend died in a pre-Roe abortion, and no matter how gleefully pro-choice I am, she might not need that reminder of abortion right here, right now. And even though I can be fairly certain that the college-aged super-liberal guy who's a barista at my neighborhood coffee shop isn't pregnant, that doesn't mean that his girlfriend isn't and that he isn't faced with a tough decision himself, and he's just at work in order to escape it for a minute.

My realizations made me worry that my very presence and my willingness to talk, talk, talk about abortion might backfire. They might make the wrong people consider the wrong things when I'm not meeting them where they are. In my haste to say, "Look at what pro-choice can be!", I forget what else pro-choice can be. It can be sad and personal and delicate. And I never want to serve as a reminder of that. I want to be a resource and shoulder to cry on and an empowering friend, but I don't want to be the face of what people deal with in their own time.

And I don't have answers to this unique situation I'm in. I want to be who I am, but not at the expense of those who are trying to be who they are in a more gray area. I've looked at life from both sides now.

Book Review

During Superbowl Sunday I was discussing abortion with a relatively pro-choice individual, and the question of the sexual health utopia arose.

Her version: all women would have unfettered access to contraception and would all use it scrupulously.

My version: all women would have unfettered access to abortion and would use it as needed with no fear of stigma or retaliation.

Now, I totally understand her side. A few years ago I was on that side too. But nowadays I understand that a) if abortion access is unfettered than contraceptive access has probably been unfettered for centuries, and b) some women, all types of women, simply don't want to use contraception. And as hard as that is for lots of folks to understand, it's true. And I'm not even talking unfortunate, hopelessly unaware women. I'm talking about fully aware, competent women who make the choice not to use a method. Maybe they don't like the way condoms feel, or they don't like the effects of hormonals on the body, or don't like OB/GYNs telling them what's best. Whatever the case, I'm finding more and more women out there who don't think twice about a) carrying as many pregnancies as they will because they don't practice contraception, or b) having as many abortions as they will because of the same.

And yet, and understandably so, my counterpart was horrified. Why would anyone do that? After the third abortion a woman must just be lazy or plain stupid. She even challenged my assertion that there was no limit to the number of abortions one could have before crossing an ethical line with all the disbelief of Fabio in an "I Can't Believe it's not Butter" commercial. And as strange as these things sounded to my reformed ears, I know that they are common sentiments. Any woman who has that many abortions on purpose must be crazy!

Now, it's not the road that I've chosen. I've never had an abortion or needed one, and I quite enjoy the daily hormones that have saved me over $100 in tampons over the last couple years. But when is it ever my place to tell Sue how many abortions she can have before I stop being her friend? I couldn't, wouldn't do it! The logical flaw is that I don't have an ethical dilemma with abortion, therefore the number of times a non-unethical act is committed makes no difference to me.

Man, that was a tough conversation to get through. Anyway, I relayed this incident with a friend of mine, who recommended to me the following book: [/rant] [actual blog topic]

I'm not really familiar with the author (Cristina Page, anyone?), but she's great because she says everything I already know to be true but in a way that makes you actually want to listen and not cringe at my boisterousness. And her basic premise is something we all know to be true, but don't articulate quite enough: Antis are not simply anti-abortion, or even anti-contraceptive. They are anti-sex!

This is true enough, and I enjoy that Page makes a series of logical steps to prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt. Most importantly, by pointing out how antis refuse to accept any scientific evidence you provide, make up their own to counter it, and reject the most sensible compromises that will ensure that abortion rates plummet.

Wanna hear some funny things about antis? (As if you haven't heard enough by now.) On the prolife.com website, masturbation is identified as a "homosexual" behavior, that is, "sex with a person of the same sex, namely, yourself." Ah, if only I'd had a nickel for every time an anti whacked off. But you can find this and other philosophical gems in the book. Very excited to finish it and report back to you all the musings of dumb-dumbs and do-dos.

Ta!

Say It Loud and Proud!

Recently I told someone very awesome the name of this blog and they proclaimed "eek!" It was a joke implying the name is not socially acceptable. The joke didn't bother me one bit. However, it made me think about the social stigma involved in my work and the name of this blog. I personally did not name the blog, but I was supportive in its origin. I think we named it "The Abortioneers" because there is no shame in who we are. There is no shame in abortion. Sometimes it happens, and it may or may not be ideal, but abortion just is. I have been in the habit of telling people exactly where I work these days. It's always a bit of a conversation-maker, ya know. Most recently I've gotten responses like...

"Oh my, I should have covered his (my child's) ears."

"Oh, what a shame."

"Awesome!"

"What do you do there?"

"So what do you think about health care reform?"

"You really aren't doing anything with your degree, are you?"

I have met a few people with varying levels of comfort with abortion, and this isn't everyone, only the ones that stuck out to me. One response includes a long explanation of why the person's mother, an OB/GYN, does not provide abortions. As the Xmas season comes around, I have to consider: will I continue to be myself? Will I tell people exactly where I work?

Each day I feel surer about my line of work. I recently went through a procedure from start to finish as a patient advocate. I am considering getting more involved in clinical aspects and enrolling in a pre-med or nursing program. However, I still feel apprehensive about telling people where I work. When I saw that anti-abortion "WANTED" posters were popping up again it only made me more apprehensive. I'm not ashamed, but I do fear other people's radicalism. It gets pretty serious for some folks.

I love the name of this blog and I intend to keep finding a balance when it comes to "outing" myself as an abortioneer. I wish we lived in a world that understood abortion is a simple medical procedure.

Barriers: Stigma and Language

In the work we do, we come across barriers to abortion care all the time. I think stigma is actually one of the greatest barriers: it can stop women from seeking support from medical staff; it may inhibit a woman from talking to her best friend about her abortion; she may have to lie to her employer about why she needs a couple days off of work, for fear of judgment. Or unemployment. The list goes on and on.

But....say you're a woman from a developing country where abortion is highly illegal and clandestine. Suppose you now live in America, but don't speak a lick of English and are completely reliant upon strangers, friends, relatives to interpret for you. Assume you're from a country where already an immense amount of stigma (making the US run-of-the-mill stigma look pale in comparison) surrounds abortion. You must risk speaking to a stranger - from your community - to translate that you need an abortion.

...Think about that for a moment. Just let that sink into your heart. How would you feel? How hard would that be for you? How scary would it be to tell a complete stranger your needs and desires? Could you trust this interpreter from your community? Could you trust that person to maintain your privacy and not divulge your information to other community members? Family? Husband? Could you trust this person to do their job and actually tell the healthcare worker your need to have an abortion? Now...imagine how brave and how difficult it must be to put your trust in all these strangers and not have a clue about the outcome. Not know if the abortion will be safe. If you'll survive. If anyone will be compassionate or understanding. Imagine the power these strangers have over you. The power of the interpreter. The power our medical institution has you. The power the stigma so embedded in our own country has over you.

I worry about these women. Often. I worry they don't know their rights: that their lovers don't have to give permission for them to have abortions; that she can access healthcare in a safe way; that abortion is legal; that she will be okay - that she will not die; that abortion providers will do everything they can to ensure she understands her procedure and understands how to access us if needed afterwards.

Yet, how easy would it be for her, really? I've been working with a woman who is from a country where it's difficult to find a pro-choice interpreter. A country where no one talks about abortion. Where women are regarded very little. Where men have all the control. She doesn't speak English. So, through the interpreter, I tell her, to call me if she needs me. The reality is, though, how would she call me if she needed me? How would I understand her? How would I help her? Of course, I'd find an interpreter to translate our conversation. Yet, still then, I wonder if the interpreter is being accurate in the information being translated - let alone kind and compassionate.

I feel for these women. I have compassion. And even some empathy regarding what it's like being a stranger in a new land. Without much help. And it's not fun. It's scary and hard. And. Well. We're thinking of them here in Abortionland.

Will "web 2.0" change abortion, too?

Yesterday Bob R tipped us off to the story of a Florida woman named Angie who's been live-tweeting her medication-abortion process for several days now.  That's right: 140-character updates about her nausea, cramping, bleeding, clotting ("some women also experience dizziness headache fever and diarrhea") for all the world to read on twitter. The process is winding down now, but it was interesting while it lasted. 

Cool!

Unfortunately, her tweeting, which started out as a way to let her friends know how she was doing and describe to others what the process was like, has also attracted negative attention in spades. Angie's gotten insults and death threats. Some responses are weird, creepy or violent ("I'd like to pull on her ear til it rips from her head"?). I really appreciate what she's doing for all of us despite the creepsters. I also respect that she agreed to an interview with an extremely anti-abortion dude who asked absurdly leading questions and didn't fall apart laughing; her answers were thorough, compelling and supportive of all other women's need for reproductive choice. (To give credit where credit's due: the extremely anti-abortion dude was also extremely polite.) 

Then, not 24 hours after we read about Angie, I came across another woman doing the same thing: live-tweeting her medication abortion. She's just begun it. I also saw some more creepy twitter people messaging her every other minute trying to change her mind: "puke [the pills] up. please puke them up. i'll adopt your child. please save your child." I am not making this up. So the notion of Web 2.0 has been on my mind: it's revolutionizing everything else, so why not abortion? 

On this site we already have a permanent link-list of blogs started by women in the midst of an unwanted pregnancy, blogs dedicated to what happened once they decided to have an abortion. Presumably/possibly, these women have their own blogs in "real life" where they write about their jobs, how their day went, and maybe they even use their real names or post pictures; this blog and that blog will be registered to different email addresses, and never the twain shall meet. And that's understandable. I already can't thank them enough  for sharing their experiences with fellow travelers in a way that providers cannot. They're not responsible for changing the world in one blog. 

But what happens when someone who has a personal website and a personal twitter feed updates us about her abortion like it's no big thing? To me this is looking like the next step. The internet (version "1.0" or whatever) at first enabled us to have more information at our fingertips than ever before -- but only the authoritative or the moneyed could provide that information. Blogging has allowed some of us to share day-by-day accounts of a procedure we formerly only discussed in our living rooms. Now tweeting: by-the-hour, by-the-minute details -- a scale where little things like "cramping got worse for a while but I curled up on my side and that seems to help" are worth mentioning. And where some of us may feel that we can incorporate this little thing into our account of daily life -- our primary account, that is -- not segregated or anonymous, just normal, like it really is. 

____

Update: turns out Salon just wrote about this, too, and includes a Youtube video of Angie explaining the situation (found via abortion clinic days, one of my very favorite sites). 

We're All Just Bitches, Right?

I don’t get it. I don’t get all the stigma and myths surrounding women who have abortions. It is crazy to me that in 2010, people still go around acting like the one in four American women who have/will have an abortion are selfish whores who are totally irresponsible. It frustrates me even more when the women who seek abortion care slap themselves across their own faces with these horrible stereotypes that are just plain false.

Equally, I am really getting annoyed with all the stereotypes people have about Abortioneers. We must be cold, heartless child/man/woman/baby hating bitches to do this work. None of us have kids: by choice, as we hate them. We’re all man-hating lesbians. And we’re super mean and will force a woman to have an abortion. Seriously?

Every single day I talk to women who are shocked to find we’re, in fact, nice. Every single day, I talk to women who are shocked to find many of us are parents or at least have children in their lives on some level. I also happen to work with at least four grandmothers. I love it when we have a staff member who gets pregnant. I feel like with one glance, as she opens the door to the waiting room, a clipboard resting on her swollen belly, she sweeps away hundreds of myths about us. I’ll never forget when our female Ob/Gyn was heavily pregnant, performing abortions. The patients were surprised and I feel her belly shouted something profound about who she was and what she believed about choices and all women. Oh, how I admired her for that. Her own wanted, loved pregnancy challenged women to understand that as Abortioneers, we respect all choices, for all women, in all stages of their lives: so how would we ever try to make her have an abortion, or make her continue a pregnancy, or make her do anything?

I wish I knew where some of these stereotypes came from. Maybe some of them are just stereotypes for feminists. Oh, and regarding sexuality: really, who cares? But if others must know, I happen to work with people from many different sexual orientations: that doesn’t even matter though. I also happen to have worked with people from many different religious orientations and spiritual backgrounds, including non-spiritual and non-religious backgrounds. Again: it doesn’t matter.

This does matter: Abortioneers are nice. And we give a shit. And we work hard with very little recognition. And I hope that you hold your head high. I hope you shout - loudly, or quietly - all the many profound things about choices and women and life and complexity and beauty that surrounds you each day; because you’re not a cold, heartless bitch. Rather, you’re quite astounding.

Othering Abortion

After reading Monday’s post by About a Girl, I reflected on my own dreams for the future of abortion access.

As a future abortion provider and Ob/Gyn, I feel like it is my duty to provide all services for my patients. I refuse to be that doctor who has to send a patient away for a procedure I am perfectly capable of doing-ie. an abortion. I want to provide comprehensive services to all my female patients-whether that be preventing pregnancy, helping a patient to become pregnant, or terminating a pregnancy. I want to help my patient through whatever stage of life and or whatever situation she finds herself in.

My dream is that all women have this kind of access, this kind of experience. Although abortion clinics are fantastic and much needed, we have managed to segregate abortion. As compared to women’s health services and prenatal care, we have othered abortion. Thus, a woman establishes her care with her Ob/Gyn and seeks all her female needs with that provider. If she has an unintended pregnancy, and determines an abortion is the best option for her, she must go to a strange clinic with new providers and new staff to receive her care. Although, this isn’t always the case, it definitely is the majority. As a culture, we separate abortion from primary women’s health.

If we continue to other abortion, we will continue to stigmatize it. And there is no reason to stigmatize a procedure that 1 in 3 women will receive in her life time.

There is so much work to be done to make this happen: medical, nursing, and PA students need to be taught abortion procedures. Ob/Gyns, internists, family medicine clinicians, and even pediatric residents need to be trained in abortion procedure. Insurance companies and governmental insurance programs need to pay for abortion procedures. Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics should always be available, but when possible, abortions should take place in clinicians’ offices as an available service.

So much to be done, but we can do it together. Let’s make this dream a reality.

The Scarlet Option

There are no elephants in the room.

There are fetuses, embryos, sacs, pregnancies, products, monsters, aliens, sicknesses, mistakes, its, babies, contents, angels of god, precious children, living things, ghosts.

To throw away. Remove, discard, shed, let go, kill, contract, bleed, deposit, bury, pass, terminate, flush, destroy, massage, suck. Abort. Exalt. Move on. Feel relief. Cope.

No. I do not understand. No. I do not have those friends. The ones who have so many abortions and never used birth control ever, never tried to not get pregnant. You know. Those ones. No.

No, I do not know and I work with women who have abortions daily. Day in and day out. I don't know that perspective. I don't feel the need to insert information or education about pills and patches and rings and rods somewhere always around a sentence that includes abortion. Prevention. Ho hum.

Prevention is a glossy magazine, a wedding registry, the house in the nicer school district where all the kids are white.

Abortion wrote the book.