Personal stories about reproductive rights

OK, I'm posting this here because GD is full of trolls and idiot children lately. Oh wait, it's always been that way - there's always been more wheat than chaff (and I've been on DU since March of 2001).

If you feel like sharing, share your stories about unexpected/unwanted pregnancies here and what you did about them.

I've only been reasonably certain I was pregnant once. I was 17 years old. I'd been on the pill with my first boyfriend the year before, but had dropped off it when we broke up. I was seeing a boy who was even younger than I was at the time, and I can't even remember what I was using for birth control. I might have been dumb enough to have "risked it," because the boy was a virgin that first time, and I don't think either of us were expecting "it" to happen. But it did.

I was six weeks late. I'd never been late before. I had not a dime to my name. There's no way I'd have ever had the courage to tell my mother, and my stepfather was a violent, drunken child-molester - I stayed as far away from him as possible. My older sisters might have helped me, but neither of them lived anywhere nearby, and in any case, it never occurred to me to call them. No one in my family had money (I'm the youngest of 13, and grew up dirt-poor in the projects). The boy was out of the question - as I said, he was even younger than I, from a devoutly Catholic family, and probably didn't even have an allowance.

I hadn't yet gone to Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test (this is before you could buy them in drugstores, and I'd have had to shoplift one, anyway, I couldn't have come up with the money for one). They were my only real hope, once my body started to change and I could no longer deny that I was probably pregnant. But my previous boyfriend had been a total granola-hippie-health nut type, and I remembered something he'd said about herbs. I went to the PCC Co-Op, and found the herbs he was talking about - and the warning labels did indeed say that pregnant and nursing women shouldn't use the herbs (I don't want to mention them here, I don't want the FCC banning the damn things). There was no Internet to research these things in those days, and certainly you couldn't go to the library and check out a book on herbal abortifacients, so I had to guess at combinations and dosages.

I was lucky. The herbs worked for me. Nowadays, you can research these things on the Internet and share what's worked for other women.

But how can we possibly, in this day and age, be back to an era when one fears having those herbs made illegal, when abortions are unavailable in more than 90% of counties in the U.S., when girls who cannot possibly tell their parents without fear of severe violence have no options? How can we possibly be turning the clock back to the days of coathangers and caustic douches and back-alley butchers?

We have a short cultural memory. We of the third generation somehow did not get the message we needed to get from our mothers, aunts and grandmothers. I know I was never told, "We fought and some of us died so that you would live in a better world. If you throw that away, you are ignoring our work, defiling our sacrifices and spitting on our graves. Your job is to make the world better for your daughters."

That is the basic meme that every feminist mother, aunt and grandmother - and mine was; I went to ERA rallies in my stroller - should have been giving her daughters and nieces granddaughters. But as a culture we got complacent. We thought that a victory won was eternal.

Like the Christians in Constantinople before the Crusades, we believed that it could never happen here, it could never happen to us. We stopped defending the ramparts because we believed that we would never go back to the violence and coercion of a time when men went to college to become a Doctor, and women went to college to become a Missus. We left our castle undefended, and the forced-birthers were more than happy to undermine out walls, batter our gates and set our defenses on fire. We didn't take our victory and build for next one, and that is where we failed. We thought we could stop fighting.

What we never realized is that our war was lost in 1977. The Hyde amendment gutted the right to an abortion because a right is only a right if you afford to exercise it. When it became law that poor women were no longer entitled to abortions as part of their ROUTINE HEALTH CARE through insurance, Medicaid or their military health care, we lost. Since then, we've been losing ground: clinics closed, medical schools stopped teaching the procedure, notification laws, protesters, bombings, assassinations, deprivation of access to other reproductive health services. What few victories - bubble laws and privately funded assistance for those who can't afford to pay cash - have been hollow.

Now we have to fight uphill again, and we have not only disbanded our army, we disarmed. We don't have the leaders we need, and we don't have leaders with a will to fight for us. Even the best of our current crop use the betraying phrase, "safe, legal and rare." The fact is that abortion should be no more or less rare than appendectomies or tonsillectomies. It is a medically necessary procedure that is between a woman and her physician. I don't even think there should be statistics kept on it. But as long as our politicians pander to the forced birthers, we are fighting blind, weaponless and chained.

We have forgotten, and thus we dishonor those who went before.

As for our 'leadership,' I am disgusted with them. After the '04 election, I remember Dean and Kerry pointing their fingers at pro-choice women and saying we were the reason the Dems had lost. What a crock of crap!

Since then, I have refused to give any $ to the Dem Party. I give only to Pro-Choice candidates who stand tall for Women's Freedom.

"necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant woman" or "a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman." I work for a lab and a couple of days go I came across the requisition for a pregnancy test on a ten year old. Nobody that young with a body that hasn't even fully developed should be forced to carry a pregnancy full term. Out of principle I support a woman's right to choose regardless of the circumstances but having said that I've known numerous women who have had abortions none have used it as birth control or made the decision lightly. I know my mom had one when I was young but she was trying to get out of an abusive relationship at the time. If she, like many other women in her position, had been forced to remain pregnant her life would've been at risk. There are many health conditions such as MS, Diabetes, or Epilepsy where the risk of a pregnancy to a woman and her fetus can vary greatly. No doctor should have to risk five years in prison for helping someone do what they deem is in their best interest.

In 1995, I was very happy to be pregnant and was looking forward to my second child. I was a Sunday school teacher and sang in the church choir. We had just moved to a much better neighborhood and things were really looking up. At about 20 weeks, I went in for a routine ultrasound. We mostly wanted to firm up due dates. That's when I learned that my son had 'defects incompatible with life.'

The next five weeks just all seem to blend together. I went to a string of high-risk OB-GYNs in hope someone would tell me the diagnosis was wrong. It wasn't. A doctor at University Hospitals in OKC (the same day the damaged Murrah Federal Building was exploded by controlled demolition) finally convinced me that my son was going to die, regardless of what I did. Since my body seemed to be building up an excess of amniotic fluid, it was very likely the child would die in utero before we ever reached term. Because of this, the doctor asked my permission to take my case before the State Medical Board later that afternoon (I was well past the legal time limit for abortion in Oklahoma). He said we didn't have to use the board's decision if I was against it, but gaining that permission would save us time later. I agreed and left for home.

Once home, I had a phone message from my church pastor. Anxious to talk with someone about the decision I needed to make, I went to the church. I was expecting a soft place to fall. What I got was a man who shook his head at me repeatedly before informing me that my family's 'situation' was causing a 'rift in the congregation.' Our family was asked to leave the congregation (for the health of the congregation).

Back home, I noticed my answering machine was going crazy. The messages were pro-life individuals (many of them voices I recognized from my own church). There wasn't one "I'm sorry for what you're going through" message to be found. Most were yelling, many were praying, others were crying because I was going to become a "murderer." Later that night, signs were posted in my front yard and papers were placed under my windshield wipers.

The review by the Medical Board was either an open-meeting or someone leaked the information. To this day I'm not sure which. The kicker? The Medical Board denied permission for me to terminate the pregnancy. They believed that I should carry to term in hopes that my son's organs could be harvested and used in transplants. The doctor in OKC, who was beyond furious with the decision, gave me the name of a doctor and clinic in a neighboring state. Because of the medical board's decision, insurance refused to pay for anything.

Well, long story made a bit shorter, I travled to the other state with my husband. We crossed the protest lines only to discover that our son had already died. I was sent to a hotel that night and told to come back the next day. We did, once again crossing the protest lines, and I had a D&X procedure. (Although not a true D&X because my son suffered from anencephaly, where the head does not form properly.) Infection had already begun and I was transported to a local hospital for IV antibiotics. It took weeks to get the infection under control.

The harrassing phone calls, signs and other lovely items continued for months -- until we moved, changed phone numbers (twice, the second time becoming unlisted), and bought new vehicles.

-------

My second (early) abortion wasn't nearly so dramatic. It was roughly this time last year. My husband and I have three children -- all difficult pregnancies, the last one having me in the hospital on bedrest for over six weeks. We had both agreed that we never wanted to go through pregnancy again and he was scheduled for a vasectomy. We were using birth control, but it failed.

I won't say the decision was easy, because I don't think such decisions ever are. I will say that once it was all said and done, I had no regrets. I had no guilt. The only thing I felt was peace and a huge sense of relief.

I am always amazed at the level of hypocrisy that the church-goers reach.

I, too, felt great relief....and gratitude that I could get an abortion that was safe.

How can people be so judgemental, unkind, and lacking in empathy? I'm so sorry for your loss, and for the additional grief they put you through.

Remember that song from "South Pacific": "You've Got to be Carefully Taught"?

It's hard for me to conceive how your church and community justified treating you so badly. I just don't understand how hateful too many people are.

Years ago a close friend had to abort a much wanted second child for similar reasons. Luckily for her she had become involved in an interfaith faith community that supported her. It made a huge difference.

I'm so sorry that you had to go through such a horrible experience. To want a child, and to find out that it just can't be, must be excruciating... And to have people attacking you on top of the pain you are already suffering--especially people who you thought would be reassuring and supportive-is unconscionable...

You, and all other women (and girls), deserve so much more than that.

Thank you for sharing your story--hearing all of these stories is important for all of us, perhaps even moreso for those of us who have not gone through it ourselves.

what herbs do what in what dose. What women have been doing forever.


It's too bad we are so disjointed from things like that - that people get the mindset that a medical procedure is the only option if a termination is desirable. It's part of being dependent on the patriarchal system. What makes us feel "safe" and all that.

It's good to question it.

but I'd strongly advise women to find a sympathetic doctor to prescribe Cytotec, a heartburn drug, instead.

The problem with a lot of powerful herbs is that the effective dose and the dangerous dose are too close together.