My Abortion Story
I have received permission to tell this story by the person involved. I have changed any identifying information. I do not speak for Planned Parenthood or represent them in any way. This is just my experience as a human being.
I want to share my abortion story from the perspective of a lesbian/femme/advanced practitioner provider. I have little risk of having to make the decision to have an abortion. Not only have I never had sex with a man, I also have a LARC (long acting reversible device, yay Mirena!) which is 99.8% effective in preventing pregnancy. Even if I fall down, slip on some sperm and miraculously get inseminated, my risk of pregnancy is Virgin Mary level. However, the question of abortion affects me in a myriad of ways.
1.) The question of abortion is really about bodily autonomy and a women’s right to choose her own destiny. (I am using gendered speech here purposely because it is a patriarchal system that wants to control women, in general). I identify as cis/female. A pregnancy not only creates a human that a person is responsible for (with the burden falling mostly on the pregnant person), but it also endangers that person’s life and permanently scars it with stretch marks, birth related complications, such as urinary incontinence, hemorrhoids, vaginal fistulas, ad infinitum.
2.) As a healthcare professional that takes care of people who are able to conceive, any law that is made that affects access to contraception and normal reproductive care, like abortions, interferes with the comprehensive care I give to the entire human that sits in front of me on a typical day in an exam room. It is heartbreaking to have to give different options to a person in SC versus a person in NC (don’t even get me started on the different options of any type of care based on health insurance). I am frustrated and outraged everyday by how politics enters my exam room, a trusted space where one of the most vulnerable exams is performed (pelvic exam)
3.) I am an Aunt of little people that can get pregnant one day and a member of the human race that deserves to feel wanted and planned. I pay taxes for schools for the education of those children that come into the world (and I am happy to). I pay taxes for the benefits of WIC and medicaid and other things that our government provides to ensure the members of our country have basic needs met.
4.) The last way that abortion affects me is in the job that I choose to do at Planned Parenthood.Currently I am not trained in performing abortions because NC does not allow Advanced Practice Providers to do so, but there are states surrounding me that do, so this may change. I do however, cover telephone call in which I answer the phone from patients who have had surgical abortions done in clinic or medication abortions that are passed at home. I act as an abortion doula of sorts. I have never experienced an abortion, but I do have to talk people through the experience, which is a lot like giving birth.
On one such occasion that I was covering calls for the week, I was also working my second job as a clinical instructor for one of the Universities in my town. For this, I have student nurse practitioners, midwives and medical students come into the clinic and do their clinical hours with me. I mentor them on how to take a patient’s history or get their chief complaint and instruct and observe the student do a physical exam or procedure which includes pelvic exams, LARC placements and specimen collections. I also grade papers and do some lectures on occasion as well, but my love is hands-on training.
On that morning, I was at home, texting with one of my students who was completing her NP hours in women’s health and then my phone lit up with the number from the answering service of PP. I get the patient’s complaint, date of birth and telephone number, and am immediately confused. I wonder if I have written the number down correctly because it is the same as the student I am texting with. I go into the patient’s chart and realize that the patient is in fact, the student I have been working with and currently texting about the following week’s schedule for school..
I call her phone and have the awkward introduction of explaining that I am not calling as her professor, but as the on call nurse for her abortion provider. I told her I could have someone else contact her if she was not comfortable with discussing her concerns with me, but she said she was relieved to know the voice on the other end of the phone. You see, she is a very educated woman, who is already a mother and working as a nurse. Yet, she had never had the experience of being a patient who had to go through a medical abortion and did not know what was normal and what was not normal. At that moment, she was just a scared human who needed reassurance. I was so grateful to be able to give her that reassurance as another human being who somehow was in the exact right place at the exact right time.
In 12 step programs we call these moments “God shots”. I actually hate this term because it makes me think of ejaculation, but it is a quick way to explain when something happens that cannot be a coincidence but somehow has been orchestrated by something bigger than me for some greater purpose. I typically don’t know what that greater purpose is, but I have learned to not question it, but be present for the event. I try to document them too so I have proof when I am feeling pessimistic about life after death or a higher order of things. It brings me comfort when I’m having existential crises.
This student/patient completed her clinical hours with me and all the other requirements for her degree. She is now working as an NP, completing a badass fellowship, while also being a mom to very young children. I doubt she would have been able to do those things if she did not have the option to end her pregnancy. She is making a difference everyday in a profession that is in crisis due to a shortage of workers in the continued pandemic. She is needed as an NP and as a mom at home. I am so grateful that on that day, I was able to pick up that phone to provide some comfort and she could walk into a PP and make a choice for her life, as I want every person to in the future. Thus, I will keep speaking out against the injustice of the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.
