[TW] Center for Reproductive Rights Files Case Revealing the Horrifying Reality of El Salvador's Ban on Abortion
Manuela’s story demonstrates the fatal consequences of El Salvador’s law and why it must change
03.21.12 - (PRESS RELEASE) El Salvador’s absolute ban on abortion has resulted in tragic and often fatal consequences for the women living in that country — resulting in the arbitrary imprisonment of women suffering from miscarriages and complications in their pregnancies, according to a petition filed today with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights by the Center for Reproductive Rights and local Salvadoran organization Colectiva de Mujeres para el Desarrollo Local (Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del Aborto Ético, Terapéutico y Eugenésico de El Salvador).
Today’s petition was filed on behalf of “Manuela” (a pseudonym) and her family. Manuela was a 33-year-old Salvadoran mother of two who was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison after suffering severe complications giving birth. El Salvador has one of the most extreme abortion bans in the world—prohibiting abortion even when necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life and imposing harsh criminal penalties on both women and physicians.
“Women are paying a high price, in many cases with their lives, for El Salvador’s absolute ban on abortion,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a global legal organization dedicated to advancing women’s reproductive health. “El Salvador’s laws have turned emergency rooms into crime scenes, forcing pregnant women to live under a dark cloud of suspicion. The international community must come together to demand an end to this cruel treatment of women and make a commitment to safeguard fundamental reproductive rights.”
From the moment Manuela arrived at the hospital seeking emergency health care, slipping in and out of consciousness and hemorrhaging, doctors treated her as if she had attempted an abortion and immediately called the police. She was shackled to her hospital bed and accused of murder.
Manuela was sentenced to 30 years in prison without ever having a chance to meet with her lawyer, without an opportunity to speak in her own defense, and without the right to appeal the decision. Shockingly, the judge overseeing her case said that “her maternal instinct should have prevailed” and “she should have protected her child.”
After several months in prison, it was discovered that the visible tumors Manuela had on her neck for which she sought medical care several times without being accurately diagnosed, was advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a disease that likely lead to the severe obstetric emergency she suffered.
Tragically, Manuela did not receive the appropriate treatment for her disease and died in prison in 2010, leaving behind her two young children. Her illness could have been caught earlier if she had received adequate medical attention when she consulted about her tumors in years prior, and if medical officials treating her during her emergency paid any attention to her condition, rather than focusing on reporting her to authorities.
This legal campaign marks the first time an international judicial body will hear the case of a woman imprisoned for seeking medical care due to obstetric emergencies, as a result of a total abortion ban. The case argues that El Salvador’s absolute ban on abortion violates a number of human rights, including the right to life, right to personal integrity and liberty, right to humane treatment, and the right to a fair trial and judicial protection.
“Salvadoran women have been unjustly persecuted by their government for far too long,” said Mónica Arango, CRR’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean. “We are bringing Manuela’s case before an international human rights body so women won’t suffer the same tragic fate, and El Salvador can finally be held accountable.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights will also issue a report later this year detailing the stories of Salvadoran women affected by the country’s absolute ban on abortion.Abortion was once legal in El Salvador under a narrow set of circumstances, but even these limited exceptions were removed in 1998, as documented by CRR in a report released in 2000. Now El Salvador is among five countries in Latin America and the Caribbean — including Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and Chile — where abortion is absolutely prohibited even when the woman’s health or life is at risk. More information about abortion restrictions around the globe is available at CRR’s interactive World Abortion Laws map.
Under current Salvadoran law, anyone who performs an abortion with the woman’s consent, or a woman who self-induces or consents to someone else inducing her abortion, can be imprisoned for up to eight years.
But like Manuela, many women who miscarry or experience emergency obstetric complications are charged with aggravated murder, for which they can be imprisoned for up to 50 years, and subsequently spend decades behind bars.
“Liberalizing restrictive abortion laws, like El Salvador’s, is essential to saving the lives and protecting the health of millions of women across the globe every year,” said Northup. “Study after study has shown there are no positive outcomes to banning abortion outright.”
A recent study by the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute reinforced the fact that restrictive abortion laws are not associated with lower rates of abortion. According to the study, the 2008 abortion rate in Latin America—a region where abortion is highly restricted in almost all countries—was 32 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, while in Western Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds, the rate is just 12 per 1,000.
*Pregnant people, not just cis women.
This is what I like to call #ProlifeBeliefsInAction. These are the real life consequences of abortion bans and personhood amendments. When embryos are viewed as having rights of their own lawmakers and doctors are forced to forget that unlike actual people, embryos are inside of someone else; and that person has rights of their own.
With personhood amendments we see all pregnant people as suspicious and guilty until proven innocent when it comes to any “irresponsible” behavior and even a miscarriage. Their own lives and health become secondary to protecting a non-autonomous, non-sentient, non-viable embryo or fetus from the person it’s inside of. Suddenly pregnant people experiencing natural occurrences like miscarriage or wanting to act in their own health’s best interest are contextualized as an actual threat.
These laws obfuscate the fact that pregnancy creates a vulnerable state for people and that no pregnancy is guaranteed to go to term without complications. So when things go horribly wrong, as they’re apt to, it’s deemed a criminal failure on the part of the pregnant person and not the unfortunate and unpredictable occurrence that it is. These laws, in effect, turn pregnant people into a special class of people whose right to bodily integrity is called into question or suspended altogether, leading to discrimination and human rights violations.
Further proof that both the fetus focus fallacy and “prolife” policies kill and vilify pregnant people.
Oh, the hypocrisy!
So I escorted at the clinic for the first time this morning—well, more shadowed and learned than anything, and was bombarded by the anti’s any time I strayed too far from Pam or Rita—and while I have plenty of interesting things to talk about, the one that weighs most heavily on my mind is the biggest display of anti-choice hypocrisy I have ever witnessed in my life.
Sure, we all know how little they actually value life, and we all hear the stories about “Once the fetus is out, they stop caring” and so on and so forth, but the truth of their blatant disregard for actual LIFE was shoved directly in my face. While my heart goes out to the people involved, I could not have asked for a better, clearer example of what anti’s really care about.
I’d been standing around, chatting with the two women there that morning, Rita and Pam. I stuck close to either one or the other all morning, because anytime I got too far away, it felt like the anti’s circled me like sharks—when I first got out of the car I was hassled, them thinking I was there for the procedure, so I said loud and clear and directly to the nearest woman wearing a vest, “I want to be an Escort.”
They still didn’t leave me alone of course, wondering why “a girl so young and impressionable would choose to help such a thing” and the like, and shoved multiple pamphlets my way, but I’m pretty proud of how I handled the situation. I was polite, despite quivering with rage, and only got somewhat abrasive when Ed decided to practically corner me, bludgeoning me with questions—which I think I handled well, or at least, Pam seemed impressed.
Anyway, the three of us were standing outside the clinic, when all the sudden there was a HUGE crash at the intersection of Second Street and Market. Four cars were involved. I gasped and grabbed Pam’s arm, and in seconds Rita and I were headed down to the corner, Rita with her phone out and already dialing 911. Pam remained behind to watch for potentials, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the wreck. Everyone but the woman in the Pontiac was out of their cars—two men were very pissed, one older man was practically limping, and the woman… wasn’t moving. I was horrified—I’d never witnessed a wreck before, so this was intense, and there were car parts everywhere—someone very easily could have died.
But then I noticed, we were the only ones there. Some joggers were beside us, watching, but otherwise, we were alone. I turned around, and sure enough, not a single anti had moved to check the scene. Not a one seemed concerned in the SLIGHTEST that someone nearly DIED just FEET away from them. No one cried out, no one batted an eyelash—they simply continued shouting prayers at the doors and deaf ears, and I felt a rage building up inside of me.
It was proof, not that I needed any, but disgusting proof about what the anti’s really care about—controlling people’s bodies. They aren’t seeking to SAVE anyone, to SAVE any babies, they just want to stand around and tell people what to do with themselves, and when a crash which threatens the very thing which they are apparently so devoted to protect—LIFE—happens mere feet from them? They didn’t even take a second look.
I didn’t need an example of the hypocrisy and cold hatred these antis have for anyone but themselves, but honestly? I couldn’t have asked for a better, or more horrific one.*(*Everyone appeared to be okay in the accident. The woman started moving around and the old man seemed okay, everyone just looked really shaken up. The accident could have been FAR worse than it was, but thankfully everyone made it out okay.)
Let’s get one thing straight here: I love my son; however, I am very aware of the fact that I was too young when I had him. Too young to fully grasp the the situation I was in, too young to understand the choices I had, too young to take my options seriously, and absolutely, without a doubt, too fucking young to be a mother. So when I notice someone getting attacked about their choice to have an abortion or give their child up for adoption, I tend to lose my shit.
Let me start you off with a list of reasons why I sure as shit HATE being a 21 year old mother:
- The father of my child is a dumb ass, but he genuinely loves his son, so I have no right to keep his child from him. The father should be just as involved as the mother. However, it took a very long time to explain to him the importance of ALWAYS placing his son in a car seat when taking him for a ride ANYWHERE, the ongoing issue of hygiene (brushing his teeth every day, making sure he changes his underwear and socks daily, bathing him regularly, etc) to this day is a concept that he can’t seem to grasp, the importance of having discussions with me instead of yelling at me in front of our offspring, he still can’t manage to stop smoking in the house the two days a week that our former embryo is with him, and heaven forbid he actually teach him something that would help him in school.
- I have still not gone to college due to the fact that his father is so lax with rules and attentiveness that I am certain if I left him in his care that he would become extremely unruly or possibly just walk out of the front door, unnoticed, and promptly get lost/stolen/something else horrible.
- I cannot take my son with me if/when I go to school because I will not be able to see him enough to properly raise him since I am poor as fuck and will absolutely be working while attending school.
- I am not one of those little girls who dreamed of being a mommy when she grew up. That thought never crossed my mind. My son was the second baby I had ever held (the first one by choice, as the first one had been forced upon me).
- I am selfish. I think of myself first, and then my sons wants. The things he needs are always a top priority, but honestly, I think of myself first foremost.
- I am not financially stable.
- I am not mentally stable.
- I am literally SO stressed out about being a parent, that I cry about it every fucking day.
- I have fucked up my own life so badly. It is terrifying of thinking about how badly I’ve already screwed his up by deciding to raise him when I was 17. People who say dumb shit like “Nobody could raise him better than his own parents” are sincerely ignorant to the world of adoption. I don’t even understand where that logic comes from.
- My body is disgusting. I loath it entirely. My metabolism has slowed way the fuck down, my tits are about a size smaller and not even close to cute unless I grab a push up bra and pray to the cleavage gods that today my rack can look decent, my stretchmarks do not please me under any circumstances, and my c-section scar scares the hell out of me when I glimpse at my naked body in the bathroom mirror. Not to mention the fact that I have back problems and my period has been insanely messed up ever since I stopped breast feeding.
- I’ve been in love once in my life. One time. And he couldn’t handle the fact that I have a son because, like me,he is nowhere near ready for a child.
- Also, I live in a town that I hate and cannot leave because of my little guys father.
So really, go ahead and tell girls that if they are “mature enough to make the decision to have sex, than they are mature enough to deal with the consequences”. Go forth and spread your wisdom about the similarities between inserting a dick in your vagina and raising a fucking child. Tell girls that they don’t have the right to decide what to do with their bodies, no matter how mutilated and destroyed they become in the process of pregnancy. Tell us that we should keep our legs closed and our mouths shut, and I will sit you the fuck down, tell you about the joys of young motherhood, and tell you to shut the fuck up and let every girl make her own goddamn decision without being scared of being publicly stoned to death for making the wrong choice. Don’t scare little girls into being moms. Seriously. There are things that I absolutely love about being a mom, but I would have loved them more like ten years from now. Instead, I have a fucking migraine and am the kind of exhausted that you can only achieve when trying to chase after and understand an angry four year old boy all day while hoping to God that one day, I can once again sleep through the night or possibly have a career, social life, and maybe even a love life. Actually, I would settle for a day where I don’t cry. Fingers crossed!
It can take a lot of courage to talk about the things one dislikes, or even despises about parenthood. Young parents are under so much pressure, not only to take care of their children, but to prove themselves worthy to a society hostile to teen parents - a society that simultaneously vilifies those who choose to end a pregnancy).
Nothing but respect here. Pregnancy, birth, and childrearing are some of the hardest things a person can ever go through, and I think certain people could do with a few reminders of that.
Jennifer wrote in:
The new health care law caused my health care plan to start waiving the deductible for preventative care. Formerly, I would have had to shell out 3,000 before I got a dime covered. Now, I am able to have one physical a year as well as prenatal care.
If it were not for the change in my insurance, I would not have been able to afford prenatal care. I am now expecting my first baby in a month. The baby’s immunizations and well baby visits will also have the deductible waived.
So, thank you. Without these changes, I would have had to put off having a child.
I’m literally so happy I’m crying.
OKAY SO. I’m back from my very first Planned Parenthood journey, and I have to say, I’m a great mixture of emotions. Ranging from overjoyed and happy and thrilled and grateful to angry and bitter and frightened and downright pissed—very varying degrees of emotions, but don’t worry, I’ll unpack them.
First of all, I want to kick myself for not going to Planned Parenthood sooner. I had NO idea the help I would find, and I’m still just sitting here with an overwhelming sense of gratitude because this place was literally one of the best things to happen in my life.
I’m getting the ParaGard, because it’s the only IUD they offer anywhere nearby (that I can afford!) but it wont be in for a few months, so I was immediately distraught by the fact that I will STILL have to continue buying my monthly Nuva Ring for $70 because my health insurance apparently hates anything to do with my vagina. (Seriously, OBGYN costs skyrocketed, along with my birth control, when we switched insurances. Wtf?) BUT, instead of being forced to pay this continual fee until I could get the IUD, I was instead asked, “Do you want three Nuva Rings?”
I was at a loss for words.
“What, like, free?” I stuttered out. The receptionist nodded, and I nodded back numbly. I mean sure, there’s plenty of men and women who have benefited from this wonderful organization before, so what I’m saying is probably nothing new, but I was just so shocked. That’s $70 a MONTH I am saving! That’s gas! That’s saving back for the apartment! That’s food!
I wasn’t charged a DIME for my visit—since they base it on income, and I make $200/wk, they adjusted everything. I had a breast exam, which I’ve never had before, and was taught how to perform one on myself. They did a minor pelvic exam since I’d been complaining about some pain, and they gave me a boatload of condoms (I don’t use them myself, but I’d like to keep a stock to give out to teens who might not be in the position to buy them themselves) PLUS they hooked me up with Ella—a Plan B pill, just in case, which would save me $50 in case of an emergency.
By the end of my visit, I was in tears, and the nurses were very kind. One even gave me a hug. I was crying because I was overwhelmed with how happy I was, because what they had done for me meant the WORLD to me. Expecting to pay WAAAAAAAAAAAAY more than I did, and getting $210 in free birth control, I donated $20, and would like to go back and donate more when I can.
I’m pissed though, that people want to take away these resources from men and women. I am SO pissed, and horrified. Because of my pain, they insisted on doing other tests (STDs—I’m not at risk, but they had to because of the pain and exam, so whatevs) and those still didn’t cost me anything—so for people who DO need the tests, they’re free… and PEOPLE WANT TO TAKE THIS AWAY. The clinic I went to didn’t even perform abortions, simply referrals, and I only saw one pamphlet on the wall about abortion, compared to the dozens of others about pregnancies and how to have a healthy pregnancy, etc. I mean, not that I doubted what I’ve heard in the past, but it was all a reaffirming of the facts I’d been given, now put into real-life experiences.
I got a free pelvic exam, a free breast exam—I got my birth control, and I got precautionary “just in case” methods. Planned Parenthood is a beautiful place, and I want to punch absolutely everyone who hates them for the 3% of what they do in the face!
DON’T GET ME WRONG, I totally understand people who can’t get access to these things—transportation, distance, location, etc. It’s just, for those it helps, and for those who are able to benefit from it, holy FUCK is it awesome.
But if you DO go and you have an AWESOME experience like me, I do request that you make some kind of donation. These places deserve it. And just, goddd.
I’m such a jumbled mix of emotions I can’t sit still, and I’m still crying over how happy I am. OH. And best of all? I probably wont have to pay a dime for my ParaGard when the time comes!
THANK YOU SO MUCH PLANNED PARENTHOOD.
With prenatal testing I’d still have 2 kidneys [Dr. Jen Gunter]
In the wake of the failure of the Blunt amendment, Rick Santorum (and many of his ilk) are is still on about government and employers paying for services that Saint Santorum deems morally and religiously wrong. This of course still means contraception and prenatal testing, because apparently morally and religiously objectionable only applies to women’s reproductive health. Ah, but I digress.
I was thinking specifically about prenatal testing this morning as I was running, especially the absurdity of making people pay for prenatal testing when it has so many applications beyond abortion. I was wondering if Santorum and his wife knew about their daughter’s genetic problem before her birth and if they did how that knowledge helped them to prepare? And then I thought about all the parents I have seen along the way who have been helped by knowing. And then I thought of someone who could have been helped by prenatal testing. Me.
No, not during my pregnancy (prenatal diagnostic for triplets is not that accurate, nuchal translucency is about all you get). Nope, I’m thinking way back to when I was a fetus. You know, back in the dark ages.
You see, I was born a healthy 8 lbs 12 ounces and continued on my merry way with no health issues (unless being precocious and mouthy are now included in the DSM-V) until I had a skateboarding accident at the age of 10. After spending a night in agonizing pain (why I wasn’t taken to the hospital is a potential source of many posts) I was eventually seen in the emergency room and required an urgent angiogram (a large intravenous placed in my right femoral artery and then contrast injected during x-rays to look for the source of bleeding). Scary shit for a 10 year old. Back in those days there were no fancy diagnostic tools such as ultrasound, CT scans, or MRIs. Bleeding was diagnosed the good old fashioned way: large bore catheters, high-dose radiation and contrast!
In the end I had a busted spleen, but was managed conservatively. However, the angiogram also revealed I had a bum left kidney. More invasive tests showed an obstruction in my left ureter (the tube that drains the kidney), which had probably been there from the get go. Over time, urine backed up and my kidney was damaged. Badly enough that a few months later my left kidney was removed. The old fashioned way where they basically cut you in half and split you open. Yeah, it hurt.
However, in an alternate reality where my mother was afforded the luxury of prenatal testing my obstructed ureter would almost certainly have been picked up on the 18-20 week ultrasound that is part of prenatal testing. At birth I would have had an ultrasound to confirm the obstruction and it would have been corrected, typically with a minimally invasive procedure (a stent to open the tube). A day surgery. But what if in this alternate realty my parents had not been able to afford the ultrasound because their insurance was not required to cover prenatal testing?
With prenatal testing I would had been able to avoid all the radiation I accumulated getting IVPs every year after my nephrectomy until the modern miracle of ultrasound (I’ve had 6 or 7 IVPs and I’ve always wondered if this affected my fertility). I would also have avoided an assortment of other nasty tests. I’d have two kidneys, be able to take ibuprofen, and not have the whopping scar that can only be described as a shark bite.
With prenatal testing I also wouldn’t have that little fear that nags at the back of my mind now and then: what happens if my one kidney fails?
A dispatch from Texas, the front line of the war against women [*]
She knew she was supposed to be careful about getting pregnant, although truthfully she didn’t think it could happen because of her blood pressure and kidney problems. The nurses at the county clinic started her on the pill, but her blood pressure went all crazy. They asked her to come back on a Wednesday night when the doctor was there. The doctor asked lots of questions and spent a lot of time with her. It was nice to see a doctor care so much.
The Wednesday night clinic was where the nurses sent you when they needed the doctor’s help. It took two buses to get to that clinic and she had to wait an hour after it closed for her boyfriend to get off of work so he could pick her up, but she went because the nurses were so insistent.
The doctor (so young, she looked right out of medical school) asked her to stop the pill, something about the estrogen. The doctor tried to talk her into an IUD. Said it was the safest thing. But it sounded scary and some ladies at church said it caused abortion, so she wasn’t so sure about that.
Eventually she agreed to the Depo-Provera shot. Made her bleed all over the place for a while, but after a couple of shots she stopped getting her period altogether so that was okay.
Her boyfriend got a job in a new city, so they moved. She didn’t have a car, and even if she did she couldn’t afford the gas money to go back to the county clinic where she used to get her Depo shot. The nurses there were very nice and she was sure they would have looked the other way seeing she now lived in a different county. But they told her about Planned Parenthood. She could get her Depo there. She was so excited when she realized it was only six blocks from her apartment.
When she called to make an appointment for her Pap and Depo she was told Planned Parenthood couldn’t accept her Medicaid. Wasn’t allowed to accept Medicaid. Some law. “But I don’t want an abortion,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter,’ the receptionist said. “The government of Texas refuses to let any state tax dollars go to Planned Parenthood. You’ll have to pay for the visit and your Depo, but we do have a way to reduce the price for you.”
Even then it was a lot of money. More than she had right now. She called several doctors, but no one accepted Medicaid. “Doesn’t pay enough to cover our expenses,” they said.
And then one thing sort of led to another. She got a job at the Wal-Mart, but only part-time, so no health benefits. She needed the money to pay for her blood pressure pill. And food. Her boyfriend’s job wasn’t as many hours as they’d hoped. She bought condoms when she had the money, but stopped after a while. Deep down she had always thought she couldn’t get pregnant. The doctor at the county clinic told her not to count on it. The doctor said she had delivered many women who never believed they could get pregnant.
The sound of the doctors at her door brought her back to the here and now. She went to the emergency room the night before with the worst headache she had ever had. The look on the emergency doctor’s face when he saw her blood pressure was almost comical. And the swelling, he’d wanted to know how long it had been that bad.
He told her she was probably six months along. That she had something called preeclampsia. Her kidneys couldn’t handle the stress of being pregnant. When they got her to labor and delivery the OB said she needed to have the baby. As soon as possible. It didn’t matter that she was so early. She could have a stroke and her kidneys might fail. They told her that her baby had a 60-70% chance of surviving.
Her headache was a little better. The medication to bring down her blood pressure helped. The contractions hurt, but they weren’t that bad. She listened closely to the doctors at the door. They were talking about her ultrasound. She thought the lady who was doing the scan had taken a long time. She’d even called someone over to look at the screen. Something about not enough fluid so it was hard to see.
Only one doctor came in. A lady. She walked like she was in charge. She pulled up a chair. Her face looked a lot softer up close. “Your ultrasound has some findings and I need to talk with you about them. We know the fluid is low. We knew that from the initial scan we did last night. We talked about that this morning. But this latest ultrasound is more detailed and gives us more information. Your baby is smaller than expected. That could be from your blood pressure, but there is something else. Some problems with the bones in the skull. You were taking a blood pressure medication and it looks as if there are some birth defects.” The doctor paused.
“What does that mean for my baby?” She thought it sounded odd to say those words, my baby, out loud. A baby she didn’t even know she was carrying until yesterday. A baby she thought she could never have.
And that’s when she started to cry.
________________________________________________
*I hate the “war on women” rhetoric for a number of reasons, but this story HAS to be told far and wide. I don’t want to see a SINGLE person victim blame this woman or say she should have “kept her legs closed” or “known better.” Poor people are allowed to have sex. People with chronic conditions are allowed to have sex. All of the blame is on the politicians of Texas who decided their games with health care mattered more than this woman’s LIFE. That because she was poor and needed Medicaid her life and health were disposable and up for debate (the same thing that happens every day with the Hyde Amendment). They decided because she was unfortunate enough to need assistance that they had the right to butt their noses into her business and prevent her from going to Planned Parenthood. There is so much fail in this story and I doubt this woman is alone; there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of people suffering in Texas right now. And now that the WHP is gone it WILL get worse.
Also, here’s a story from the comments:
I have high blood pressure (among other health concerns) and have since I was 18. I have also never wanted children. However, because I don’t meet their “eligibility” requirements, I cannot find a doctor who will sterilize me. Two attempts to insert an IUD were unsuccessful and traumatic. I became pregnant while using condoms, then ended up paying $750 for an abortion at a private clinic (PPH wouldn’t take me because of my blood pressure) and because my blood pressure was so high they couldn’t perform the procedure until it was under control and by then it was the second trimester. If I had continued with the pregnancy I risked further blood pressure problems, kidney damage, and damage to the fetus so I would need to go to a high risk pregnancy specialist which I couldn’t afford, even with the insurance I had. The doctor said he suspected that my blood pressure went even higher because of the pregnancy, but when I said I didn’t want to have children he still tried to convince me that what I needed was an IUD or Depo because I might change my mind one day. I have tried Depo and had terrible migraines the whole time.
Because doctors and politicians are so convinced that women don’t have any idea what’s going on with their bodies and deep down they all want to procreate, they have made reproductive care prohibitive in so many ways. If the doctors I had talked to for the past five years had listened to me and believed that I knew enough about my own mind and body to know that I wanted to be sterilized, I wouldn’t have had to spend the time off work and all my savings to terminate a pregnancy I couldn’t sustain even if I had the desire.
I feel for the woman in your article and it breaks my heart to think of what she went through, and chills me to know that I could have been in her place so easily.
POSTED BY | FEBRUARY 26, 2012, 12:59 PM
When I was 20 and in college, I got pregnant. My boyfriend took me to the clinic. The abortion cost $190. I still have the receipt to remind me of how crucial the right to choose is. I felt only gratitude and relief after the procedure—not guilt or shame. It was 1980. Today, my daughter, born in 1990, is 21 and in college. I am standing up for her right to control her destiny. I am the 1 in 3.
Amazing.
So I’ve noticed that the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate is pretty active here on Tumblr. Since I’m a person recently opinionated about this issue, I thought I might give discussing it a bit of a try, since I’d like to think I have an interesting take on the whole thing. Of course one of the most prominent arguments on the pro-life side is that if you cannot take care of a child you could always put it up for adoption. I was adopted. And I can say that this is indeed a noble cause. My mother, who cannot have children of her own, loves me and cares for me and is ecstatic to have me in her life. And of course I am glad to be here and I am glad that my biological mother made this choice.
But that’s what it was really, a choice. And it has to be a choice because otherwise everyone in the situation will be completely and totally fucked. I am part of an open adoption, one where I know my biological mother and on occasion have even gone to stay with her and her new family. She was originally going to keep me and raise me with her boyfriend at the time, but after they broke up soon found that they would not be bringing me into a happy situation, and I wouldn’t have a great chance at success and happiness with a single mother parent and a father into drugs. Of course by now she had envisioned a life with me, so I was more than a fetus in her belly, I was an idea. By this point, she could no longer consider abortion. She said this and I realized that that’s the difference between people calling it a baby or a fetus: it’s only really a baby when you can visualize a future for this thing. For a long time I was “pro-life except for cases of rape and where the life of the mother is on the line”, but since I have gone to visit her it has shed a truly new light on things.
She told me how hard it is to truly hear the side of a teenage girl who gives her child up for adoption (except for Juno, which was cute but didn’t really go much into the post-adoption process). I always knew that she had a difficult time coping with the fact that there was a living, breathing, feeling, and sentient biological child of hers out there, but I did not know the extent. I will refrain from going into details about the exact feelings she experienced (it’s not my story to tell) but she told me that she had issues dealing with reality. That she wanted “her” baby back, and at times refused to believe that I was somewhere else, but the papers had already been signed. I do not know how long it took for most of these feelings to go away, but I believe I was at least two years old.
When she spoke to me about this it made me so terribly sad and angry that a person had to go through things like that. But she said that as she saw me grow up with my adopted family, she was happy about the decision she had made. And I realized that that was what made this whole thing remarkable: she got through it because it was her choice. You cannot ask a person to give their newborn baby away, just like you cannot ask a person to raise a child that they don’t want, cannot provide a stable environment for, and/or cannot afford to take care of (and then deny them welfare, if your views line up with most republicans).
I do not want to live in a world where that 17-year-old would not have had a choice. Of course I am happy with the choice she made, just as I am happy that she chose to have sex with her teenage boyfriend, and that she chose not to use protection or contraception. Life depends on the choices that we make, and it always has and always will whether abortion is part of the equation or not. I have always believed that it is our minds, feelings, emotions, and sentience that makes us a person, not our cell makeup. A person is conscious and breathing, something a fetus is not. That was never an issue of debate for me. To me the issue has always been a matter of human vs. nature: “is it our place as humans to choose how and when a new person enters the world?” And now I know that the answer is a resounding yes, and that there are a million unsexy ways we do so every day, and that having those choices and being able to choose them is what makes our bodies our own, and it is a big part of what makes us human to begin with.
This is so beautiful and wonderful. Thank you for sharing here on tumblr. I’m glad you came to these realizations because I think it’s so important for people to realize that it is the option to say no to pregnancy that gives us the choice to say yes to pregnancy and parenthood/adoption. If forced birth was the only option then it’s not really a choice, so I understand completely when you say the situation was bearable for your biological mom because she knew she had a choice in the matter without coercion. Even when our choices make us sad there is empowerment to be found in playing an active role in our own choices rather than being forced to bend to the will of others.
Governor Perry, WHP Has Been a Lifeline for My Family. Why Are You Eliminating It?
…
My name is Rene, and I am graduate student. I am also on the WHP. I’ve been a WHP patient for five years. My mom was diagnosed with cervical cancer when she was my age, while pregnant with my sister — this means I am at a 2-3 times increased risk for cervical cancer than other women. Because of my family history, I need to get a check-up every year.
My sister is a college student and also on the WHP. She needs contraception to keep her ovarian cysts under control. Because of the WHP and Planned Parenthood, we can focus on our studies instead of worrying about paying for contraception and cancer screenings.
Basic health insurance costs are out of reach for most college students since we work full- or part-time and keep up a full class load. Many of the women on the WHP are college students like myself, trying to better their lives with a higher education. We shouldn’t have to choose between paying for a cancer screening and paying our bills while we’re trying to further our education.
I know people stereotype people that use programs like the WHP, saying things like “They need to get a job and not rely on the government,” but college students are some of the hardest working people I know. My generation was told by our parents and teachers that we need to go college to follow our dreams and to ensure we would be financially stable in adulthood. Here we are trying to do just that and people criticize us, somehow believing that it’s possible to make enough money in college to pay all of our bills, focus on school, and still afford health insurance or medical care. That’s just not realistic for college students who work entry-level jobs just at or above minimum wage.
It’s important for lawmakers to realize that just having a job doesn’t mean you can afford health insurance. Basic health insurance for most students I know is over $150 a month plus co-pays for visits and medications. I don’t know many students who can afford that, pay their bills, and still get good grades.
When I heard about the possible demise of the Women’s Health Program I was shocked to see the attacks on women’s health hit so close to home. I searched online to try and see if there was a movement to help save this program. My search came up empty, so I decided start a petition myself, and spread it the best and fastest way I knew how, through email and social media. We have now gathered nearly 1,000 signatures from women and men that think Texan women deserve affordable access to basic women’s healthcare.
Many times injustice happens because people think “What can one person do?” But I believe one person can make a difference. Sandra Fluke stood up for women and brought the issue to light that women have a right to representation in Congress in regards to their health care. She was an inspiration for me. I knew I had to try and make a difference, be it with 50 signatures or 5,000. Each one is a voice to try and save the WHP, a voice saying “I think Texan women deserve access to basic women’s health care.”
Women in Texas need to have a choice when it comes to their medical providers. If Planned Parenthood is cut from the plan, many women will be losing care from a place we’ve come to know and trust. (And the fact is that many parts of Texas lack comprehensive clinics, and where they do exist, they’re already overwhelmed. For many women, Planned Parenthood is their only place to access affordable quality care.)
Planned Parenthood discovered my mother’s abnormal Pap, arranged for further testing, and arranged for the removal of her cancerous cells. She went to them when she was pregnant to find out how far along she was and where to go for further prenatal care. Planned Parenthood was there for my mother, and now it’s there for my sister and me. I know I can rely on Planned Parenthood when it comes to staying on top of my increased risk for cervical cancer.
A few years ago, in the name of fighting cervical cancer, Gov. Perry signed an executive order mandating HPV vaccinations for Texan girls. In a September 2011 presidential debate, Perry stated that “Cervical cancer is a horrible way to die” – yet he is moving to end cervical cancer screenings covered by WHP for over 130,000 Texan women. We are asking him why. The women of Texas are waiting for your response, Rick. And no, we aren’t talking about abortion – don’t change the subject – we are talking about cancer. We are talking about women’s lives.
And this is about women’s lives. Here are just a few of the comments left on my petition:
“I use[d] to go and get my annual check-ups at Planned Parenthood. I live in El Paso, TX and all of our clinics have been shut down due to the lack of funds. I am self-employed without any medical insurance. It has been so difficult for me to get reasonable medical care. This issue represents a problem not only for indigent women but for the female population in general. Something needs to be done.”
“I’m a low income woman, I already have one son, I love him very much. I remember how hard it was to raise him without a job, and even though I have one now, it’s just not enough. I need the PP services [such as pap smears] [provided by WHP]…I [also] want to live to a decent old age and I use BC to make sure I do not bring another child into this world until I AM READY.”
“When I lost my job I used the women’s health program. If it were not for this program I would not have been able to afford the follow up exams that I needed after I had an abnormal Pap smear.”
And this last one is short but maybe the sweetest: “Dude, Where are my rights?”
Some of us may have thought that women were done fighting for their rights, but it’s time to stand up again. I’ll leave you with a quote by women’s suffragist Alice Paul in which I’ve found strength. I would like to remind my fellow Texans that you have a right to a voice when it comes to women’s lives and women’s health: “There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it.”
________________________________________________
*Not just cis women will be affected by the cuts, nor are they the only ones to utilize the WHP’s services.
“You really haven’t lived until you received a bill(s) of over 600,000 dollars!”
Nick submitted:
In 2007 my wife, a school teacher, gave birth to two premature girls who were born at 3 lbs a piece, and they required an extensive stay at the hospital. Though we were both working, we are under her insurance. Because she was taking a leave (as is her right), her insurance only covered the first 6 weeks of their hospital stay, and never bothered to inform us that it terminated while they were in the hospital. Of course our insurance company tried to pay as little as possible as I was trying to get COBRA to take over before switching to my insurance.
Needless to say, because bills went unpaid while we were trying to sort things out, we were sent to collections and our pristine credit rating was shattered. Our 2% interest rate for our respective credit cards shot up to over 25%. Because we were carrying debt at the time, as a lot of new parents do, the interest became unsustainable and had to restructure my debt which cost me thousands of dollars.
Though everything was sorted out, the hidden costs of having our credit rating slashed was well above $10,000 while I continue to pay a higher interest on items because of the error. Not to mention the anxiety of potentially losing my home coupled with the burden of caring for two underweight children was unbearable. And to this day, I still get a bill for as little as 10 dollars and as much as a thousand for the items my insurance company still refuses to pay… FOUR YEARS LATER!
If Obama Care existed in 2007, a very difficult time of my life would have been a lot less stressful, and a lot less expensive.
You really haven’t lived until you received a bill(s) of over 600,000 dollars!
Mitt Romney’s probably thinking, “I’ve received checks for over $600,000, does that count?”
![It’s a roughly 600-mile roundtrip from Hurricane, Utah, to Salt Lake City—the only place in the state abortions are available. A new 72-hour waiting period for the procedure will likely mean more driving for women who want one.
The state’s new mandatory 72-hour waiting period for an abortion is condescending, costly and just as insidious as other restrictions.
BY SADY DOYLE
Last week, the Utah state legislature passed a bill that requires any person seeking an abortion to undergo a “waiting period” of 72 hours between getting a consultation from an abortion provider and having the procedure itself. The measure triples the standard 24-hour waiting period. Ironically, it took only 53 seconds for legislators to debate whether or not to force women to spend such a long time making an important decision.
“Waiting periods” on abortion are common. As per the Guttmacher Institute (PDF link), 35 states require a pre-abortion consultation – during which the patient is typically given information on fetal development and on the risks of abortion–and 26 require a waiting period after the consultation itself. That waiting period is typically 24 hours.
And yet, despite the clear anti-choice motivation for the mandated waiting periods–among other things, they clearly call to mind the waiting periods for firearms; see, abortion equals murder!–they’ve failed to spark the wide-scale outrage or attention given to more visceral forms of patient harassment, such as forced transvaginal ultrasounds.
I was alerted to the Utah bill by several activists, who wanted to make the issue more widely understood. One of them was Jessica Luther, a Texas-based activist and social media consultant for RH Reality Check.
“I do think waiting period laws get less play than ultrasound laws,” Luther wrote me, “because they seem, on the surface, more innocuous. Many people probably imagine that these laws make the situation slightly inconvenient for the patient but fail to recognize how it actually impacts people, especially lower-income rural women. Waiting period laws demand that someone take off extra time from work, double transportation and/or child care costs. If someone is traveling from out of town it may add expense of hotel and food while waiting the mandatory amount of time. In addition, these laws imply that people who seek an abortion have not yet spent time thinking through their decision, which is condescending and untrue.”
And although the Utah bill would result in the longest waiting period in the nation, if put into practice it wouldn’t be unprecedented. Last year, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill extending its waiting period to 72 hours. That bill has been blocked by a court order, which found that the waiting period would violate “undue burden” laws.
And what exactly constitutes an “undue burden”? Kelsey Collier-Wallace, of South Dakota Access for Every Woman, explains:
“The thing that most people don’t understand about the situation in South Dakota (including many of our own legislators) is that it’s already virtually impossible to decide to have an abortion here and obtain one within the next 72 hours,” she said. “Planned Parenthood … flies doctors in from out of state, usually only once a week,” to its only clinic in the state that provides abortions, in Sioux Falls.
Accordingly, she says, “[it’s] not unusual for women from South Dakota to go to Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota or Iowa–depending on where they are in the state, those clinics might be closer and easier to access. An actual 72-hour waiting period would probably cause most women to get their abortions out of state… the already limited access in would probably push a lot of women past 14 weeks (which is as late as the Sioux Falls clinic will terminate). So the effect would be a de facto ban in South Dakota.”
Of course, the clear hope is that women will take advantage of that 72-hour waiting period to decide against abortions. In the states that require pre-abortion consultations, the materials and information provided to the patient during the consultation can vary widely. For example, in 10 states, a patient is informed that she cannot be coerced into having an abortion. But in 11 states, she is given information on “the ability of the fetus to feel pain.” In several states, patients are given information on the “psychological” risks of abortion; those only include only negative information. (Those psychological risks, by the way, have recently been debunked).
Other states include spurious information about a link between abortion and infertility, or a link between abortion and breast cancer. In nine states, a patient must accept the written material; it cannot simply be offered to her. The theory seems to be that no woman can legally be coerced into an abortion, but you can sure as heck coerce her out of one.
Utah is one of the states in which a patient does not have the right to refuse written information. In fact, its requirements for abortion consultations are more draconian, across the board, than even South Dakota’s. Its consultations require two trips to the provider. The patient must be given a written description of all common abortion procedures, she must be given a written description of fetal development throughout a pregnancy, she must be verbally informed of a fetus’ abilities to feel pain, she must be verbally informed that she has access to ultrasound services, and she must also be given information on the “psychological” risks of abortion. That information will include only negative or detrimental effects. And now, a 72-hour waiting period has been added.
As in the case of South Dakota, the extended waiting period will predominately hurt poor patients, who cannot afford to take three-day or four-day weekends, and rural patients, who will have to travel extensively to get these abortions. In Utah, an abortion is only available in Salt Lake City. The ACLU is already protesting the extension as an undue burden.
But then, as Luther notes, any waiting period is probably too much. Although waiting periods may seem less sensational or visceral than transvaginal ultrasounds or attacks on birth control, they are just as invasive: They invade people’s right to make decisions, their time, their bank accounts, among other things. People who’ve made up their minds for abortion–or against it–rarely change their minds in less than a week. After all, when it came time to pass the bill, the Utah legislature didn’t even need one full minute.
_______________________________________
*Pregnant people, not just cis women.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0z13l8Som1r3bzxoo1_1280.jpg)
It’s a roughly 600-mile roundtrip from Hurricane, Utah, to Salt Lake City—the only place in the state abortions are available. A new 72-hour waiting period for the procedure will likely mean more driving for women who want one.
Last week, the Utah state legislature passed a bill that requires any person seeking an abortion to undergo a “waiting period” of 72 hours between getting a consultation from an abortion provider and having the procedure itself. The measure triples the standard 24-hour waiting period. Ironically, it took only 53 seconds for legislators to debate whether or not to force women to spend such a long time making an important decision.
“Waiting periods” on abortion are common. As per the Guttmacher Institute (PDF link), 35 states require a pre-abortion consultation – during which the patient is typically given information on fetal development and on the risks of abortion–and 26 require a waiting period after the consultation itself. That waiting period is typically 24 hours.
And yet, despite the clear anti-choice motivation for the mandated waiting periods–among other things, they clearly call to mind the waiting periods for firearms; see, abortion equals murder!–they’ve failed to spark the wide-scale outrage or attention given to more visceral forms of patient harassment, such as forced transvaginal ultrasounds.
I was alerted to the Utah bill by several activists, who wanted to make the issue more widely understood. One of them was Jessica Luther, a Texas-based activist and social media consultant for RH Reality Check.
“I do think waiting period laws get less play than ultrasound laws,” Luther wrote me, “because they seem, on the surface, more innocuous. Many people probably imagine that these laws make the situation slightly inconvenient for the patient but fail to recognize how it actually impacts people, especially lower-income rural women. Waiting period laws demand that someone take off extra time from work, double transportation and/or child care costs. If someone is traveling from out of town it may add expense of hotel and food while waiting the mandatory amount of time. In addition, these laws imply that people who seek an abortion have not yet spent time thinking through their decision, which is condescending and untrue.”
And although the Utah bill would result in the longest waiting period in the nation, if put into practice it wouldn’t be unprecedented. Last year, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill extending its waiting period to 72 hours. That bill has been blocked by a court order, which found that the waiting period would violate “undue burden” laws.
And what exactly constitutes an “undue burden”? Kelsey Collier-Wallace, of South Dakota Access for Every Woman, explains:
“The thing that most people don’t understand about the situation in South Dakota (including many of our own legislators) is that it’s already virtually impossible to decide to have an abortion here and obtain one within the next 72 hours,” she said. “Planned Parenthood … flies doctors in from out of state, usually only once a week,” to its only clinic in the state that provides abortions, in Sioux Falls.
Accordingly, she says, “[it’s] not unusual for women from South Dakota to go to Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota or Iowa–depending on where they are in the state, those clinics might be closer and easier to access. An actual 72-hour waiting period would probably cause most women to get their abortions out of state… the already limited access in would probably push a lot of women past 14 weeks (which is as late as the Sioux Falls clinic will terminate). So the effect would be a de facto ban in South Dakota.”
Of course, the clear hope is that women will take advantage of that 72-hour waiting period to decide against abortions. In the states that require pre-abortion consultations, the materials and information provided to the patient during the consultation can vary widely. For example, in 10 states, a patient is informed that she cannot be coerced into having an abortion. But in 11 states, she is given information on “the ability of the fetus to feel pain.” In several states, patients are given information on the “psychological” risks of abortion; those only include only negative information. (Those psychological risks, by the way, have recently been debunked).
Other states include spurious information about a link between abortion and infertility, or a link between abortion and breast cancer. In nine states, a patient must accept the written material; it cannot simply be offered to her. The theory seems to be that no woman can legally be coerced into an abortion, but you can sure as heck coerce her out of one.
Utah is one of the states in which a patient does not have the right to refuse written information. In fact, its requirements for abortion consultations are more draconian, across the board, than even South Dakota’s. Its consultations require two trips to the provider. The patient must be given a written description of all common abortion procedures, she must be given a written description of fetal development throughout a pregnancy, she must be verbally informed of a fetus’ abilities to feel pain, she must be verbally informed that she has access to ultrasound services, and she must also be given information on the “psychological” risks of abortion. That information will include only negative or detrimental effects. And now, a 72-hour waiting period has been added.
As in the case of South Dakota, the extended waiting period will predominately hurt poor patients, who cannot afford to take three-day or four-day weekends, and rural patients, who will have to travel extensively to get these abortions. In Utah, an abortion is only available in Salt Lake City. The ACLU is already protesting the extension as an undue burden.
But then, as Luther notes, any waiting period is probably too much. Although waiting periods may seem less sensational or visceral than transvaginal ultrasounds or attacks on birth control, they are just as invasive: They invade people’s right to make decisions, their time, their bank accounts, among other things. People who’ve made up their minds for abortion–or against it–rarely change their minds in less than a week. After all, when it came time to pass the bill, the Utah legislature didn’t even need one full minute.
_______________________________________
*Pregnant people, not just cis women.
'We Have No Choice': One Woman's Ordeal with Texas' New Sonogram Law
TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of the termination of a wanted pregnancy
The doctor and nurse were professional and kind, and it was clear that they understood our sorrow. They too apologized for what they had to do next. For the third time that day, I exposed my stomach to an ultrasound machine, and we saw images of our sick child forming in blurred outlines on the screen.
“I’m so sorry that I have to do this,” the doctor told us, “but if I don’t, I can lose my license.” Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor’s voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.
“Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart…”
I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident.
If you can read this entire post and still think that mandatory ultrasounds serve a purpose…you are an asshole.
That^.
In the United States of America we have actual doctors reading scripts riddled with inaccurate information provided to them by lawmakers pretending to be doctors.
(Source: keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)
Bonnie sent in this letter a few weeks ago. It’s a good reminder of what all of this is about.
I am writing this sitting next to my daughter’s hospital bed at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Our daughter Leslie is 22 years old. She graduated from Fordham University with double majors in acting and directing last May. She has been living and working in New York and getting some paid acting work while looking for a “survival” job to help pay the rent—nothing very unusual in any of that.
But recently, on the same day she received a job offer from a retail store, Leslie was diagnosed with a non-Hodgkins T-cell type lymphoblastic lymphoma. Cancer. Leslie’s world was turned upside down. All her dreams—the dreams we would like every young person to be able to live out—were either crushed outright or put on indefinite hold. Within 48 hours of diagnosis, Leslie had been admitted here at Sloan, and was receiving chemotherapy.
Her cancer is highly treatable and responds well to chemotherapy. Leslie began her treatment on November 18th. It will be a long road—24 months of active treatment—but there is a good chance that she will be cured. Not a guarantee, but a chance. A chance that we would do anything in our power to give her.
But Leslie turned 23 on January 9th, 2012. Before the Affordable Care Act the President proposed and was able to get passed, Leslie would have lost her health benefits through my employment on that date. And with her diagnosis, before the Affordable Care Act, she would never have been able to buy insurance at any price. The cost of her care is huge; and even though we are fortunate to enjoy a high annual job income, we are basically a middle-class family with a mortgage, and paying for that care personally would bankrupt my husband and me.
Because of the President, our daughter will get the treatment she needs. Because of the President, Leslie gets a chance to save her life. Leslie voted for Barack Obama in 2008, the first national election in which she was eligible to vote. She had no way of knowing then how critical that election would be to her personally; but she believed in Barack Obama then, and she believes in him now, more than ever.
The treatment to cure Leslie’s cancer is harsh and painful. I watch my daughter struggle daily with bone pain, nausea, chills, constipation, hair loss, skin rashes … it is an ugly litany of indignities and varying degrees of discomfort, overlain with the gnawing fear that the chemo won’t work. But each day she struggles on, fighting for the life that she wants to live. And every day we thank Barack Obama for giving her the chance to do so.
In a few months, we have been told that the most intensive and difficult part of Leslie’s treatment will be over.
Our family has made contributions to the President’s campaign efforts ever since he became a national candidate. We have already contributed this year and today made a monthly commitment for the 2012 election. We do that because we think America needs the President. And we do so out of gratitude for our daughter.
Thank you for listening.
Bonnie, Connecticut
Dr. Tiller’s murder was a sober reminder of the constant intimidation and harassment that abortion providers endure. In addition to threats of violence from individuals like Scott Roeder, abortion providers, their staff, and their patients are harassed by picketers and protestors on a daily basis.
In my work as a legislative fellow with the Reproductive Freedom Project, I’ve seen that abortion providers also face discrimination at the hands of politicians, who pass laws and regulations to limit a woman’s access to reproductive health care and to deter doctors from providing such care. These laws do nothing to protect the health and safety of women. Instead, they make it more difficult for women to obtain the care they need and for doctors to provide such care. Indeed, 86 percent of the counties in the U.S. currently have no abortion providers.
The doctors who do provide abortion care in spite of all these obstacles deserve our utmost respect; they put their own lives on the line every day by providing women the health care they need. I hope that my work at the ACLU to defeat laws and policies that jeopardize women’s health and limit access to comprehensive reproductive health care in some small way honors the courage and dedication of abortion providers.
—
Legislative Front Lines
By Autumn Katz, State Strategies Attorney Fellow, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
Every Day Should Be National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers
*Pregnant people, not just cis women.
