My abortion story

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:June 24, the day the Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health,was my 40th birthday. I was able to celebrate because abortion saved my life.

In September 2020, I had my 20 week anatomy scan for a pregnancy we very much wanted. That the fetus’s kidneys and lungs were not developing, there was fluid around the heart, I had no amniotic fluid, and my placenta was severely degraded. All my doctors agreed, the only choice was to terminate my pregnancy.

Thankfully, in MD and DC, abortion up to 24 weeks was legal. Even so, I had to jump through many stressful, challenging hoops: switching doctors to a practice who would perform the procedure; navigating Hyde Amendment restrictions on my Federal employee insurance; and being alone at appointments because of Covid restrictions.

I am thankful every day that I was able to get the care I needed at a hospital with an experienced and compassionate medical team. The the doctors could not stop me from bleeding after the procedure. I went into hypovolemic shock, lost 3x the amount of blood in my body, and formed blood clots in my hand and foot. I woke up with a breathing tube in the ICU, all alone and in excruciating pain. But I was alive. I was in the ICU for 8 days.

The decision in Dobbs means that pregnant woman like me will die. Even in states that provide exception for “life of the mother,” when abortion is so severely restricted, the care is not actually available. Who gets to decide how likely it is that I’m going to die before I get the medical care I need? How will doctors be able to provide the care we need to save our lives?

All abortion is, in some way, to save the life of the mother. I share my story as one example of the repercussions of denying reproductive health care to us.

Here's what I genuinely don't understand. If this procedure is medically necessary (and I don't doubt that it is), why are only certain ob/gyns willing or able to perform it? Is it because it is so complicated to learn (I'm dubious, given the other procedures these doctors offer and the emergencies they handle)(, because it is so rare (again, not an excuse; I assume your doctors would have treated you if you had spontaneously begun to abort), or for some other reason?

You suggest it was because of abortion restrictions, so do you think it was genuinely because your doctors were afraid of performing this procedure because of legal consequences?

Obviously we are going to need some very courageous doctors who feel confident that they can defend their decisions in court if this is the case.

The same advances in technology that the pro-life side argues defends their position can also be used to argue for lack of viability.

I think however that, for most pro-lifers, they are actually just bringing up the "health of the mother" argument to try to argue that ANY limits on abortion are dangerous to women, and whether this is true or not, it immediately goes back to the "all or nothing" argument that is actually not something most Americans favor. (Most Americans are pro-choice, but many-- me included-- are uncomfortable with the idea that allowing an ob/gyn to decide when to terminate a pregnancy for health reasons could extend to allowing a woman who is twenty weeks pregnant with a healthy baby to terminate that pregnancy at a clinic where she never actually consults with her own ob/gyn. Fortunately, I think the latter is very rare, but I'm not sure that's an argument for allowing it to ever happen, and I'm not convinced it's legally impossible to distinguish between these occurrences. That is why I go back to the fact that your own doctor would not perform the procedure-- if the same people who deliver our babies had been tasked with performing abortions instead of doctors whose sole job is abortions and often never see the woman undergoing an abortion prior to or after the procedure, it seems to me women with medical issues would be safer and less affected by the nationwide debate over life. Then again, it would also make abortion a lot less accessible-- and so we have to be honest about what we really want. If what we really want is accessible abortion, for any reason, at any time, it requires a different kind of approach. Because even most pro-lifers are on our side with the health of the mother/rape/incest but most pro-choicers get uncomfortable when we begin talking about healthy babies in the second or third trimesters.

Only about 5% of US ob/gyns perform abortions. I have talked to scores of gyns about this (I work in the field) and this is mostly for personal MORAL issues vs. legal ones. While most support a woman's right to choose, they do not want the "blood on their own hands". It's not what they want to be doing day-in and day-out. And lest we criticize them, each and every one of us had the option to attend medical school/residency to learn this skill (and could start our training journey tomorrow) but yet we too chose to earn our money in less messy ways as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:June 24, the day the Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health,was my 40th birthday. I was able to celebrate because abortion saved my life.

In September 2020, I had my 20 week anatomy scan for a pregnancy we very much wanted. That the fetus’s kidneys and lungs were not developing, there was fluid around the heart, I had no amniotic fluid, and my placenta was severely degraded. All my doctors agreed, the only choice was to terminate my pregnancy.

Thankfully, in MD and DC, abortion up to 24 weeks was legal. Even so, I had to jump through many stressful, challenging hoops: switching doctors to a practice who would perform the procedure; navigating Hyde Amendment restrictions on my Federal employee insurance; and being alone at appointments because of Covid restrictions.

I am thankful every day that I was able to get the care I needed at a hospital with an experienced and compassionate medical team. The the doctors could not stop me from bleeding after the procedure. I went into hypovolemic shock, lost 3x the amount of blood in my body, and formed blood clots in my hand and foot. I woke up with a breathing tube in the ICU, all alone and in excruciating pain. But I was alive. I was in the ICU for 8 days.

The decision in Dobbs means that pregnant woman like me will die. Even in states that provide exception for “life of the mother,” when abortion is so severely restricted, the care is not actually available. Who gets to decide how likely it is that I’m going to die before I get the medical care I need? How will doctors be able to provide the care we need to save our lives?

All abortion is, in some way, to save the life of the mother. I share my story as one example of the repercussions of denying reproductive health care to us.

Here's what I genuinely don't understand. If this procedure is medically necessary (and I don't doubt that it is), why are only certain ob/gyns willing or able to perform it? Is it because it is so complicated to learn (I'm dubious, given the other procedures these doctors offer and the emergencies they handle)(, because it is so rare (again, not an excuse; I assume your doctors would have treated you if you had spontaneously begun to abort), or for some other reason?

You suggest it was because of abortion restrictions, so do you think it was genuinely because your doctors were afraid of performing this procedure because of legal consequences?

Obviously we are going to need some very courageous doctors who feel confident that they can defend their decisions in court if this is the case.

The same advances in technology that the pro-life side argues defends their position can also be used to argue for lack of viability.

I think however that, for most pro-lifers, they are actually just bringing up the "health of the mother" argument to try to argue that ANY limits on abortion are dangerous to women, and whether this is true or not, it immediately goes back to the "all or nothing" argument that is actually not something most Americans favor. (Most Americans are pro-choice, but many-- me included-- are uncomfortable with the idea that allowing an ob/gyn to decide when to terminate a pregnancy for health reasons could extend to allowing a woman who is twenty weeks pregnant with a healthy baby to terminate that pregnancy at a clinic where she never actually consults with her own ob/gyn. Fortunately, I think the latter is very rare, but I'm not sure that's an argument for allowing it to ever happen, and I'm not convinced it's legally impossible to distinguish between these occurrences. That is why I go back to the fact that your own doctor would not perform the procedure-- if the same people who deliver our babies had been tasked with performing abortions instead of doctors whose sole job is abortions and often never see the woman undergoing an abortion prior to or after the procedure, it seems to me women with medical issues would be safer and less affected by the nationwide debate over life. Then again, it would also make abortion a lot less accessible-- and so we have to be honest about what we really want. If what we really want is accessible abortion, for any reason, at any time, it requires a different kind of approach. Because even most pro-lifers are on our side with the health of the mother/rape/incest but most pro-choicers get uncomfortable when we begin talking about healthy babies in the second or third trimesters.

I don’t understand wtf you are trying to say, but you sound like a dude who doesn’t really believe pregnancy is dangerous and that it is reasonable to make a woman with a dangerous pregnancy wait a couple of weeks while you debate whether or not she deserves an abortion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Abortion is one of those things you can be fully, 100 percent against - until you need one. My catholic best childhood friend was against abortion rights until she got pregnant at 19. She got an abortion.

This x 1,000, 000

I grew up Catholic and going to Catholic schools. The first person I knew to have an abortion was a very pro life and had participated in rallies with our church and had actually cried tears while talking about the issue with others. When she got pregnancy as a freshman in college her first thought was to have an abortion which she did. She didn’t regret it. She still attends church, married has kids.

I absolutely believe a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy. But then again, I also absolutely believe that a person has a right to refuse vaccines. And the absolute right to refuse any and/or all medical interventions and medications. (as long as they are a legal competent adult) It’s their body, their life, their choice. I absolutely don’t support most pro choice organizations because they don’t believe these things. If you say “my body, my choice” but believe it only aligns with this one issue, then you don’t really believe it and I can understand why pro life proponents don’t take you seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Abortion is one of those things you can be fully, 100 percent against - until you need one. My catholic best childhood friend was against abortion rights until she got pregnant at 19. She got an abortion.

Yeah, this is how it is. But she may regret that abortion for the rest of her life, especially since she's Catholic. That's a heavy cross to bear, pun intended.


There are so many aspects to this issue that rarely get discussed publically. The two sides are so extreme, it's a shame that normal women can't express the reality of abortion rights and be heard.

Who is saying you can’t discuss it? One side is extreme and is banning abortion. The other side wants abortion to be legal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Approximately 18% of all pregnancies in the United States end in induced abortion. That percentage is far higher among POC, far lower among mothers with other children. Despite the cases which detail some very scary maternal health issues, only 9-10% of induced abortions are related to the health of the mother or child, or resulted from rape/incest.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm

“only” 9-10%? That’s actually a really big number.

+1 That’s bigger than I expected it to be.

So 90% is for convenience, that is heartbreaking and sad

Convienende is a loaded term, but why is the abortion itself less heartbreaking if it’s a fetus conceived via rape? If you believe abortion is sad because a fetus is innocent life, isn’t if equally sad regardless of why it exists?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Abortion is one of those things you can be fully, 100 percent against - until you need one. My catholic best childhood friend was against abortion rights until she got pregnant at 19. She got an abortion.

This x 1,000, 000

I grew up Catholic and going to Catholic schools. The first person I knew to have an abortion was a very pro life and had participated in rallies with our church and had actually cried tears while talking about the issue with others. When she got pregnancy as a freshman in college her first thought was to have an abortion which she did. She didn’t regret it. She still attends church, married has kids.

I absolutely believe a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy. But then again, I also absolutely believe that a person has a right to refuse vaccines. And the absolute right to refuse any and/or all medical interventions and medications. (as long as they are a legal competent adult) It’s their body, their life, their choice. I absolutely don’t support most pro choice organizations because they don’t believe these things. If you say “my body, my choice” but believe it only aligns with this one issue, then you don’t really believe it and I can understand why pro life proponents don’t take you seriously.

that’s a weird attitude. the pro-choice organizatiins are the ones actually fighting the legal and advocacy battle for reproductive rights. you may disagree with them on other issues, but if you don’t support them, you’re basically not supporting reproductive rights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am PP. I terminated a pregnancy for Down syndrome. It is not incompatible with life. It just wasn’t something that my husband and I wanted for our lives and the life of our older DC. To me, that’s reason enough. And anyway, why do strangers care so much what others do with their genetic material?

I terminated when we found out the 3rd pregnancy was a boy. I had told my husband I would only raise a 3rd child if it was a girl, as our first 2 were boys. This was an unintended pregnancy so I was not thrilled to begin with. 1st trimester so there were no issues.

On the other hand, my older boy has Down syndrome and I cannot imagine my life without him. He is the delight of our lives.

I only write this to point out there are myriad and COMPLICATED reasons and situations to end a pregnancy and none of them are anyone's business.

That's insane. You should have had a tubal ligation instead of tossing the dice with another pregnancy. I hope abortion rights are restored -- and I hope people stop taking abortion this lightly, too.

I totally agree with your viewpoint. Abortion based on sex of the fetus (unless related to chromosome linked disease) is disturbing IMO. It cuts a little to close to the idea of “designer babies”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am PP. I terminated a pregnancy for Down syndrome. It is not incompatible with life. It just wasn’t something that my husband and I wanted for our lives and the life of our older DC. To me, that’s reason enough. And anyway, why do strangers care so much what others do with their genetic material?

I terminated when we found out the 3rd pregnancy was a boy. I had told my husband I would only raise a 3rd child if it was a girl, as our first 2 were boys. This was an unintended pregnancy so I was not thrilled to begin with. 1st trimester so there were no issues.

On the other hand, my older boy has Down syndrome and I cannot imagine my life without him. He is the delight of our lives.

I only write this to point out there are myriad and COMPLICATED reasons and situations to end a pregnancy and none of them are anyone's business.

That's insane. You should have had a tubal ligation instead of tossing the dice with another pregnancy. I hope abortion rights are restored -- and I hope people stop taking abortion this lightly, too.

+1 just wow to this story. Doesn't speak highly for her love of her second child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I delievered twins at 20 weeks and obviously they lived only a few hours, so I am truly sympathetic to your loss. I also endured non-stop and dangerous bleeding after a different delivery. So I understand a little bit what you went through. So please understand, I don't mean to be callous or dismissive. But, I am trying to understand how the abortion saved your life. It kind of sounds like the abortion endangered your life. What would have happened had the pregnancy been left to end on its own? Yes, it would have been difficult to know you were carrying a baby that would not survive, but it may very well have been a safer decision. Sometimes in life we suffer through very sad things. I have had my share. But I don't think it's accurate to say that abortion saved your life.

Are you always so effing arrogant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m glad you got the procedure but what of the abortions at 24 weeks that are done simply because the mother decides to choose to kill the fetus? I have a hard time with thinking that is right.

Because this is not a thing; it’s a scare tactic talking point. About 15 years ago, when I was in the midst of a very difficult pregnancy and I was trying to understand what might be in store and survival rates for micropreemies. I fell down the internet rabbit hole, and came across a NY Times article on late-term abortions. At that time there were exactly four doctors in the US who would do them. Only one would even consider anything vaguely resembling a “I don’t want to be pregnant any more reason”. The rest started spelling out all of the horrible, terrible, excruciating circumstances that had had women traveling across country with money they didn’t have to do,this thing that they never thought they would have to do for babies they really wanted to have. It was after reading that article that I - who had never cared about abortion much, thought it was ‘irresponsible’ and ‘making someone else pay for your actions’ - became a die hard advocate for protecting the ability for women to get necessary medical care when something awful has happened and all good options are off the table and you’re fishing around for the least bad option. And all the stories were slightly different and there’s no court on earth qualified to rule on each variation.

At least one of those doctors has died, and one of the others would have to be in their nineties now if they are still alive. This post-24 week abortion of viable fetuses to healthy mothers is not happening. It’s just floated out there to make people like you vote for things to keep other people in power because “they’re for the babies”. And if you’re a woman, you’re a also foolish and voting against your own interests.

[Anonymous]

Abortion is a personal issue. It does not matter if it is for fetal abnormalities, or sex selection, or convenience, or health, or lack of resources. It is not anyone's business!

The anti-choice posters above replying to the poster who shared her story are the reason women are reluctant to openly share their abortion stories.

I had my abortion because I was not remotely interested in having a baby. Plain and simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for sharing your story, OP. And I'm sorry for your loss.


But here's my abortion story: I've never needed one. And it doesn't matter if you wanted the baby or if you were raped or if it saved your life or whatever. It doesn't matter if your BC failed or if you're a "slut" or whatever, abortion is healthcare and it's a human right for women to have control over if or when they have a baby.

Let's get to work...

Absolutely!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am PP. I terminated a pregnancy for Down syndrome. It is not incompatible with life. It just wasn’t something that my husband and I wanted for our lives and the life of our older DC. To me, that’s reason enough. And anyway, why do strangers care so much what others do with their genetic material?

I terminated when we found out the 3rd pregnancy was a boy. I had told my husband I would only raise a 3rd child if it was a girl, as our first 2 were boys. This was an unintended pregnancy so I was not thrilled to begin with. 1st trimester so there were no issues.

On the other hand, my older boy has Down syndrome and I cannot imagine my life without him. He is the delight of our lives.

I only write this to point out there are myriad and COMPLICATED reasons and situations to end a pregnancy and none of them are anyone's business.

That's insane. You should have had a tubal ligation instead of tossing the dice with another pregnancy. I hope abortion rights are restored -- and I hope people stop taking abortion this lightly, too.

NP here. Your definition of insanity is far different from mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Abortion is a personal issue. It does not matter if it is for fetal abnormalities, or sex selection, or convenience, or health, or lack of resources. It is not anyone's business!

The anti-choice posters above replying to the poster who shared her story are the reason women are reluctant to openly share their abortion stories.

I had my abortion because I was not remotely interested in having a baby. Plain and simple.

+1

There is a huge potential moral issue with designer babies but strangers telling how somebody else what choices they get to make with their bodies and their *lives* is not the answer. Doing so is the bigger moral issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:June 24, the day the Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health,was my 40th birthday. I was able to celebrate because abortion saved my life.

In September 2020, I had my 20 week anatomy scan for a pregnancy we very much wanted. That the fetus’s kidneys and lungs were not developing, there was fluid around the heart, I had no amniotic fluid, and my placenta was severely degraded. All my doctors agreed, the only choice was to terminate my pregnancy.

Thankfully, in MD and DC, abortion up to 24 weeks was legal. Even so, I had to jump through many stressful, challenging hoops: switching doctors to a practice who would perform the procedure; navigating Hyde Amendment restrictions on my Federal employee insurance; and being alone at appointments because of Covid restrictions.

I am thankful every day that I was able to get the care I needed at a hospital with an experienced and compassionate medical team. The the doctors could not stop me from bleeding after the procedure. I went into hypovolemic shock, lost 3x the amount of blood in my body, and formed blood clots in my hand and foot. I woke up with a breathing tube in the ICU, all alone and in excruciating pain. But I was alive. I was in the ICU for 8 days.

The decision in Dobbs means that pregnant woman like me will die. Even in states that provide exception for “life of the mother,” when abortion is so severely restricted, the care is not actually available. Who gets to decide how likely it is that I’m going to die before I get the medical care I need? How will doctors be able to provide the care we need to save our lives?

All abortion is, in some way, to save the life of the mother. I share my story as one example of the repercussions of denying reproductive health care to us.

Here's what I genuinely don't understand. If this procedure is medically necessary (and I don't doubt that it is), why are only certain ob/gyns willing or able to perform it? Is it because it is so complicated to learn (I'm dubious, given the other procedures these doctors offer and the emergencies they handle)(, because it is so rare (again, not an excuse; I assume your doctors would have treated you if you had spontaneously begun to abort), or for some other reason?

You suggest it was because of abortion restrictions, so do you think it was genuinely because your doctors were afraid of performing this procedure because of legal consequences?

Obviously we are going to need some very courageous doctors who feel confident that they can defend their decisions in court if this is the case.

The same advances in technology that the pro-life side argues defends their position can also be used to argue for lack of viability.

I think however that, for most pro-lifers, they are actually just bringing up the "health of the mother" argument to try to argue that ANY limits on abortion are dangerous to women, and whether this is true or not, it immediately goes back to the "all or nothing" argument that is actually not something most Americans favor. (Most Americans are pro-choice, but many-- me included-- are uncomfortable with the idea that allowing an ob/gyn to decide when to terminate a pregnancy for health reasons could extend to allowing a woman who is twenty weeks pregnant with a healthy baby to terminate that pregnancy at a clinic where she never actually consults with her own ob/gyn. Fortunately, I think the latter is very rare, but I'm not sure that's an argument for allowing it to ever happen, and I'm not convinced it's legally impossible to distinguish between these occurrences. That is why I go back to the fact that your own doctor would not perform the procedure-- if the same people who deliver our babies had been tasked with performing abortions instead of doctors whose sole job is abortions and often never see the woman undergoing an abortion prior to or after the procedure, it seems to me women with medical issues would be safer and less affected by the nationwide debate over life. Then again, it would also make abortion a lot less accessible-- and so we have to be honest about what we really want. If what we really want is accessible abortion, for any reason, at any time, it requires a different kind of approach. Because even most pro-lifers are on our side with the health of the mother/rape/incest but most pro-choicers get uncomfortable when we begin talking about healthy babies in the second or third trimesters.

1) many OBGYNs aren't trained on it (not because it's so hard or complicated, but it's often left out of OBGYN training)

2) many doctors were threatened by terrorists and some were actually murdered in the past, causing them to distance themselves from abortion services