Shout Your Abortion

by Amelia Bonow

How did we find ourselves in a place where abortion access is being regulated in a way that is so profoundly out of step with public opinion? The answer is relatively simple: those who oppose abortion rights have dominated the conversation by framing abortion as murder. The Left has never figured out a compelling way to advocate for abortion rights, because the anti-choice movement has relentlessly flooded the discursive field with so much propaganda that even those who support abortion rights often do so from an apologetic stance. Those seeking to regulate reproductive freedom have intentionally created a cultural climate where talking openly about having had an abortion is a liability that most people are understandably unwilling to accept.

I sincerely understand how abortion can feel heartbreaking, emotional, or traumatic. But it also needs to be said that a lot of us are not upset about our abortions, then, now, or ever. Because of this, there needs to be more space and permission for people to have all sorts of different experiences with abortions, especially since the topic is so thoroughly drenched with Christian and patriarchal propaganda that wants us to feel guilt, secrecy, and shame.

I do not regret my decision not to carry my pregnancy to term. I wish there had been another way. I wish we didn’t live in a fucked-up capitalist society that makes it difficult to survive if you’re not wealthy. I wish we lived in a world where black lives mattered and that it didn’t feel like a fist was balled around my heart whenever my 13-year-old son is out and doesn’t answer the phone. I wish we had a health care system that valued black women’s bodies so that I didn’t have to worry about dying during childbirth or after. I could have died during my last pregnancy. I still remember bleeding through sheets and the nurse telling me to get up and walk so that I didn’t develop blood clots. “You’ve come too far for these boys to lose you now,” she told me as she helped me sit up in bed. I wish I hadn’t felt so guilty for not wanting to have another baby, but I made the decision that was right for me and for my family. And I am so glad that I had the choice.

It made me angry that the system in place has not been set up for folks like me. It is not set up for women—especially black women—to take authorship over their own bodies. Black women are visible in society as caretakers for white children, yet we are vilified as unfit mothers. We are more likely to die in childbirth, yet we lack access to abortion services. This facade is ingrained in our society, and it negatively influences how women of color see themselves, their worth, and their abilities.

am a woman who has had multiple abortions. It turns out, that changes me not at all. People who read this may judge me, but the ones who meet me in real life would never see it coming. I’m not irresponsible, a child-hater, or any of the things they say about those who are pro-choice and those who have abortions. I’m still happily married, still blissfully a mom. My only fleeting regret was that I was briefly made to feel like I should regret choosing the course of my own life. Fuck that noise, am I right?

In the medical community, we say that women have a right to health care. As physicians and as healers, we take an oath to do no harm, and to practice beneficence—to do good. I think to deny a woman an abortion when she needs one constitutes harm, and to provide abortions for a woman when she needs one is beneficence. It’s to do good.

I’m exhausted after a lifetime of men thinking they have the right to tell me what to do with my body.