You're the Only One I've Told: The Stories Behind Abortion

by Meera Shah

While Vandalia had a bright future ahead of her, someone shouldn’t have to be perfect or disclose all these details about themselves just to access an abortion if they need one. Everyone deserves care, no matter their GPA.

Aiken’s research on self-managed abortion in Ireland and Northern Ireland, during a recent period when abortion was essentially illegal, found that among the 1,023 women who used an online telemedicine service to complete a medical abortion, the outcomes were similar to those seen in a clinical setting.

According to Sara Ainsworth (pronouns: she/her/hers)

Up until the Reproductive Health Act (RHA) was passed in 2019, someone could have been prosecuted for ending their pregnancy.

It is a sad and troubling fact that those who can’t get pregnant often decide the rights of those who can. The antiabortion movement has strengthened these tensions by attempting to simplifying the issues through messaging: a fetus is a life, and ending a life is wrong. What people carrying a pregnancy understand through their experiences is that it is much more complicated than that.

Reproductive freedom leads directly to economic freedom, a path to achieve educational and career goals, and a sense of freedom from the home.

And somewhere along the way, a woman’s right to use birth control turned into a woman’s responsibility to use birth control, which is not fair and not inclusive.

Deciding on a method, dealing with side effects, stressing about a missed dose, taking emergency contraception, picking up refills on time—these are burdens society has placed on those who can carry a pregnancy. And if this idea is reinforced in the exam room, how will men ever feel like they play a role in or share responsibility for unintended pregnancy?

By siloing reproductive health as a “women’s” health issue, we feed into the myth that it’s just cis women making decisions about sex and reproduction, independent of any outside factors. In real life, there is often consensual input from partners, plus culture, family, income, stability, and faith to consider, not to mention career aspirations. Many men are advocates for abortion access and we need to continue to encourage this involvement.

So this raises the question: where are all the men at the marches holding up their signs that say, I HAD AN ABORTION, AND IT CHANGED MY LIFE?

“It’s great for a man to be an ally on ‘women’s issues’ or to women collectively. But an ally can walk away when the going gets tough, because it’s not really ‘your issue’ or your identity. What men need to realize is they are actual stakeholders. Government forced childbearing will mean that you will be a father against your will and the woman you love will be put through pregnancy and motherhood against her will.”

Only about 4 percent of abortions occurring each year in the United States take place in hospitals.2 The majority occur in office settings.

Hospitals are more likely than another health center or facility to provide abortions later in pregnancy, specifically after twenty weeks. But because of religious affiliations, abortions at hospitals are not widely available and are more expensive than abortions done in outpatient facilities.

I spoke to Lois Uttley, the director of MergerWatch, about this issue. MergerWatch is an organization that is working hard to identify the impact of religious health care organizations on reproductive health access. In some states, more than 40 percent of hospital beds are in Catholic-run facilities and Catholic mergers with non-Catholic hospitals are becoming more frequent. She explained to me that hospitals that are Catholic-sponsored follow a set of directives that have been issued by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and are enforced by local bishops.3 These include rules about withholding contraception information, a mandate to avoid any talk of abortion, and forbidding of sterilization. Furthermore, the directives specifically state that a person’s decision is to be followed “so long as it does not contradict Catholic principles.” In other words: Catholicism trumps personal agency, every time.

Today, one in six hospital beds in the United States is in a Catholic hospital.4

Physicians often feel paralyzed by the rules in place at their Catholic institutions and this has been described in the research.7 I find it incredibly frustrating to have to pick and choose where I send my patients, especially knowing that my colleagues at these Catholic institutions often have to go against what they know is medical best practice in order to abide by the policies and not get fired.

It was concluded that young people and those with limited financial resources are the ones who seek later abortions and therefore bans on abortion after twenty weeks will disproportionately impact them.1 We expect people to know exactly when they got pregnant, how far along they are, and how they are going to handle the pregnancy—this isn’t fair. This way of thinking doesn’t take into account finances, emotions, ambivalence, support, coercion, abuse, culture, religion, and the countless other things that shape people’s experiences. And not to mention that most people don’t know that they are pregnant during the very early phase of the pregnancy. About 58 percent of people having abortions reported that they wish they could have had their abortion earlier than they did.2

Some states provide fake health centers with taxpayer dollars (approximately fourteen states currently).3

In fact, there are about four thousand fake health centers compared to the 780 real providers of abortion care.5 That means that for every one health center that provides abortion care, there are five fake clinics. And in the last few decades, these fake health centers have become highly skilled at their deception, making it easy to confuse them for the real thing.

I want people to understand that abortion is normal.