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

by Meera Shah

remaining silent about providing abortion care perpetuates the stereotype that abortion is unusual or deviant or that legitimate, skilled, intelligent doctors do not perform them.

I’ve always believed that the simple act of sharing stories is one of the most effective ways to influence, teach, and inspire change.

Storytelling creates emotional connections between people. By sharing the nuances of culture, history, and values, people and ideas are united through their stories.

I do not believe that anyone should have to tell their story. The burden of breaking down stigma should not only weigh on those who have had abortions.

Should someone be called brave for doing what they felt was best for them? I don’t think so. But we can say that someone is brave to choose themselves when often societal and familial actors actively try to take away their reproductive autonomy.

People should be treated with the same dignity and respect regardless of what decisions they make for themselves about pregnancy and parenting.

If someone is capable of getting pregnant, they are capable of an unintended pregnancy, which may or may not lead to abortion.

People don’t always think about a pregnancy as unintended or intended. It may be planned, unintended, or somewhere along a continuum of ambivalence.

There is no such thing as a good abortion or bad abortion or someone who is worthy of an abortion or someone who is not.

We live in a society where most desired pregnancies (and those assumed to be desired), especially within the context of white heterosexual marriage, are celebrated, but the common experiences of infertility, unintended pregnancy, miscarriage, and especially abortion are kept secret.

just because someone continues their pregnancy does not mean that it’s not fraught with trauma, poverty, abuse, missed educational or career opportunities, violence, or food scarcity.

everyone knows and loves someone who has had an abortion.

Some find it hard to believe, but one in four women in America has an abortion in her lifetime

Abortion is very common. Not understanding how common it is has contributed to the belief that it is shameful and rare.

Abortion has a safety rating of 99 percent, as supported by a study released in 2018 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In fact, an abortion is safer than carrying a pregnancy to term.

There are other, more complex medical procedures (for example, certain orthopedic or plastic surgery procedures) that carry more risk that we give more agency to patients over.

the majority (61 percent) of people obtaining abortions are between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine.

most people choosing abortion are in fact already parents—more than six in ten of the women who have an abortion have had one or more children.

Abortion care has been occurring around the world, in all cultures, since the beginning of humanity.

Abortion will always be accessible for affluent people, white people—even conservative ones—and those publicly fighting against abortion access.

outside of sterilization, there is no method that is 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. Even if contraception were freely available and accessible, we would still need to make abortion available and accessible to those who need it.

Abortion and contraception won’t cure poverty. We have to address the critical issues of raising minimum wage, ensuring childcare, guaranteeing family leave, and addressing racism and implicit bias

Three quarters of those receiving abortion care live in poverty.

Medicaid is the largest health insurer that covers pregnancy in the United States, covering almost half of the births in this country. But federal law does not guarantee Medicaid coverage for abortion (unless it’s in the setting of rape, incest, or the pregnant person’s life is in danger), care that a quarter of all American women need.

all people should be provided with the opportunity to choose a method or stop a method of contraception if they want (by way of access to insurance, a health center, nonjudgmental and inclusive care, and more), we must be mindful of the approach and messaging.

seven out of ten Americans support abortion access in all or most cases.

there are only seventeen states that permit Medicaid coverage of abortion care. Simply put, the zip code in which you live determines the type of health care coverage you receive.

Even before becoming law, attempts at restrictions affect patient care in a very tangible way: they make people afraid of trying to receive care and confused about limitations on what care they might be able to access, which delays care or prevents them from seeking it altogether.

On the surface, you might think that antiabortion protests outside health centers look nonviolent. I know from experience that the mere presence of people outside a health center with graphic, misleading images and cruel slogans has a very real and harmful effect on patients who need care.

people of all faiths have abortions and many people who identify with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity consider abortion a moral decision.

according to the American Cancer Society, there is no scientific evidence that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer or any other cancer,

Research has shown that those who were certain about their decision to have an abortion, which is most people, continued with the procedure whether they were shown the ultrasound image or not.

Those who experience intimate partner violence are more likely to have an abortion because they want to end the cycle of abuse they are experiencing.

“New York State does not require sex ed. New York City says publicly that sex ed is ‘mandatory’ as part of required health ed class, but there is no written policy or regulation requiring it, no curriculum requirements, and no enforcement mechanism.”

Studies demonstrate that parents are overwhelmingly in support of sex education in schools.

Comprehensive sex education has been shown to reduce teen pregnancy without increasing rates of sexual intercourse or sexually transmitted infections.

Dr. Pamela Kohler at the University of Washington found that young people who received sex education were 60 percent less likely to become pregnant or to get someone pregnant than those who did not receive sex education.

Practically speaking, if this country had mandated sex education like most other developed countries, we would see a significant decrease in unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

Regardless of politics or faith, the medical facts remain the same: young people are fertile and any act of sexual intercourse can result in pregnancy.

many young people who plan on abstinence do not in fact remain abstinent.

The same number of states that require minors to have some form of parental involvement in their abortion don’t require parental involvement with prenatal care or childbirth (if the parent/guardian is incarcerated or has a substance use disorder, if the minor is being raised by a non-guardian relative, or if the minor is living in a youth shelter).

parental consent does not always translate to parental support.

The percentage of second trimester abortions had by adolescents increased in states such as Texas, Mississippi, Massachusetts, and Missouri in part because adolescents suspect pregnancy later than adults and because mandatory consent laws delay access to abortion.

A 2016 report by the New York City Department of Health found that Black college-educated women are more likely to suffer from severe complications during pregnancy and childbirth than uneducated white women.

According to the Abortion Care Network, half of all health centers providing abortion care are independent, and they provide about two thirds of all abortion care.

The Turnaway Study researchers discovered through their work that when someone is turned away from a desired abortion, they are four times more likely to live below the federal poverty line and less likely to have aspirational life plans in the coming year (among many other barriers to a thriving life). They are less likely to be employed and more likely to rely on public assistance. 4 Furthermore, they found that among the people who were denied abortions, 90 percent chose to raise the child rather than chose adoption.5 The same researchers at UCSF compared children born after their mothers were denied abortions to the next children born to women who received abortions.

children born to a parent who was denied an abortion were more likely to live in households in which there wasn’t enough money to pay for basic living expenses.

about one in five pregnancies will stop growing and result in early pregnancy loss.

medical care is not always about saving a life, there are times when we ask families to choose to remove life support,”

If a pregnant person were to miscarry at the exact same point, or carry to term, then all care would be covered. Not only would medical care be covered but the death of a child, or loss of a pregnancy after twenty weeks, would also be covered by their life insurance. But, if they chose abortion, all costs were their responsibility.