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

by Meera Shah

“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” —AUDRE LORDE

Storytelling creates emotional connections between people. By sharing the nuances of culture, history, and values, people and ideas are united through their stories. Even if an individual can’t identify with another’s exact experience, there is usually some component of the story, even as small as the fleeting, universal emotions of fear or happiness, that can be shared and appreciated.

I know that the briefest moment of vulnerability can be the beginning of a meaningful connection, even with a complete stranger.

He taught me that religion is at the core of so many people’s sense of self and that one way to understand others is to try to understand their faith.

My father always believed that one should never have blind faith for religion, that faith should come after you’ve established a concrete understanding of the core principles that religion teaches.

Jainism is a religion that is older than Hinduism and holds three main tenets. The first two are nonviolence and non-possessiveness, or minimalism. The third principle, my favorite and the one that guides my work, is non-absolutism (anekantvada). This is the idea that a viewpoint cannot be 100 percent true; therefore, every viewpoint has to have at least some truth to it. This principle inherently encourages dialogue and harmony with other ideas, beliefs, and perspectives.

What this shows is that when we humanize the issue, we’re more likely to support it.

Opening up about a personal experience, let alone a controversial one, is scary. But with risk comes reward. Stories have power. They can break down stigmas and help us to empathize with those whose experiences are unlike our own. They can also help us find community, a shared sense of camaraderie over experiences just like ours.

“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace”

Sara said that the whole thing is about coming to a point where life, in and of itself, in all the ugly ways, is beautiful.

Just like life, some parts of all our stories are messy and complicated. They don’t always come with a lesson or perfect closure.

“If you’re not going to marry a guy, don’t tie yourself down to him.”

“men did not take responsibility for their fertility. It was all on the woman.” So getting pregnant and “dealing with it” was also something that often fell to the woman, a burden she was meant to bear on her own.

Paige sees footage of protestors outside health centers that provide abortion care, it’s the male protestors and politicians who bother her the most. “It is truly none of their business. I don’t think abortion is the greatest solution in the world, but it’s the one we’ve got. I think that women have an absolute right to their own bodies. Let women decide for themselves. You as the person having the abortion have to live with the decisions you’ve made—and that’s OK. That’s as it should be. I don’t want other people making my mistakes for me, making my decisions for me. They have no right.”

warm body to collapse into when everything in their world felt like it was crashing down.

Talk to anyone who has experienced loss, and one thing becomes quickly obvious: there is no right way to grieve.

“It’s not about being pro-choice, it’s about being pro-truth.”

By the time she got there, she was so starved for love and attention that she’d take it where it was most readily available: from boys.

I want to make sure that this kid is loved. I don’t remember feeling loved. It’s very difficult for me to pinpoint acute moments of feeling loved in my childhood. I want to raise a kid who doesn’t grow up feeling neglected or lonely.” In a way, her first abortion was an act of love for herself.

“There isn’t a woman in history who had a baby without sperm. So it’s not a ‘women’s health’ issue, it’s a ‘health issue.’ You just handed all the hard stuff to the woman and now you’re going to double down on it by making her feel ashamed and bad about it?”

Men play a role in unintended pregnancy. Men, too, carry the responsibility for preventing and managing unintended pregnancy. Many men, regardless of sexual orientation, want to have children and become parents. And men face the hardships of infertility, just as women do.

Reproductive health includes everyone.

There are studies that show pregnancy can be one of the most dangerous times in an intimate partner relationship, especially one that is already not healthy.

What about a partner’s role in a planned and desired pregnancy?

One thing he recommends that men do is become more educated about what it means to be pregnant: what a pregnancy does to the body, how it impacts one’s life.

Many of the lawmakers making decisions about abortion access are men, largely straight, cis, white men. And men make up a large proportion of the antiabortion movement (whereas more women and nonbinary people lend their voice and their efforts to fighting for reproductive health and access).

It’s not a far stretch to link male predominance in the antiabortion movement to the conservative Christian, right-wing ideal of the patriarchal male role in the family unit—the breadwinner, the provider, the caregiver, the protector. The decision maker. The knower of what’s best. Whether we’re ready to admit it or not, it still seems to persist that the idea of abortion and bodily autonomy may be perceived as a threat to masculinity. If not outright, then certainly in subtle, subconscious ways.

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.

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.

However, more women are choosing sterilization than men. Accessing sterilization in general can be difficult, with many physicians withholding care from those who have not had children or imposing sometimes arbitrary age cutoffs.

I asked Mateo how often he’s been asked about contraception at his doctor’s office. “Never,” he said. According to the Journal of Sex Research, “In the United States, responsibility for preventing pregnancy in heterosexual relationships disproportionately falls on women,” who then carry the weight of its physical, financial, and emotional obligations.6 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?

However, in Arkansas, a bill was passed in 2017 that made it so the person who impregnated an individual had to give permission for that person to obtain an abortion. When I argue that men should be engaged in the conversation around contraception and abortion, this is not what I mean. Laws like this are inappropriate and unethical. Toxic masculinity and oppressive gender stereotypes contribute to the divide. They allow for the ideas of “women’s health” and “men’s health” to persist without much discussion on how to bridge the gap.

The fight for common sense is both so uphill and so obvious that it’s maddening. I feel confused daily why people are so interested in controlling other people’s lives and in doing so, hurting so many other people.

Why does it feel like women and pregnant people are on one side and men are on the other? “When you’re not used to that kind of powerlessness, it can make you feel crazy. It feels like it’s all about conquest and war and acquisition and property and that’s why I think men freak out when all of a sudden they’re being relegated to a spectator on this issue. I think it goes deeper in the way that men and women are taught to interact.”

Toxic masculinity is at the core of many of the gender dynamics in our society. Talking about women in a derogatory way (using words like “slut”), minimizing emotions (and calling each other “pussy” when they do show emotion), and exerting power are common ways boys and young men are taught to behave. And then these behaviors are reinforced. A pat on the back in approval, a quick nod of affirmation.

She points out that the data shows the vast majority of couples agree on how to address a pregnancy that they’ve created together.7 When they don’t agree, only one person’s wishes can prevail, and because it’s the pregnant person who risks her body, she has a constitutional right to make the decision about what happens next. Women carry a biological burden of fertility that men will never have, and so women should have more reproductive autonomy.

“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.”

The idea that a pregnant person gets the final decision should not lead the men in their lives to just think of themselves as supporters or allies. Men really are stakeholders and beneficiaries when it comes to their partner’s reproductive decisions, and they should be out there marching because abortion access is “their issue” too.

“Having a kid at twenty would have definitely changed my future. I’ve seen cases where people become an adult too quick, they don’t finish their dream, they don’t accomplish as much,”

And though some men may be caught up in this idea of the financial burden, there are countless studies that show how an unintended pregnancy can derail a woman’s trajectory, affecting everything from how much money she can earn to her ability to be in a stable relationship.

I don’t think abortion is a woman thing, I think it’s a man and woman thing. And at the end of the day, for someone to get pregnant it takes two.

So she sought out other minorities at school, banding together out of the shared experience of being different—in this case, nonwhite. “We kind of formed a coalition of minority representation in our high school, which was really great.”

In fact the very first time Maya got her period, when she was about thirteen, her mother’s reaction surprised her. Rather than commenting on how her body was changing or teach her how to use a tampon, Maya’s mom was suddenly concerned with whether or not she was hanging out with boys.

she said of her strict upbringing. “The more they tried to push me to do things their way, the more I rebelled against it.

At the time, she remembered thinking, “You can’t tell me what to do, it’s my life. Why are you always punishing me for these things? I didn’t know how to cope. I didn’t know how I was supposed to deal with the emotions I felt, so I did what most teens do, rebel and defy them however I could.”

The constant push and pull between cultures can be challenging, and I have felt this myself. When it comes to education, children of Indian immigrants are encouraged to be at the top in our class and put nothing in front of o...

Education would give Maya opportunities as well as more freedom, especially because she was being raised in the United States instead of India. But when it came to dating, there were no boys allowed until she were at a marriageable age. Sex before marriage is taboo. And regardless of preference in a partner, parental preference carried more weight.

But dating had always seemed confusing, because as much as Maya wanted to honor and respect her family, it just didn’t always seem that simple. Maya’s peers were mostly not Indian and finding a boy who met all of her parent’s criteria and hers felt almost impossible.

Watching my dad cry; feeling like I’m the worst daughter.

And though their relationship fizzled, it set in motion some complicated feelings around relationships and her parents. Despite all the rebellion over the years, there was still a part of Maya that wanted to make her parents happy.