abortionclinicdays

Dr. Susan Wicklund at Women and Children First Bookstore

 I heard Dr. Wicklund speak several months ago, reading from her book This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor. It was one of the most moving readings I'd been to in a long time, and many of us in the room were full-out sobbing as we listened to her story. 

Dr Wicklund began as a self-avowed hippie living in a tent in the Midwest. In 1976, she her own abortion under awful circumstances, with a physician who was rough and uncaring. She went on to have a wonderful homebirth several years later, trained as a midwife, attended births herself and made the decision to go to medical school. When the opportunity to learn to provide abortions came up, she saw an unmet need and eventually opened her own clinic, determined to provide better care than the kind she recieved. Dr. Wicklund was personally targeted by violent anti-abortion protestors and the book also chronicles the lengths she went to to keep herself, her family and her staff safe. It's a powerful book and she's a great speaker.

Here is Dr. Wicklund reading at Women and Children First Bookstore in Chicago, filmed by Book TV. If you don't have time to watch the entire reading, Viva La Feminista has a great rundown of the evening.

Nell

I could never tell them--they're against this...

We've been getting a fair number of hits from a Catholic site recently which posted that posing the question of "what makes for a good abortion" was a horrifying thing. I'm not upset that someone would respond this way, I know those feelings are out there and see the effects of it in the clinic every day. I'm saddest when I think about how this attitude will affect the women in one's life. When your family, friends and loved ones know that you have such strong feelings about abortion, they'll never feel comfortable telling you about their own abortions, or seeking help with a pregnancy decision. They already know how you're going to respond and fear that it won't be helpful, loving or compassionate.

We cross-posted on Feministing last week and here is one woman's response:

I had my abortion about three and a half years ago. I thought I was pro-life simply because I was raised it and terrified to set foot into a planned parenthood. I went to get a pregnancy test and the nurse brought me back to a room to tell me I was pregnant. When she told me I was the words just spilled out of my mouth "I can't have the baby" She didn't even hesitate or frown on my words and I began the process of figuring out how to pay for it ect. The worst part was that I had to hide it from my mother and father as well as the fathers (my now husband) mother and father. The best part was everything about the planned parenthood! From the nurse holding my hand and talking to me about the college classes I was starting in the fall to the Dr. being so caring and respectful. The very best part was the warmed recliner and cookies in the recovery room! The after care with planned parenthood is also great!
In summary, planned parenthood (at least where I am) is amazing!

So here's our promise to all the anti-abortion folks out there, who think that it's horrifying to try to imagine good care through an abortion decision: We promise to continue to care for the women in your life when they need abortions and we will do it with compassion and dignity. When they can't talk to you, we will make sure that they are safe, respected and loved, through whatever decisions they make.

Nell

ADDENDUM: While thinking about what I just wrote in the shower, I do want to point out that this is not a challenge to prove "who cares about women more." Rather, this is a post about decision-making, about who we go to in times of crisis or when in need of help. If I am a vocal supporter of the peace movement and all I talk about is how awful millitarism is, you're probably not going to want to talk to me about how you're husband is stationed in Iraq and how you really miss him. If I continue spouting off on how welfare is a travesty, you're probably not going to tell me that you're on food stamps. I don't think that anti-abortion protesters love the women in their family less, but I do wish they'd consider how their sentiments affect the women in their lives who have had (or will have) abortions.

Links to address some recent questions

Several comments have requested specific information about the laws surrounding abortion care, the safety of the procedure and about prenatal testing. Here are a few links to address these issues:

An Overview of Abortion in the United States: This presentation from the Guttmacher Institute became available in 2008. Available in powerpoint and pdf format, it includes information on demographics, access and medical safety of abortion in the US. While the powerpoint does not include citations, the references are available on the site as well.

Abortion Laws: Also from the Guttmacher Institute, with state-by-state information. This is a pdf document which is updated monthly.

What to Expect After an Abortion: From the Feminist Women's Health Center

Prenatal Testing: As I'd mentioned in an earlier entry, the kind of knowledge we can glean from prenatal testing is limited to certain kinds of conditions. These links which review what kind of prenatal testing is available, how and when in pregnancy it is performed and what the test is able to screen for.

Finally, I wanted to send a little love out to one of our readers, who writes the "Chaos is Normal" blog and thank her for adding her voice to the conversation about prenatal testing, a fetal demise and finding a physician who would perform a D&E. Thank you for sharing your experience, be well, we're thinking of you.

-Nell

The History of the Pregnancy Test

Every woman I meet with has her own "how I found out" pregnancy story. It's become a rite of passage. Most women do two, three, four tests before actually believing the results and I've come to believe that the single, most popular place to take a pregnancy test in America today is the Ladies Restroom at Walmart.

Check out this fascinating site about the history of pregnancy testing: The Thin Blue Line.

Your abortion stories

Even though we do not typically respond within the comments section of this blog, Bon, Lu and I do read comments to see what readers have questions about and what kind of stories would be meaningful to our readers. I want to thank those of you who have written in with your own abortion stories. Nothing better illustrates the richness and complexity of a pregnancy decision than hearing from women who've been there. The women's positive abortion stories help us as counselors identify the qualities that help encourage resilience and healthy coping before and after an abortion.

We often share your stories with our own patients. Hearing that someone else has walked that path with strength and grace--and that they're not afraid to tell their story--our patients describe as the most precious gift they can receive from the women in their community. The abortion stories women provide that describe isolation, suffering or painful rumination--those teach us something too. We should be listening to these women to understand the qualities that contribute to their suffering so that no woman has to describe her pregnancy or abortion experience in this way.

So how can you help the women you love to have positive memories of their abortions? I would love to hear from readers about the factors that made a difference in their abortions being positive or negative memories. Some suggestions I've gotten from women include:

Listen closely and let me express all the feelings I'm having, even the ambivalent ones.
Don't tell me what to do, unless I ask you for that feedback.
Tell me your own abortion story.
Don't assume that be cause I am pro-choice, this experience will be clearcut or simple for me.
Don't assume that describing myself as "against abortion" means I don't want to have one.
Help me with practical things--childcare, a ride to the clinic, make my favorite dinner for when I get back home, clean the house, cover my shift at work on the day of my appointment.
When you make promises to help with this stuff--FOLLOW THROUGH!
Don't promise to "help me with the baby" unless you can identify specific things you are willing to help with. If I choose this path, once again, FOLLOW THROUGH!
Remind me what a good job I'm doing taking care of my family already.
Help me find accurate information about abortion care.
If I ask you to respect my privacy and not tell other people about my pregnancy, please do so.
Love me no matter what.

What are the factors that made your own abortions positive experiences? Were there things that impacted your experience negatively? What else would you add to this list?

Nell

The Fund

The past two weeks at our clinic have really been something else. I just wanted to take a moment and sing the praises of our local networks of abortion funds and amazing volunteers. An abortion fund offers help for women who are unable to pay for the cost of their abortions. Our local fund has been an amazing resource and increasingly, they've been able to step up to ensure that patients' entire experience is positive and respectful. With the economy going south, jobs in our region disappearing, health insurance scarce and gas prices soaring, it's more and more difficult for our patients to arrange the practical details of getting in for medical care. Due to the number of clinics in our part of the country, some women have travel time of up to four or five hours—if they have a car, that is.

As a staff, we wind up trying to arrange all manner of logistics so patients will have access to abortion care—waiving fees for lab work or sonograms when patients can't find enough money, picking patients up at the bus station, slipping their boyfriends or grandmas a little money for gas out of our own pockets. The local abortion fund, while initially intended to pay for medical care, has agreed to help with everything from bus fare to babysitters. Donating money to any cause can feel a little abstract sometimes. In addition to helping women pay for the abortion itself, here is a list of expenses the fund helped with this week:

2 tanks of gas—one to pick up Jules a few counties over and one to drop off Alanna. Jules' partner was in prison for domestic violence; in his absence, his family had been harassing her, blaming her for his incarceration. She was so fearful of them that she had our volunteer meet her at a local restaurant to ensure their safety. Alanna was staying at a shelter for homeless women with her teenage son that was run by the local church. The workers at the shelter said that they would not *prevent* her from having an abortion, but they would not assist her in any way.

2 hotel rooms—One was for Jules who needed two appointments and worried about her safety if she went home and one was for Mandy, a teenager from a small town four hours away. She and her boyfriend came into the clinic with just days left before they would be over the number of weeks the clinic sets as a cutoff. In our counseling session, I explained that she would need a two-day appointment, and suggested that they find a place to stay nearby. She began to sob. If she and her boyfriend pooled all their money from their summer jobs, they would have just enough for the abortion. She asked if I knew of a safe place where they could sleep in their car or a 24 hour diner where they could wait overnight. None of our volunteers had an open couch that night, so I made a few phone calls and got a discounted rate for them at a local hotel, which the fund agreed to cover.

1 bus ticket—For Alyssa, who has been coming to us for her well-woman care since she was a teenager. She had run out of money one month, failed to get her birth control on time and was too embarrassed to call us and ask for some sample packs. In our counseling session, she confessed that she had exactly the amount of money needed for her abortion (borrowed from a friend) and had no plan for how to get home after her surgery.

When I think about the difference the abortion fund made in these women's experience, it makes me so proud. What would it have been like for Alanna to have to beg the workers at the shelter for a ride? Some folks might say that this is squandering resources—that Mandy could have slept over in her car. (Maybe so. If you really need access to abortion services, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.) But the fund gives us another option. There was a whole community of pro-choice women and men who wanted this to be an okay experience for her. It let us transform that day from a scary experience in a unknown city into one where she and her boyfriend felt safe, valued and listened to. Isn't that what's at the heart of humane, feminist healthcare in the first place?

Nell

The Girl Effect

This lovely short video describes the amazing ripple effect that can happen when girls have a greater ability to get an education, participate in their communities and have some say in when and with whom they choose to start their families.

Sound too good to be true? Check out this article from the NY Times that calls the phenomenon "the Beatrice Theorum."

A Different Kind of Lamaze

When I sat down with Carrie Ann and Owen, she immediately began to tear up. Dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, she started to apologize. “Really, I'm so sorry,” she said, “I'm really okay with all of this. I know it doesn't look that way. We live in my in-laws basement, we can't have another baby right now. I have an eight month old at home; we don't even have a place of our own to live.”

She took a moment and dabbed at her eyes. “I had a cesarean for my baby. She's just eight months and she's beautiful but...” She trailed off. “I'm just so scared to have another surgery. I know that I have to be put asleep and...it's just really scary...”

My gut said that this sadness not about this pregnancy or this abortion at all. “Carrie Ann, tell me about when your daughter was born.”

“I read every book,” she said, “I started as soon as I found out that I was pregnant. We did all these classes. We did the Lamaze classes, then we took the Bradley classes, you know, the ones for the husband so that he can be the coach. We were gonna do it together.” She was weeping as she told her story. “Then, I was at my due date and nothing, no contractions, nothing. We practiced so much. A few days later, I thought my water had broken, so we got all the bags and went to the hospital and when we got there, her heart rate, it kept changing, going up and down. They didn't even let me have any labor. We didn't know what was going on, it was just doctors saying it was an emergency and bright lights everywhere. They just stripped me down and shaved me and the next thing I know, they took me into the OR. Owen was there, but he didn't know what to do. I was all doctors I didn't know and I couldn't feel anything.”

"That was really scary for you,” I confirmed.

“Yes, I just know that it's going to be like that again! We had practiced so much and we both just froze. I know that he feels bad too. We were supposed to be there for each other and we both just froze. He thinks he really let me down. Maybe I blame him a little bit too, that he couldn't do anything. I know that she's healthy and that's supposed to be the only thing that matters, but I didn't even get to have any contractions...this thing, you know, it's been like a wedge between us...and we practiced so much....” Owen kept his eyes down the whole time, nodding occasionally and hardly adding a word. He was clearly hurting too.

I told her sincerely how much courage her birth must have taken. It was not the one she was prepared for and she still got through it. “You know, today is different. It's not an emergency. We can take our time. It seems like you're really scared about being asleep.” She nodded. “That's the worst part,” she said.

“Carrie Ann, maybe this sounds crazy, but we don't have to have all those elements that are scary to you. Your birth was really scary and I don't want today to feel like that. You and your husband spent all this time practicing your relaxation techniques together. I know that it's not exactly what you'd practiced for, but what if you were awake for the abortion, rather than asleep? Many women compare the feeling of the abortion to working through one contraction—it takes about the same amount of time as one long one. When you had your birth, you didn't have a lot of choice in what was about to happen. It was an emergency and you did what had to be done to help your daughter. Maybe you could use this as an chance to use what you learned about in your Lamaze classes.  It could be an opportunity to work together in a different way and really be there for each other, like you wanted to be when your daughter was born. This time you're in control. Maybe this could be something healing between you.” She considered this quietly for a moment. They looked at each other and then slowly nodded.

The day got really busy and I was in with another patient when Carrie Ann had her surgery. At the end of the day, I checked in with our nurse. “How did Carrie Ann and Owen make out?” She hadn't heard the story of Carrie's cesarean birth yet. “You know,” she said, “they did just great.”

Nell