abortionclinicdays

Lost

On our patient chart, as on many other abortion providers' chart, women are asked to circle all the words that describe how they are feeling.  At least thirty adjectives are on that list and women circle many or few.  Both "happy" and "sad" appear, as do "confused" and "certain"; "relieved", "strong", "scared", "peaceful", "guilty" and many more.  As a counselor, I ask women to tell me what the words that they have circled mean to them.  One word that is rarely circled, and therefore of great potential importance, is the word "lost".  It may mean to the woman that she feels lost because her partner abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant, or lost because she fears being estranged from God, or lost because she thought she was opposed to abortion but finds herself having chosen it nevertheless. She may even feel loss of her identity as mother even though she is likely to be choosing abortion specifically for those other children.

These threads are crucial for a counselor to follow, sometimes because the woman needs help in finding a pathway to support, forgiveness, or simply back to her own sense of self.  Sometimes she just needs a place to sort out her feelings in an environment that is non-judgmental.  This past week I counseled a woman whom I'll call LaTisha, aged 37.  Her description of what "lost" meant to her had more to do with denial of her husband's drug addiction, lying, stealing.  They had just had a baby this summer and that, combined with what she described as constant personal chaos as well as chaos in the home, having to go back to work almost immediately after the baby was born to cover her husband's car crashes, money thefts, had left her in a state of just mopping up one disaster after another.  Becoming pregnant again so soon made her realize that she was ruining her life and  possibly her child's too by trying to make the marriage work.  In the process, LaTisha said, she had lost herself and was losing sight of her goals. 

Life, she said, was "happening to her" rather than being under her control.  Her time and energy were usurped by trying to find out the truth (was he using or not using drugs, did he or did he not steal the money, the jewelry).  Between that and caring for her newborn and working, she said that she herself barely existed.  Because she was not paying attention to herself, she said, she sometimes missed her birth control pills, made mistakes at work and was generally not taking care of herself.  But suddenly, when she found herself pregnant again so soon after delivery, she had to stop and think about where she was, where she wanted to be, and what needed to be done.  She said that once she sat and thought about all she had been through and how caught up she was in trying to deny to herself the severity of their problems, she realized that all that she had worked for could come crashing down on her.  She could lose her home, her job, or the support of her family who had been telling her what they heard on the street about her husband.  Eventually she decided to have the abortion on Saturday and tell him to leave on Sunday. 

I commented on how calm, how at peace, she seemed as she was telling me this story.  Ah, she said, that's because I am no longer lost.  I have found myself again.

lu

Anger Management

I apologize to readers who have worried about us, who have wondered if something happened to us.  We're both ok and just needed to take care of our kids, our parents, our staff, our patients and sometimes that does not leave time to write.  I do, however, try to keep in mind that our readers do want to hear from us when we are able to post.  Working at the clinic, the women's stories are there every day and I wish I could share more of them with you.  There are also other online writings that I would like to share with you.  For example, if you are not aware of RHreality.org, do check it out.  There's a piece in response to an alternet posting on men and abortion, which is a topic that I would like to write about here some day.  Most of the men I meet at the clinic are supportive, want to help, and have been involved in the decision making.  So we try our best to honor our patients' requests to have their partners as involved as possible each step of the way.

I want to tell you about a young woman I saw today. She had been to the clinic last week but because her mother had not completed state requirements, they were re-scheduled.  Another counselor first began talking to this 16 year old but felt that they were not going to make a connection because of what seemed to be anger coming from the young woman's words, body posture and general attitude.  When the counselor asked me to start over with the young woman I immediately agreed because I enjoy talking to teens.  Many of them come into the clinic feeling as though nobody is listening to them, their feelings, their fears, their dreams.  So I just listen.  And that is exactly what I did today.  This woman, whom I'll call Jody, was exhibiting fierce anger so that is where we started.  I asked her if she was angry and she said, "I'm always angry.  I've been in anger management groups, schools, classes since I was a little kid and now I have my own therapist because I"m still angry".  So I asked her if she was mad at us, mad at her mom, mad in general or was mad because she was having an abortion or what.  She pretty much said she was mad at everyone including us because we were "taking too long" and she "just wanted to get it over with".  I apologized to her but told her that we could not move quickly on something so important.  As I told her, this is a big deal and we do not want to make a mistake.  We need to be sure that you are choosing abortion of your own free will.  I take my job very seriously.  I do not want to send you or anyone else back to surgery if there is any chance that you will wake up tomorrow and say, "Oh my God, I made a mistake".  This is too big a deal to "just get it over with".  I then asked Jody to help me out, to help me to know what she really wanted, what was just her usual anger and what was any uncertainty about going forward.  Eventually Jody began to see that I was serious about finding out more about her, whom she had in her life that she could really talk to, who really listened to her.  She does have a sister whom she trusts but says that most other people in her life have let her down, abandoned her or betrayed her.

As we continued talking, I began to believe that she was indeed telling me that abortion was her own choice.  She just did not know how to handle strong feelings without the anger to cover up her fears, her concerns about the baby.  So I answered all of her questions.  All of a sudden, I could see a change in her posture and her demeanor.  Jody started telling me that she wanted to learn to manage her anger better because she wanted to be a nurse practitioner!  She wanted to help people get well (just as she wanted to get well).  So I   accepted her request to have the abortion and we shook hands on it.  Later, I told her to  call me when she has a day off school and I would invite her to see what a nurse practitioner really does.  We would permit her to take a pledge of confidentiality and shadow the NP for a few hours.  I felt that we had made as good a contact as we could make that morning, but I realize that Jody has a long way to go on her "anger management".

Lou

Post-it

The Post-it said, "AT-TI-TUDE" all caps. The young woman was  in traditional Muslim dress, African-American, and bristling with...with something. I guessed that it was my job to find out what.

It turned out to be not so different from many women who feel like they are caught in a trap of their own making. She got pregnant, then "did the right thing and married at age 16, to a man she did not love. She had 2 more children with him, still didn't love him, but clearly did not wish him pain either. She had fallen in love with another, someone outside her culture. She knew it could never work. It was a mess, but a compelling mess.

Her self contempt, her anger at her situation and everyone around her, seemed to spring from the great divide between what she wanted and what she knew was right. Her religion guided her in everything--it was her rock. She accepted the finality of it, as a guilty person accepts a punishment.

"It's against my religion," she said defeatedly as though there could be no further discussion. I said, "Well, it may not be as clear as that. Muslims believe that the soul enters the baby at 120 days--about 16 weeks. You are about 5 weeks." Then I pulled out the Pregnancy Options Workbook (www.pregnancyoptions.info) and read her the section about Islam and abortion. It does not offer a free pass, by any means, but it does put Mohammed's proscription about killing your children in some historical context. He decried the killing of female infants, a widespread practice in his time. It also listed the acceptable reasons for abortion. It talked about atonement.

When I read the part about atonement meaning fasting for two months, an invisible veil fell from her face and there was a beautiful look of hope radiating out. "I can do that," she said. This launched us into a wonderful discussion about forgiveness, compassion, the condition of women, and other topics.

I confess that sometimes I find Muslim women unapproachable, even American Muslims. I am sure their wariness is justified, particularly in these times. There was no such feeling with this woman. We talked about life, love, sex, kids, books, culture, and of course, religion. She said, "I was raised Muslim but I know that if I lived in a Muslim country I would be stoned. How does that help you get better or learn?"

One of my favorite factoids in talking about religion is that in the original Hebrew, the word "sin" means "missing the mark" not being stoned to death. She liked it too.

--Bon

PS: I want to address the inevitable comment that I somehow made her feel "OK" about abortion, or encouraged her to have one. It was clear to me that she would have one no matter what. What I offered was a way that she could "be" with it that did not further cripple her life and the beautiful contribution she could make to life.

PPS: My apologies for being MIA on this blog. It's moving work, but there isn't always time, or the will to find time, to step back and write about it.

not for the wimps

what a week it has been!  a number of the counselors i work with and i, too, have had some really challenging cases to deal with.  in the process, though, we learned a lot.  even though we do this work all day long, every day, and some of us have been counseling for many years, our hearts are still so strongly in our work.  on thursday, one counselor, we'll call her ruth, was talking to a young african woman who was still in a state of great pain.  she felt that her choices were having the baby and bringing shame to her family, indeed her whole village, because she had let them down by becoming pregnant after being sent to the US to study.  she is not the first african woman to express similar feelings.  the pressure to succeed and come back to aid their village are tremendous.  not many are offered the opportunity to go abroad and study.  the village desperately needs women like her to come back to help with the myriad of problems the villagers are facing.  so to return home pregnant, having wasted tribal money and yet have no degree, to bring shame and disgrace to her family that she let down the whole village is more than she (and others like her) can imagine.  suicide would also bring shame, but if it did not, that would have been her choice rather than to have an abortion.  but, in fact, abortion is what she ultimately chose after many hours of discussion and exploration of alternate options.  now she must figure out how to forgive herself and also how to ever get god's forgiveness (according to her belief system).  we are working to get her appropriate spiritual and cultural referrals to help her with this.

today a woman who drove more than two hours to have her abortion came to the clinic, also on the verge of suicide.  in her case, it was not because of the abortion but rather because her husband of over ten years just told her last week that he has been seeing someone else for two years and that woman is pregnant also. he is moving in with the other woman, leaving his three children that she and he had together.  she has struggled with drug problems and hopes that this does not throw her into another round of using which will be destructive for both her and her kids and could cost her her job.  she recognizes the signs, and fears her own weakness.  her counselor at the clinic worked with her for hours to set up a contract that the woman would not try to hurt or destroy herself and would connect with the therapist she had worked with in the past.  we'll check in with her too this week.

a third patient is fighting for custody of her three kids.  she recently had a preliminary hearing in which she and her attorney assumed that the case would be dismissed since the ex-husband has a criminal record, an alcohol problem and had not been the best dad when they were married.  but the judge is allowing the battle to continue.  this woman, cindy, said that she is now so scared that her ex can outfight her because she does not have the money for an extended legal battle and so is tempted to continue this pregnancy (conceived through a birth control failure) so she'd at least have one child with her.   but she fears the pregnancy could also cause the judge to rule against her.  another tough choice.

the ability to work with women in crisis, to allow them to voice their fears, grief, and weaknesses is a true gift.  not every one could do what we do.  and i say that not to brag about what we do, but rather in humility that we were given this ability to "walk with women and men in their darkest hours".  we do not judge, we do not run away, we do not fear to hear the unspeakable.  this is the work we do.   some divine power has allowed us to be present in others' lives and bear their burdens for a bit, yet still  have our own lives, our own joys.  it can not have been an accident that we were granted this ability. 

of course there were many women over the course of the week who did not feel or suffer as the women above did.  i also talked to women who described themselves as strong, resolved and pretty much they just knew what needed to be done.  but isn't that the way of life?  not all folks experience the same circumstances in the same way. in order to be a counselor in an abortion clinic, of course one needs to be compassionate and non-judgmental.  but she or he must also be able to sit with the women no matter what pain they feel.  we have to be the ones who can just listen.  for it is then that the woman will hear her own true voice.  we cannot push her or try to influence her.  as with all of us, these women make the wisest decisions when they have ample time to think, evaluate and ponder without undue influence.  inexperienced counselors have the urge to jump in, help the patient to feel better immediately with little thought to the long run.  we also want her to feel better but we want her to feel that she has made the best choice after careful examination of her own life circumstances.  only she will know when and what that is.

lou

the wisdom of the body

every now and then, a woman in counseling will tell her story in words so compellingly true that i am spellbound.  it happened earlier this week when a woman i shall call glorietta began by telling me how her last baby was accidently born at home with little warning.  she stood up and felt the baby sliding down her leg.  she and her two other children were transfixed, did not utter a sound, even after their silence was broken by the newborn's wailing.  eventually the older child called 911 who sent paramedics to cut the cord and take mother and baby to the hospital. that baby is less than a year old. glorietta, aged 39, was outraged to find that her body was betraying her, she said, by getting pregnant again so soon.  anyhow, she said, she is just done with having babies;  she told me that she is tired, over the thrill of the miracle of pregnancy, just wanted this pregnancy out, and was not sharing her body with anyone, not her uterus, and, as she said, not her tits either.  she was just done, over it.  her body was having none of it! 

glorietta's wisdom of the body is as old as the human race.  women have always known when it is, or is not, a good time to bring forth new life through their bodies, and she had no doubt, did not have to think about it because her body was telling her.  in earliest recorded time, and certainly even before that, women ended pregnancies that should not be born, whether because of war, drought, famine, disease, or, of course, age.  there was a rightness to it because they were closer to the earth than the primarily urban dwellers that we are.  now the plants and herbs that women used for that purpose are lost to us since we relinquished our natural wisdom and "medicalized" pregnancy.

but for glorietta, the message was clear.  her words of summation to me were, "it's just like the leaves of a tree.  when it's time they just shed." 

iraq again

again today i talked with another woman whose husband is in iraq.  this woman, whom i'll call julie, is  in her early twenties, has one child.  in fact that child will soon be a year old.  but he has not seen his dad since he was four months old.  he is too young to even know that he has a dad.  his mother is doing her best to raise him alone and does have help.  so her situation is not as dire as many that i have seen.  but the problem is that when her husband came home this summer after basic training, she became pregnant.  as difficult as it is to actually have a conversation when you are halfway across the globe from one another, they managed to do so.  and they were in agreement that another child would not be good for their family right now.  already, they wonder how their soon-to-be one year old will  accept his daddy when daddy returns in another year or so.  and, even with help, raising a child alone is not easy so how could she do the kind of job she would want with two?  with the miracle of video cams, daddy will be able to see a part of his son's first birthday party but he is missing his son's first words, his first steps and will return to a child in whose upbringing he has not participated for two whole years.  to this young couple, having another child would put stress on every family member and, they decided, much to their surprise, that abortion would be best.  surprising because in the past, abortion was not a word that ever entered their minds, let alone their conversations.  but wars change people, change their thinking, change their decision making.  so julie had an abortion today.  she goes home hoping that her son's daddy comes home next fall as he is scheduled to.  she said she could handle it with one child but not two if he doesn't make it.  so many brave women and men, dealing with the longest war in more than a century.

lou

spiritual resolution

even though we do not advertise it, we are very open to patients' wishes to begin the pathway to spiritual resolution.  we follow the patient's lead and requests.  that means that if a woman or her partner asks to spend time alone with her pregnancy tissue after the abortion, we are very agreeable to the request, provide a private room and either stay with the them if they'd like the counselor to do so, or leave them alone if they prefer.  the other day a patient asked me if she could do just that, have time alone after the abortion with the pregnancy.  i entered the little room with her, made sure that she had what she needed including kleenex for tears and disposable gloves (although since it is her own tissue she does not have to use them) and then left her alone as she requested.  i had already provided her with some spiritual healing information that could help her to get started if she wanted, or she could say her own prayers or blessings.  i instructed her, as i always do, that i would wait outside the door and that she should open the door when she was finished and i would take her back to the recovery area.  after about 10 minutes, she exited the private room.  when she saw me, she threw her arms around me, hugged me and thanked me profusely.  i know that her road to internal peace had begun.  she did not want to have an abortion but knew that she and her husband could not take care of another child.  she felt that she and god had moved to their own resolution, so the private prayer and goodbye was just for her, for her own heart.

immediately after her i was talking to another woman who described herself as a devout catholic, one who attends a catholic college where she goes to the chapel almost daily since she started there because, she said, she can only manage her heavy class load, young child, and job by daily prayer to god to give her the strength and courage to continue on each day.  when she found herself pregnant, she first said that she decided to continue the pregnancy and raise the child, but soon realized that it was impossible, that she would have to quit school and then the loan payments would start, probably stopping her from ever completing her education.  with heavy heart, she came in for her appointment.  she too felt that her close relationship with god helped her to feel that, after confession, she would be able to go on with her life, that god would want her to complete her schooling so that she could raise the child that she struggles so much now to care for.  her family is not able to help her much, either financially or with child care so the burden is pretty much hers.  what she wanted was not closure between her and god which she felt she was on her way to finding, but rather that her pregnancy be sent to god.  i told her that she could view her tissue and say whatever prayers over it that she chose, but she said no that was not what she needed.   she then asked me if i would baptize the baby and i agreed to.  another staff person and i went to a private room, turned down the lights, then said the prayers together.  later i reported to the patient exactly what we had done.  she, too, was so grateful.  she took my hand and told me that it meant so much to her.  it was a good day, bringing peace to the women and to their pregnancies.

even though i have been doing this work for a very long time, these situations never fail to move me.  i feel honored that these women (and men) have chosen to share their deepest, most private feelings with me.  and even though i have done both of these things before,  i always retain the awareness of the potential life that these women have had to give up.  they know that we will treat the pregnancy as sacred and respect it.  because of that, i have experienced many treasured moments in my work.  and many many women who are our patients have been able to put to words exactly what they perhaps have not been able to say elsewhere.  it's part of why i treasure my job.

bon

Blowing It

I don't always leave a counseling session feeling like I have totally been helpful to the woman, but I don't often feel like I have totally blown it. Well, with Samantha I did.

She is 15 and came with her grandmother. Right from the get-go she said that she was not going to have an abortion, which was OK with me, but someone clearly thought that she would because she made an appointment for one. I am just now fascinated with how teenagers think and how they interact with their parents in helpful or unhelpful ways. Mostly unhelpful ways are what I get to see. So I was eager to talk to her to see how this situation worked itself out.

The story was tiresomely ordinary, I am sorry to report. Her partner is older, and you could argue statutory rape except that the mother said it was OK for him to live with her for a while. Still, that was the gun to Samantha's head-- if she didn't have the abortion the mother was going to put him in jail for statutory rape. According to the grandmother he stole Samantha's money, was into drugs, had no job, and was generally "bad news." Samantha herself didn't really have too many illusions about him but she also couldn't think much about it since her mother had banished him and he was already in jail for a parole violation. Still, the statutory rape charges were not concerning her much; maybe she sensed that her mother was bluffing.

She was adamant that abortion was murder and she wasn't going to do that, no matter what anyone said. But the consequences of that were not only the boyfriend possibly going to jail, but more importantly, that she would no longer be welcome at her mother's house--her home in other words. Her mother's new boyfriend hated her and her mother wanted her out anyway. The situation seemed to work out for everyone's agenda except this 15 year old. That left Samantha trolling for love, and a place to stay, for her and her baby.

The grandmother was as good and true as ever a person was. She blamed her daughter--Samantha's mother-- for ignoring her and taking her own new boyfriend's part rather than help her daughter. The grandmother tried to bring Samantha to her house for weekends and to mother her as best she could, but it clearly was not enough. The grandmother herself was in poor health and so was her husband, but I had the feeling that they would end up helping her out.

Samantha focused on her estranged father as a savior to rescue her. In an overwrought wail, she said, "My dad said that I could stay with him and it was OK to have the baby there." The grandmother painted a different picture: The father had virtually no contact with his daughter, but favored his younger son, occasionally taking him for outings, but never Samantha. He told her she could visit but then wasn't home when she came. She didn't feel that he would be likely to "be there" in any significant way.

No matter what I said, or her grandmother said, Samantha just kept saying, more and more hysterically, "Nothing you say will make me change my mind. I am not having an abortion." Ironically, I was not trying to convince her, but I was unconvinced that she really wanted to have a baby. She was just tired of being pushed aside over and over again. Usually I can find a way in but this time I could not and I found myself responding to the unloveableness of a child having a tantrum. I challenged her to be proactive about finding a situation for her and her baby if that's what she wanted, but I was one more voice telling her something she didn't want to hear.

I did offer some resources and ideas to her grandmother, but as they left, I felt like I was the grandmother's last hope and I had failed miserably. Now I wish I had found some love and empathy for this unloved girl, and said, "I see a girl looking for love herself. Where can you find it?" I don't know if that question would have unlocked her heart but it might have made me more of an ally. I know that it is not my job to solve people's problems in a short session. But I can usually connect with what is going on for the person I am sitting with and that connection and attention can sometimes produce something useful. This interaction ended with Samantha scoring an empty victory, and me just feeling empty. Pray for the children-- both of them.

--bon

history of sexual molestation

an astonishingly large percentage of women report that they have been sexually molested at some point in their lives.  the figure usually quoted is 27%.  (for the record, it's 16% of boys).  some women and girls become pregnant as a result of rape, having had sex against their will.  of course the majority of pregnancies conceived in sexual assault situations end up as abortions with the possible exception of marital rape; some of these circumstances are so very dangerous for women and many of them cannot leave their homes for fear of being beaten.  sometimes we at the clinic, at the patient's request, work with law enforcement agencies to collect the pregnancy tissue for DNA testing at an independent lab.  only occasionally do we ever hear the outcome since, unlike on TV, it is not uncommon for the final outcome to take quite some time before resolution.

the effects on women whose past medical history includes rape or molestation is heard, felt, observed almost every day at the clinic.  the girl who is very fearful and anxious of being touched "down there" by the doctor, the woman who has not been to see a gynecologist for a pap smear in over 10 years, the shaking and terrified patient who says that she can only be examined by a woman doctor are all possible examples of a history of unwanted sexual encounters, some having occurred when the women were small children.  our medical chart has a place for women to let us know if they have difficulty with exams or even if they have avoided them altogether.  we then work with those patients to create an environment in the exam room that minimizes their stress level so that, at the very least, the abortion can be performed.  it is our hope that, with our support, these women develop enough trust in us that they can return for regular gyn care.

but a less obvious yet more pervasive manifestation is the effect that sexual molestation has on women in their daily lives.  often i talk to women who have never trusted their own judgement, who have an extremely hard time deciding most things in their lives.  since pregnancy is such a major life changing event, some may find themselves almost frozen and unable to make a decision at all.  or they may state that they do not feel that they are prepared for parenting since they cannot take care of themselves, but that they feel "unworthy" to make a decision that would allow themselves to be better prepared for assuming the responsibilities of parenthood because that might be deemed "selfish".  or they might not have any experience in making important decisions throughout their lives.

just the other day i talked to a woman who ended up going home before her abortion was done.  this time i did not "send" her home; she chose it.  we had talked for quite some time and although she did not express any doubt that abortion would be best for her three very young children, she said that she was embarrassed to admit it, but she said she was not an "independent woman".  i'll call her trudy and tell you that she is 25 years old, recently moved here with her boyfriend, who is the father of her children.  they have not been getting along and trudy had been considering returning to the city where all of her extended family live.  she said that sometimes she thinks the only reasons she has not already left him is that he is her kids' dad and also that her family, who never liked him, will say "we told you not to be with him". 

right now, being new here, and more than a thousand miles from home, she has no real friends.  her family is adamantly opposed to abortion but she said that that does not influence her decision.  her religion is opposed to abortion, too, but she said she is firmly convinced that god knows that she should not have another child.  two weeks earlier, trudy discovered her boyfriend in bed with another woman.  this pretty much confirmed for her that she needs to leave him, and, as she said, returning home as sole support of three kids is maybe manageable, but with four she just could not make it.  even if he does send her some child support, it will be a struggle for a long long time since all three children are so young.

so what was her hesitation?  and why did she leave the clinc still pregnant?  she said that she just could not carry out such a big thing on her own.  she kept saying that she wanted to have the abortion, that she knew it was for the best, but she had no experience of doing anything without his permission and he did not want her to have an abortion.  trudy is educated, well spoken, not shy, and feels humiliated that she cannot act against him.  her past sexual abuse seems to have stripped her of her ability to act in her own favor.

she got as far as the operating room, was undressed and then said she could not do it.  trudy got dressed and then i sat with her while she told me that she could not go forward.  i told her that we would do whatever she wanted, either refund her money or go back into the procedure room.  she eventually asked me if i would go into the room with her, and of course i agreed.  once again, before the doctor even did an exam, she started to have a panic attack and said she could not do it.

i was willing to sit with her as long as it took, but she felt that she was done for the day, that she just wanted to go home.  her own voice is not one that she trusts.  when she is "just talking" about her feelings and her decision making, she is quite clear, but when it comes to carrying out her own desires, she cannot do it.

we at the clinic have to trust women to choose what they can best live with.  unlike the last woman i wrote about who seemed hesitant, trudy expressed no hesitation about abortion, just about being able to trust her own voice.  so many women are like trudy, knowing what they need to do, but being unable to move forward.  sometimes it's the fear of what will happen to the children they already have that allows them to act.  with women in abusive relationships who cannot bring themselves to leave for themselves, sometimes only fear of what might happen to their kids allows them leave.  or to decide to not continue this pregnancy.

lou

ps   trudy did not return and is now beyond the time that we could offer an abortion to her.  i cannot say what would have been better for her life and her children's life, but i do know that it was those early years of sexual abuse that stripped her of her sense of self so that she can "decide" only by not deciding.  it's how she moved here, it's how she will end up with four children while her boyfriend brings other women into their bed.  it does make me sad for her, that she seems unable to value herself.

not telling their partners

women who do not inform their partners they are pregnant know exactly why they are not telling them.  one of the most common reasons is that they fear abuse --pregnant women are beaten or assaulted more frequently than non pregnant women.  there are other reasons, too, of course, the kinds that real women in real life situations are struggling with.  i'd like to share three women and their stories with you.  you will see that each woman is different, each story is different.  each woman is trying to make an honorable decision that she can best live with.  each has prayed for help to make a wise, respectful decision. 

the first woman, whom i'll call alicia, is in her early 20's and just recently back from iraq.  she is attending college while working, but knows that she is going to be called up for iraq again soon.  her fiance is in iraq now, in a danger zone.  they had been using condoms as birth control, but by now everyone knows that no birth control method is 100% effective.  alicia knows he would want her to continue the pregnancy but she said that she has seen the damage done to small children who are being raised by neither parent, or by a parent who is soon to be sent to one of the war fronts.  she has also heard the women with whom she served tell of their feelings of helplessness when there are problems back home with their kids and they cannot hold them, touch them, reassure them.  she feels that the children suffer too much during the developmentally important early years of childhood.  she longs for the day that she can have a child but, she said, only when she can be a mother to it.

another woman that i spoke to who had not told her partner had a more unusual situation.  she is older than alicia by more than a decade.  her wedding is coming up in a few months; she and her partner had made a pledge of "celibacy" as she called it, engaging only in "outercourse" meaning sexual expression without penetration.  much to her astonishment, she is nevertheless pregnant!  because this couple has been using this method for years, they never dreamed that pregnancy could occur.  now that it has, shante fears that a pregnancy could create suspicion between her and her partner, could jeopardize her job and also could start their marriage off on the wrong foot.  both she and her fiance have very visible positions both in their community and also in their church.  she said that she longs for a child and hopes that god will understand that she felt abortion was the best for their future.  shante said that putting her fiance in a position where he had to help with the decision would be too painful for him and so she was sparing him the pain by deciding herself.  she sees her making the decision alone as an act of love for her fiance, sparing him also anguish in having to ask for god's forgiveness since he knows nothing about it. 

the third woman had also decided that it would not be wise for her to tell her partner because he would want her to continue the pregnancy and she feels that he is not a good parent.  he has a child from a previous relationship that he is not very involved with and this woman, whom i am naming tammy, already has four children from a marriage that went bad.  she is trying her best to raise them alone but says she can barely handle it.  they are very young, very close in age with the oldest not yet in school.  her religion has taught her that abortion is a sin, but she says that she feels it would be more of a sin to have another child that she cannot care for.  she says that there are many days when there is not enough food in the house and she cannot find a job that will pay her enough to cover the cost of daycare for four.  so, for now, she is unemployed.  she had been on the pill and just got her prescription re-filled but did not ever start them because her peiod never came.  she wonders if she will go to hell for choosing abortion, but said she would risk going to hell after her death rather than put her children at risk now.  when i hear women talking about their love of their children being the principle reason for the abortion, i always think that this is a part of women's stories that the public never gets to hear.  but then, there are so many erroneous ideas that folks have about who has abortion and why. 

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i am pasting on to this entry an article i just read this morning.  it addresses some of the same themes that my blogging partner and i have written about before  you may, for example, find it interesting that most women who have abortions already have children.  read on to learn more.

lou

Defying stereotypes on abortion

Susan Reimer (Baltimore Sun)

June 25, 2006

You might be surprised to learn that the young woman seeking an abortion in the United States today is not somebody's careless teenage daughter.

She is a mom.

She is in her 20s, she's attended college, she earns a manageable living and she is either living with the father or in a long-term relationship with him.

And she already has a child.

This is the profile that emerges from the work of Brookings Institution economics scholar Melissa Kearney, who drew on abortion statistics collected by the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

And it contradicts a lot of assumptions out there about the woman who seeks an abortion.

"Most women who are having abortions are already mothers, as opposed to women who don't want to be mothers," said Kearney, who has a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "That was the biggest surprise to me.

"I also think it is surprising that a woman who has already given birth would find herself back in this position," she said.

While teens and minorities are most likely to terminate pregnancies, it is educated women in their 20s who are actually having most abortions.

And while abortion rates have been decreasing for all women - and especially teens - there have been only small declines in the rates for women in their 20s.

There were 1.3 million abortions in 2000, the most recent year for which detailed abortion data are available, Kearney reported. That is one abortion for every three births.

But less than 20 percent were to teenagers, while 70 percent were to women in their 20s and early 30s. Eighty percent of abortions were to unmarried women, but only 25 percent were to women living in poverty.

So the commonly accepted profile of a woman having an abortion is very far off the mark.

She is not a careless adolescent. She is almost as likely to be white (41 percent) as she is to be a member of a minority.

And she is not what used to be thought of - before the end of welfare - as a welfare mother: uneducated, unemployed, unattached and with a passel of kids.

What is most troubling in Kearney's report is that half of abortions are to women who have already had an abortion, and 60 percent of abortions are to women who already have one child.

Though they make the decision not to give birth to another child - perhaps because they have gotten their lives on track with education, a job and a long-term relationship - they don't take the necessary steps to prevent pregnancy.

Her analysis of the statistics makes Kearney suspect that these women view abortion as a responsible choice, given their circumstances.

"The idea that abortion is driven by carelessness or a careless approach to life is not necessarily true," said Kearney.

"It is not an abdication of personal responsibility. Many of these women believe that this is the responsible choice. They are doing what they think is best for themselves and their families."

What is not so clear is this: These women are not teenagers who might still be trying to figure out where babies come from.

These are women who have already had a child, an abortion or both. That's what Kearney finds frustrating.

"It is hard to understand why these women weren't more responsible in the sense of finding themselves here again," Kearney said.

If we want to reduce the aggregate number of abortions in this country - and nobody argues with that goal - then perhaps it isn't teens or minorities or women in poverty that we should be trying to reach.

Maybe it is the young mother next door.