If I Were To Have Your Abortion: 4 Hours In An Abortion Clinic and The Obvious Child
This piece was also published on Elite Daily.
What struck me most during my four and a half hours in the abortion clinic was the variety of women who were there. It wasn’t full of pregnant teens that looked strikingly similar to Ellen Page in Juno. While there were a few of those, there were also 30-year-olds with designer handbags and rocks on their ring finger and 20-something recent college grads who looked like they’d reluctantly taken a day off from their swanky downtown jobs.
I was there to support a friend, a strange role in a place where, after delivering your charge to the check-in desk, an escort has nothing to do but read yellowing copies of Women’s Health. But there I was, alternating between articles on how to lose flab by the Fourth of July while slowing sinking into an armchair that thousands of anxious women’s bodies had perched on, the arms dimpled from fingernails that found a grip in its blood red upholstery.
I hadn’t thought much about my short and (for me) uneventful time in the midtown abortion clinic until I went to see Obvious Child, a movie that tackles abortion with a dash of humor. It’s fabulous, and it made me think again about what I would have done if it had been me who was pregnant. If, instead of sinking into that chair and lazily flipping through sex tips, I’d been clenching its arms.
I still have no idea.
I am utterly and entirely unsure, which I find terrifying. Despite studying medical ethics in college, I’m not sure when a fetus should be treated as legally human, and I don’t know how I would feel about the idea of removing something that was growing inside of me. Treating it as if it were a pernicious weed, rather than a bundle of cells with at least the potential of becoming a living and breathing child.
At the same time, I would never consider taking away a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. To me, that is a decision that only one person is qualified to make it, the woman whose body is involved.
Donna Stern, the would-be heroine of Obvious Child played by Jenny Slate, never ponders whether an abortion is the right decision, and I appreciate that greatly. She knows what she wants, she asks for it, and she follows through. She is vulnerable and the process isn’t portrayed as easy, but she also doesn’t ask those around her to validate her decision. She might ask a friend what the procedure is like, but not whether she should do it.
The message in the film, that a woman can make the choice on her own and stick to it, that her friends and family can be supportive even if they don’t entirely agree, and that your life doesn’t end when you hit a bump in road, or, in this case, your belly, is undeniably important.
After her procedure, I took my friend back home, stopping at a deli on the way for a sandwich (for her) and some Cheez-its (for me). We were quiet, there wasn’t much to say, but we held hands. She squeezed mine tightly as we pulled up to her building, clenching hard as if she couldn’t let go, even if she wanted to. I told her she didn’t have to.
I also had an experience at an abortion clinic once, also accompanying a friend.
It was traumatising for me, even though I wasn’t the one having it.
I don’t know if it was because she was young-ish (17), but she didn’t respond well to the meds – she was in a lot of pain and she got very sick. I’d known her since she was a child, and it was really awful to see her in that state. It all ended well, but that was it for me. I’m never having one. If I fall pregnant, then so be it.
At the same time I’ve always been, and always will be, for freedom of choice. I’ve seen children raised in families that could not afford them or did not want them, and it doesn’t go well.
So thank you for your article, it shows the kind of empathy we need more of. 🙂
I also recently accompanied a friend to an abortion clinic. Nearly 35 years after having an abortion myself at a private doctor’s office as a 17-year-old, I was alarmed by the abortion protestors holding signs and shouting from the sidewalk across the street. I was amazed by the size of the waiting area, and the diversity of young and old, white, black, hispanic, and how many men waited. There must have been 60 people sitting in the waiting room at any one time; who knows how many procedure rooms there must have been in the back.
As an empath, I could pick out the women who were completely at peace with their decision, and those that were struggling with it. I was silently enraged by the glib, flirty, young women who were laughing and joking before being called into the back. While I believe that legal abortion should be available and a woman’s choice. But I also know firsthand, that something is lost, something is mourned. Not a person, per se, but the possibility of what could have been had circumstances been different.
Back when I had my abortion, many doctors performed them right in their offices without the stigma of the protestors and without anyone in the waiting room judging you as they had no idea why you were there. Now it is as if you have a scarlet A emblazoned across your chest as you walk into the clinic and sit with 60 people who are all there for the same reason; they are having an abortion or supporting someone who is. When did it get like this?
Very good post, Pippa.