Excerpt: "Recent legislation regulating abortion in New York and the fervor around a similar proposed bill in Virginia have ignited a national conversation around later abortion."
'The decision to terminate a pregnancy is never a political one, it is a personal one.' (photo: Susi Vetter)
05 February 19
ecent legislation regulating abortion in New York and the fervor around a similar proposed bill in Virginia have ignited a national conversation around later abortion. We understand the president may include the issue in his State of the Union remarks and the debate is raging on cable news shows, in opinion pieces and social media posts. But this proxy war is not about the later abortions actually happening in the country.
We know because we are the families who have gotten them.
We are later abortion patients and their partners who are concerned with the politicization of this issue at the expense of both truth and compassion. While we do not speak for every later abortion patient and do not pretend to represent everyone who seeks this care, we can speak for ourselves and our families.
The stories we hear being told about later abortion in this national discussion are not our stories. They do not reflect our choices or experiences. These hypothetical patients don’t sound like us or the other patients we know. The barbarous, unethical doctors in these scenarios don’t sound like the people who gave us compassionate care.
Our cases, the ones that would be affected by the legislation in question, constitute a relatively small number of abortions. So while these cases are incredibly rare and specific to each patient’s unique circumstances, they are being broadly misrepresented and are playing an outsized role on the national stage.
The decision to terminate a pregnancy is never a political one, it is a personal one. Later abortions stories are often ones of tragedy and loss. For others they are stories of relief. They feature struggles with hope, women betrayed by their bodies and the incredible complexity of pregnancy. Many stories are ones of overcoming the many obstacles and restrictions our states have placed on these procedures.
We are not monsters. We are your family, your neighbors, someone you love. We are you, just in different circumstances. Due to ignorance, many of us may not have supported later abortion access before facing a crisis ourselves, accepting restrictions on healthcare we never imagined needing. Now we recognize that our laws may not be able to draw neat lines around each of our stories, allowing these procedures in certain, hyper-specific circumstances and not in others, because we know people will be left outside those lines. As people privileged enough to speak up, that is unacceptable to us.
Americans must start having a more nuanced conversation about later abortion that reflects the experiences of patients and the expertise of physicians. We need to start listening to people with first-hand experience instead of talking heads, priests and politicians.
We’ll tell you our stories if you can muster the compassion necessary to hear them. We understand that talking about later abortion can be uncomfortable. It requires us confronting the terrible reality that pregnancy, even a wanted one, is not always a blessing. It means we have to consider decisions being made with imperfect information. When we talk about later abortion, concepts we thought were simple become complicated.
Therefore we are asking Americans to weigh the restrictions on later abortion against our stories, not the hypothetical cases that have been fabricated to win political points.
With the manufactured crisis over later abortion, opportunistic politicians are seeking to exploit an already stigmatized, marginalized group of people. Our hope is that this crusade may yet lead somewhere constructive, that as ideologues turn the country’s attention to abortions that happen later in pregnancy, there may be space for education and empathy.
This is only possible if it includes the stories of real patients. And there is no good faith effort at a conversation on later abortion that does not include us.
Signed,
Scott Agatone, Pennsylvania
Peter Barar, Texas
Michael Barcone, New York
Julie Bindeman, PsyD, Maryland
Sarah Bogdanski, New York
Christie Brooks, Virginia
Heather Browne, Virginia
E. Chanzes, Georgia
J. Chanzes, Georgia
Erika A. Christensen, New York
N. Clark, California
Jeimy Cruz , California
Krista Goodrich, Maine
Kate Grum, Pennsylvania
Laura Guerrero, New York
Nicole Gunderson, Minnesota
Aubrey Hernandez, California
Alejandro Hernandez, California
Erica Goldblatt Hyatt, DSW, LCSW, MBE, Pennsylvania
Missy Kurzweil, New York
Marissa Lawson, Florida
Debbie Lewis, California
Amy Lynn, Colorado
Katie Lyon, California
John Mayer, Oregon
A. J. Mazur, Michigan
A. G. Mazur, Michigan
Tara Mendola, PhD, Massachusetts
Sonya Miller, Pennsylvania
Gabriela Morrison, Oklahoma
Hanna Neuschwander, Oregon
Marketia Patterson, Georgia
Doug Patterson, Georgia
Dana Peirce, DVM, Maine
Rose Penchansky, Tennessee
Megan T. Piasecki, Ohio
Jenifer Putalavage-Ross, Texas
Kala Radigan, New York
April Salazar, New Jersey
Lamar Saxon, Texas
Reneé Saxon, Texas
K. Shea New Jersey
Amy Soprych, RN Illinois
Adam Swank, Iowa
Mindy Swank, Iowa
Kadie Tannehill, Missouri
Justin Tannehill, Missouri
S. Thompson, Alabama
Alexandra Tronnes, Wisconsin
Hadleigh Tweedall, Tennessee
James Utz, Missouri
Jonathan Watling, MD, Maine
Ayanna Whitmore, New York
Phil Wood, Missouri
