Amber Thurman, Carman Broedster, Candi Miller, Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski, Nevaeh Crain, and Josseli Barnica bled out or succumbed to infection in hospitals since Roe v Wade was overturned. Most were carrying intended pregnancies – most were mothers who left children behind. They miscarried and were denied a D&C to empty their uterus before infection set it – standard medical protocol for the last 50 years.
For each of these women, the coroner checked the box “preventable death”. Yet their stories go untold. Faces contort in disbelief when I share their fate. 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Tens of thousands of women will die in the next few years for absolutely no reason. They won’t die of covid or cancer or a car accident. They will die a preventable death.
This is where we are today. Women dying during miscarriages because D&Cs have been deemed abortion procedures. Abortion care is a slippery slope: deny women access to elective abortion and you deny women access to life-saving healthcare. This is why a woman’s right to choose is so important to the health and welfare of womankind.
The whole abortion debate starts once a woman is pregnant but what leads up to the decision to terminate? How do we get there as young women? I thought I would share my own story to humanize this issue, to show why bodily autonomy for women is the foundation of a healthy culture. I think I can make you care.
In the 1980s when the Moral Majority swept through America, my parents who were teachers decided to pull us out of school. We could no longer interact with non-Christians. They joined a Christian Nationalist church and instated a new hierarchy of power within our family. My father and all men were esteemed above women – they made all the decisions. Women quit their jobs, stayed home with the children, there was no abortion and, definitely, no birth control. Women’s behavior, clothing, hair styles, everything had to be approved by men.
When I was 10 years old, my pastor told me God must have made a mistake because I was so smart and my brother had a learning disorder (there was no need for girls to have an education). I was denied access to books, education, and shamed into servitude. Girls were broken before they could even find their voice. Then the sexual abuse started. I think this is a common story even in secular America. Your sexuality is taken even before you’ve had a chance to connect or experiment or understand. Trauma permeates your sexual development. You never get the chance to develop any self-esteem before you’re thrown into the deep end of the pool with men unable to say yes or no…then you get pregnant.
I was 18 years old in my first year of college when I got pregnant. I had condoms in my bag but couldn’t find the words to ask him to wear one. I was frozen, conditioned to let men make the decisions, to decide for me. It takes so much courage and confidence to initiate a conversation about sex and birth control. Instead of protecting myself sex just “happened” and I alone would pay the price.
This was before the internet, so I had to look through the yellow pages to find a clinic. On the morning of my abortion, I walked through a line of screaming women pushing signs with cut up fetuses in my face. Then I recognized her – it was my mother’s best friend from church. I sat in that office in a hospital gown knowing that my life as I knew it was over. And it was.
I was confronted by my parents and my siblings. What upset them most was that I wasn’t sorry; I didn’t have a mental breakdown or try to take my own life. That’s when the harassment started. I was gaslit before it was a word, isolated, and thrown away. There was no understanding or compassion. My soul was damned and there would be no redemption. For that I am grateful because if forced me to go out on my own and make a life for myself without my family. I am self-made and free.
I know that if I hadn’t been broken and sexually abused – if I hadn’t been diminished by my gender – I would never have needed an abortion. I would have made him wear a condom, fuck, I probably never would have had sex with him to begin with. That’s where this debate misses the truth. Young women find themselves with unwanted pregnancies because they are served up on a platter to male sexuality. Girls are responsible for male lust, and we’re forever marked by our inability to advocate for ourselves. How can we push back in a world that’s tied our hands and gagged our mouths?
Ultimately, as a girl, I knew that my brother had more value and that shaped my self-image. And now that world I grew up in has bled out into mainstream culture. Roe is gone. Miscarriage care is gone. A national abortion ban will be next – all they have to do is pull FDA approval for mifepristone and reenact the Comstock Act. Congress won’t even come into play. Then they’ll pull approval for hormonal birth control. No one will be safe.
Generations of young girls will grow up like I did except they’ll be giving birth to their rapist’s babies unable to pull themselves out of poverty or abusive relationships. I remember the names of all the women in my church who had mental breakdowns because of the pressures of raising several kids on no money knowing they could be pregnant again….or the woman with scars along with head from her lobotomy (she was too difficult and her husband wanted to marry the babysitter)…or the girls like me sitting in a church pew next to their abuser longing for someone to save them.
Many, many women will die. Many, many girls will be forced into motherhood. We’re already seeing maternal and infant mortality explode in states with bans. Most recently, Texas proposed legislation allowing divorce only if both spouses agree and Missouri has outlawed divorce if you’re pregnant even in cases on domestic abuse. They won’t stop until women are slaves.
Get fitted for a diaphragm while you still can. They work and no one will know that you have it. Pop it in before you go out so you’re protected no matter what happens. My heart is heavy. The next few years will be hard. We are here to support you and I’ll be fighting to protect women with everything I have. No administration lasts forever. The world can’t run without us. Remember, we hold up half the sky
Carlin Ross
New York, NY
Carlin was Betty’s business partner for 10 years.
She is the “keeper of all things Betty Dodson.”
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