REPRINT from The Goddess: Why Abortion Should Be Free

The-Goddess

Have you ever been to an abortion clinic? Not the kind frequented by wealthy women with insurance - I mean the kind where poor women beg for an appointment and don't dare miss it. The kind where you wait in line some Saturday morning, and hopefully get in before the Christian fanatics show up to harass, intimidate or murder you. The kind where they do the procedure with only a local anesthetic.

Think about that one for a minute: only a local anesthetic. You see, poor women don't get the "luxury" of general anesthesia. The dignity and comfort- not to mention humanity- of sleep cost extra. A Poor woman has to stay awake. She feels the cold of the famous (or should I say infamous) stirrups in a room full of doctors and technicians. She endures seven needles plunged into her cervix. Men don't even have a body that comes close to causing that kind of pain. Some men will pierce their penis or scrotum for social or decorative reasons. True, you can't see the cervix, but as the owner of one, I can tell you, it's not a place you ever want to feel a needle. Men cannot begin to perceive what it's like, which is one of the main reasons they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about abortion. To quote Rachel on FRIENDS : "No uterus, no opinion." Once the shots have been administered, and the "numbing" begins hard metal is used to pry open the cervix to allow access to the uterus. Penetration of the cervix is not equivalent to anal penetration, so don't dare make that comparison. Again, this is pain only women ever get to know. And I put quotation marks around "numbing" because it's not as if the woman doesn't feel all of this. She does. She feels the center of her being being spread wide and she feels the scraping of her uterus. The scraping of her uterus. Or the "vacuuming". Either way, it's not a way a human should be awake for on a Saturday morning.

When the procedure is done, the woman walks(!) into a room full of reclining chairs or chaise lounge type chairs with a bunch of other women. Some are crying. Some are sleeping or unconscious. Some are cramping and throwing up- or rather, heaving, because they haven't eaten. When she's feeling stronger, she might have a little orange juice or peanut butter and crackers. After a couple of hours, they send her home. Goddess help her if she hasn't got someone to care for her, or especially if she has children or others that she must care for. Even worse, if she lives alone and begins to hemorrhage in her sleep. You can't call 911 if you can't afford a phone.

The cruelest thing the anti-choice movement does is to call abortion the "easy way out". There is nothing easy about this process. Aside from the actual physical pain, we need to tell young women about all of the effects of pregnancy. Once a woman has been pregnant, even for only a few weeks, her body may never be the same. The same hormonal changes that cause depression, nausea, weight gain, etc. are active at the earliest stages, and sudden termination of a pregnancy can cause severe postpartum depression and/or psychosis. This is a life altering event. Some women never recover completely, physically or psychologically. Thankfully, the social stigma is gradually going away, but we have a long way to go before this process is guilt-free.

I wish for a world in which every child born is wanted. Bringing a child into an impoverished, abusive or loveless environment is unnecessary if we will all be conscious of our choices. Accidents do happen, though, under the best of circumstances. When they do, or when a woman is raped, or when the birth control just doesn't work, we can't point to a social system that provides all of the support needed for the mother or the child. We don't have an adequate safety net for families who can't afford another mouth to feed; another mind to educate; insurance, health care or childcare. Unwanted children are a burden on society. They are abused, abandoned, and mistreated in every way possible. In an ideal world, pregnancy would be a gift and we'd have adequate support available for those willing to raise the next generation, but it isn't and we don't. Until we do, I don't want women to die from illegal, back alley abortions; I don't want women to bleed to death from trying to do it alone or with another unqualified person. I don't want poor women enslaved by a power structure in which we have no say.

The idea that a bunch of rich old white men have any right to tell young women of any color what they can and cannot do with their bodies makes me ill. I am a sentient being. I am not chattle, I am not a slave, and I have the rights to my own body. It's my right to have sex or not; it's my right to host a fetus or not; it's my right to have all of the information I need to make my own choices. So abortion should be legal, and free. And for Goddess' sake, give the girl a general anesthesia. It's the only humane thing to do.