A couple of nights ago I awoke from a dream, my heart racing. In the dream, I was pregnant and had gone to a clinic for an abortion (apparently this newsletter is taking a toll on my psyche). Two nice women welcomed me and asked me the date of my last period. The problem is that I don’t menstruate, as I had an endometrial ablation when I was in my early forties, which stopped my periods. So, technically, the answer in the dream was “ten years ago.”
[Quick aside and probably TMI: In my early forties, I started having heavy, very frequent periods, along with terrible menstrual cramps. At my wit’s end, I practically begged my gynecologist for a hysterectomy. He recommended a NovaSure ablation, a procedure that lasers off the lining of the uterus; a woman will still ovulate after an ablation, but menstruation will cease in most cases, and thankfully, it did for me. If you have any questions about this procedure, don’t hesitate to ask me; it was life-changing.]
The pregnancy didn’t make logical sense in the dream, but what dream makes logical sense? Even though a person can still get pregnant after an ablation—not likely, but possible—my spouse has had a vasectomy, and I’m likely post-menopausal, so in the real world he is, as he puts it, shooting blanks into a barren cave. But alas, in the dream, I was pregnant, and though I didn’t know just how pregnant since I couldn’t calculate the days since a “missing” period, I had the feeling that I was a few months pregnant. I did not want an abortion. But neither did I want a baby.
The women walked me over to a room with a glass wall; I stood on one side and looked in. Several adorable babies were all perched on a long bench. None were crying—they all just looked lovely and docile and happy and healthy. The women left me there to stare at the babies. I understood the message: Just continue your pregnancy for four or five more months and you can produce—you will produce—one of these, for either yourself or someone else. I suddenly realized I was not in a clinic that offered abortion as an option but rather in a “pregnancy resource center”—also sometimes referred to as “crisis pregnancy center”—where they—the nice ladies—attempt to convince you to finish your pregnancy and have a baby.
I was filled with dread. The dread of an unwanted pregnancy; the dread of an abortion; the dread of carrying to term for all the world to see and then placing the baby for adoption or keeping it.
Every day, thousands of women and girls experience that dread.
A few years ago during a discussion about abortion in my argument class at Cal Poly, a student mentioned abortion as a seemingly under-utilized option. Another student, a sophomore, raised her hand and told the class that she had gotten pregnant during the first quarter of her freshman year. She opted for an open adoption, and after giving birth, a local San Luis Obispo couple adopted her son. She was able to visit her son every week and watch him grow. I asked her what she thought about women who chose abortion, since one could argue that she took the harder road.
“I would never judge anyone who decided to have an abortion,” she said, her voice cracking. She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “There’s no easy road. It’s all hard—no matter what you do—it’s all hard.”
One unexpected, heartening boon to writing this newsletter over the last few months is coming across in my research countless individuals and organizations who recognize the dread a person feels when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. These folks work hard so that women and girls are treated with dignity and compassion and kindness and so that they have options and can choose what option will work best. I’ve written about some of these individuals and organizations here and no doubt I’ll continue to write about them as I carry on. There are legions of people out there fighting what I see as the good fight.
Thank you for reading The Quickening and see you next week.
Happy New Year!
When I was 17 I thought I became pregnant from a one-night stand with a very nice boy whose last name I never knew. I went to a place in town to get tested and learn my options. I was given a cup to collect my urine, which I handed off to the woman in attendance, and was given pamphlets to read. One told me I would go to hell if I had an abortion. The second contained personal stories from women who regretted their abortions. The one that stuck out talked about how vacuuming the house brought this woman back to the day she allowed her child to be torn from her body. Then the attending woman came back and lectured me on how my life would be destroyed by an abortion decision. How wicked I would feel. She left me in a pool of tears to get the results of my test. She was visibly disappointed that the result was negative. I ran from that place. That experience was the start of a shift for me... the first chink in the armor. I went from a sweet, naive young woman who believed in God the way everyone seemed to believe in God - blind acceptance without really thinking about it too deeply, to questioning the "truths" put before me by others. And that questioning continues to this day. The intention from that clinic was to stop abortions, but to also make sure the fear of God and inevitable fiery repercussions were were drilled way into my head. Maybe to further my love of God, in some twisted way. It had the opposite effect, alas. And that clinic is still there, in between the corner drugstore and the now-closed dance studio. 35 years later. How many more scared young women have had a piece of their innocence stolen since then? It makes my heart heavy.