Today

Today was to be the day of the vote.  The day of forbidding abortions after 20 weeks, even in cases of fetal anomaly.  "No big deal," says the world, as Obama would veto it anyway, but it was a big deal to me.  Tricks and show to stoke the fires of popularity for conservative leadership by sending the hounds out on my trail.

It turns out that this is not a prudent way to earn popularity among women, most of whom know, deep in our hearts, that our fertility is both gift and curse.  Someday, we realize, we may find ourselves stuck between that rock and a very hard place, as so many of our mothers have before us, and as so many of our daughters will after us.

And so, taking the popularity games to the next level -- this time, with WOMEN! -- the GOP has dropped their bill.

Instead, they are introducing a law that will forbid the spending of federal funds on abortion.  This law already exists.  It's called The Hyde Amendment.  And it is the reason that your insurance won't pay for your abortion if, say, you're a woman raped during her service in Afghanistan, or a mother of three with a good government job who just learned that her forth child has all his little fingers and all his little toes, but no brain.

When I was at the clinic in Colorado, my nurse told me a little about some of the other women who come to them from all over the world.  No names, no identifying features.  Nothing that would betray their sacred right to privacy, but stories.  Faceless, nameless stories of the secret community of silent women who pass through her bunker of care.

One woman, she said, knew very early on that she was pregnant.  She went for an abortion right away, but could not afford it.  There were no funds to help out.  She was barely making ends meet, as it was, and had to take a night job to save up.  Every week, she saved a little more, and every week, her baby grew a little more and the procedure became more costly.  She was chasing a moving target.  She was determined not to have this baby, so she worked two jobs for weeks and weeks and weeks, saving and saving and saving.  Until, finally, she had worked for too many weeks, and could no longer be seen locally.  She worked some more.  She saved some more, now for travel costs on top of it all.  Eventually, she made her way to the clinic in Colorado, and had her abortion.

There isn't comprehensive data on WHY women get later term abortions.  What data exists is old, and not specific.  It says that the most common reason to seek abortion after 20 weeks is lack of funds to access abortion earlier.  It does not say if this reason is being counted with other reasons.  I know plenty of women who had fetal anomaly AND ALSO had to scramble to access funds.

I do not believe that money drives most very late abortions, like my own.  I expect that if you charted by week, a greater proportion of 20-22 week abortions would be for economic reasons, but that if you measured from 30-36 weeks, nearly all abortions would be for medical reasons like mine or for other extreme circumstances like the 12-year-old victim of incest who never knew she was pregnant because nobody ever told her about periods and babies (another real-life story from my nurse).

Here's what I do know: If you really, truly want to reduce the numbers of later-term abortion, the best way to do it is to help women who want abortions access them earlier.  That is, the best way to prevent later-term abortions is to offer loans and funding for earlier abortions, and to keep local clinics open.  Restricting funding will only increase the numbers of later term abortions.

And if you really want to reduce ALL abortions, the most effective way to do it is by making the most reliable methods of birth control (pill, IUD, etc.) available for free, and to make sure your entire population knows how to use them by offering comprehensive sex education.  Throw in some evening appointments with childcare at clinics, and that will help, too.

Would it have prevented my abortion?  No.  Even a complete ban might not have prevented my abortion, because if I had found a way to do it illegally, I would have taken my chances.  I often wonder if I would be here to write about it.  It would have been a very dangerous risk.

I'm so tired today.  I'm tired of the term "viability" getting tossed around about 24 or 25 weeks, when my own baby was dubiously viable at 36 weeks.  I'm tired of the dismissal of later-term abortion as "only 2% of all abortions" as though I don't count and don't matter because I am such an oddity.  I'm tired of being a pawn in someone else's giant game of law-chess and the victim of political bullying.  I'm tired of caring so much about something so unpopular.

Some days, I wish I could just drop this burden of mine and go back to casually changing the channel away from reproductive justice news, just like everybody else.

But I can't.  My fertility is a gift and a curse.  There is no one without the other.  My exhaustion is my curse.  My knowledge is my curse.  The Laurel-shaped hole in my heart is a curse.

My gift shines bright out of two fresh, rosy faces that rise to greet me every morning.  It kisses me with soft pink lips, and throws tiny arms around my neck.  It rolls with the purity of laughter.  It fills my heart to bursting with love and fierce devotion.



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PS: Definitely not asking for money, but if you happen to feel riled up and want to help fund someone's abortion, I'm just going to put this link here.  It's state-by-state, and will go directly to helping women get the money they need to get their procedures ASAP.  The EMA Fund is my own local one. I know a few people who work there, and they're wonderful.

And if you're riled up the other way, and want to help support someone who chose life, this family carried to term a baby with similar diagnosis to Laurel.  They're having trouble covering his medical expenses and run fundraisers whenever he needs a surgery.  Pitch in when it comes back around again.