'Abortion' is not a dirty word.
"There was sorrow there in that space, but not regret," Synclaire Warren writes.
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Today’s free newsletter is written by Synclaire Warren, a researcher, writer, and gender equity advocate. Currently, she is a champion at Madre, an international NGO that focuses on uplifting women's and girls’ rights in the global south.
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When I was younger, I was told there were bad words. Like “fuck.” You shouldn’t say “fuck.” As I got older, I found out what the real bad words really were. These bad words take the noise out of rooms and turn down eyes. One real bad word is “abortion.”
“I had an abortion” — now that’s a real bad phrase. I remember that my stomach had been bothering me for a few weeks before my 21st birthday, so I went to the doctor and got referred to a specialist. In that sanitized room, I waited for the nurse to come back after I gave her my urine sample. She was taking a while to return and I wondered what was going on, so I got up from the hospital bed and peered over at the screen that was purposefully turned away from me. Everything else blurred when I saw it: “POSITIVE,” under the pregnancy test.
The doctor came into the room. Her eyes were rounded with pity, and she could see that I knew that there would be no shower for this occasion, just rain that I wished I could wash away in. Her mouth moved to say, “I’m sorry” but my teeth bit away this condolence. I could not allow this to become my reality — as if by preventing her from speaking, then what was happening could no longer exist.
I tried to explain to her that this was impossible. I could almost taste the metal of the IUD that had been inserted just weeks before. The copper on my tongue tried to prove to her that this was all wrong, that she was wrong. I had done everything right. But she explained to me that my IUD had been expelled from my uterus, and while it was still inside me, it was no longer viable in preventing a pregnancy.
The taxi window was wet on my way home. I made three appointments for an abortion in the twenty-minute ride, worried that one of them would be canceled. I ran to my bathroom and removed the plastic from my emergency pregnancy test I had hidden underneath my bathroom sink — the one that every young, sexually active girl has in hopes of using only as a novelty, before laughing at the expected negative result and getting ice cream with her friends. In a few minutes, the stick was cold and drenched, and it had found something buried within me — a final confirmation of what was happening to me and what was going to happen.
At my appointment, my OBGYN gave me two pills, and again, I was back in my bathroom. Sitting there on the stained tiled floor, I remembered the tree in my grandmother’s backyard. It grew fruit and on certain June days, the branches would reach such lengths that they would scratch me when I tried to run through them, probably from one of my brothers. That tree taught me that that growth can hurt. In the summer, the plums would get so hot on the trees they would fall and burst as they hit the ground. The whole property smelled of that deep purple. I looked down on my stained tiles and realized that my bathroom had become that smell. I had become it.
Later that day, something unripened fell from my hips, the hips that craved to be cracked. For months after, I wondered if the scent was still there. Did it waft as I walked? As I moved, I was reminded that I was alone. Before, my womb had been empty, never expanded without warning. After my abortion, I felt hollowed; echoes of possibilities and shame sang to me. I feared the judgment of the rot from all those summer spoiled plums. My body tried to be that tree, fruitful from the soil; instead, I felt soiled.
One night, before the appointment and the pills and the boyfriendless bathroom, I pressed my hands on the softest part of me, so honestly, gently touching something that I knew I would never hold. I uttered a whisper that would never become a lullaby, never a bedtime story. I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t be your mommy right now.” There was sorrow there in that space, but not regret. No dandelions to wish away.
Now, when my eyes look at my waistline, I hardly think of the rotting fruit. I think of the warmth instead. The warmth of care I was given to by the providers, what I gave myself when I needed it most. Abortion care was the only way I could have my life back. There are bad words in this world, words that get caught in throats and hushed, but abortion is not one of them. I was pregnant. I had an abortion.
ICYMI
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