I got back from my conference late Tuesday night, and have been ruminating about my next blog entry ever since.
Guess who won a registration to next year’s conference: yours truly. And guess where it’s being held: in Minneapolis, the twin city to St.Paul, Minnesota! I know, the irony is overwhelming.
As much as people don’t want to hear a pregnant woman talk about miscarriage, I think abortion rates a few thousand times higher up on the list of things that people don’t want to hear about at all, much less from a pregnant woman.
No, this isn’t what I thought I’d be blogging about on my 12-week anniversary mark, but it’s been weighing on me, so much so that I feel like I couldn’t simply jump back into some funny blog entry before I address an issue that is bigger than just me and my anecdotes.
The conference that I went to was the Annual Meeting/Conference of the National Abortion Federation (NAF). Last week’s Supreme Court decision to uphold the “Partial Birth” Abortion Ban was a heavy pre-cursor to the NAF conference. I’ve experienced the range of feeling completely helpless and depressed that this right will disappear again within my lifetime, to feeling inspired and connected to others around the country who are committed to doing the work of helping women.
Yes, it’s difficult to read or hear about the procedure. Of course it is.
And yes, it sounds like the kind of thing that is so rare, it would never affect any one of us in our little circles directly.
But the most alarming part of this ruling to me is that it is absolutely just the first step of the process in the very organized plan to “chip away” at the right that already exists. In a way that does not make headlines like the Virginia Tech shootings, Hurricane Katrina, 9-11, or over-turning Roe v. Wade outright.
And that’s exactly how the American people are going to lose a fundamental right without even noticing, before it’s too late.
Even though, in my supervisor Kate’s words, this ruling was so much more than just “chipping” away at the right. “It’s more like taking a bucket loader to it!” as she so astutely described it.
With vague language and no health exception, it begins a slippery slope of what other aspects of abortion will be banned. Which broadens the circle of those it affects.
Because one third of all women WILL have an abortion in the course of their lifetime, it’s likely that the issue WILL hit close to home for almost everyone, at some point, in some way, in their life time, if it hasn’t already. Whether it’s yourself, your sister, daughter, wife, girlfriend, cousin, mother, grandmother, co-worker, or friend.
As a male doctor at the conference said, “Abortion is not just a women’s issue, it’s a family issue. It affects all of us.” And that includes the men in our lives: husbands, boyfriends, brothers, sons, fathers, cousins, grandfathers, co-workers, and friends.
And to lessen the distance that people may feel to an issue that may seem peripheral, I also wanted to share on a personal level that abortion is not something that just happens in the movies, or in big cities, or far away states. Part of what I do every week is help women through the abortion process. From talking with them before hand, attending to them during their abortion, and caring for them afterward, I see a great diversity of women each week: teenagers, pre-menopausal women, mothers, teachers, nurses, business owners, exchange students, women of all religions, and every imaginable birth control method failure possible, even vasectomy.
It’s hard not to grow resentful of the sense that those of us who do this work should be “quiet” about it, so as not to upset people, or appear distasteful, or boat-rocking, or radical.
So, after 4 and a half years of doing this work, I’m “coming out” and putting a face to the abortion issue, so that people see that even “a nice girl like Nicky does that kind of work”.
My co-workers and I say all the time that we feel privileged and honored to help women in the way that we do. Their stories are profound and compelling, and their gratitude to us and for the right to have control over their lives is overwhelming.
And speaking of co-workers, I am beyond lucky to work with the most amazing women ever. They are incredibly compassionate, hardworking, hilarious, eloquent, genuine superwomen. We are a fabulous team, and we appreciate each other and the very privileged jobs we share.
I wanted to make sure that I was not just writing this to relieve myself of a weight, but rather that I was doing my part to further awareness and understanding of, again, what can seem like a “peripheral” issue.
So I plead to all who read this to have their eyes and ears open to what’s happening in our government, because mine got opened real wide this week.
For more info or getting involved: http://www.prochoice.org/
-Nicky and Nate
12 weeks 1 day, finally
