Show Me the Woman Who Should be Denied an Abortion
She must be doing this for the “wrong” reasons
The latest national opinion poll on abortion tells us what we’ve known for some time: most Americans support keeping legal protections for abortion in place, but with significant restrictions. Sixty-one percent say first-trimester abortion should be legal “in all or most cases.” This support drops to well below 40% in the second and third trimesters.
These results take on novel significance because the Supreme Court recently announced that it will review the constitutional standard for legal abortion restrictions. Under Roe v Wade, states may not outlaw abortions before fetal viability — around 23–24 weeks. Mississippi would like to restrict abortions after 15 weeks. Many states would restrict them earlier, or ban abortion altogether.
While the polls seem to suggest broad support for such a tightening of restrictions, these results are grossly distorted by the shame, secrecy, and hypocrisy that permeate our national conversation around abortion.
Americans are often asked, as in the recent AP poll, to consider various “acceptable” reasons for a woman to have an abortion: serious danger to her health, pregnancy as a result of rape or incest, or a fetus diagnosed with a life-threatening deformity.
What they’re not asked to consider are the “unacceptable” reasons for abortion — the catchall category encapsulated by the harsh, callous-sounding phrase “abortion on demand.”
We may like to think that by supporting abortion in “most cases,” we’re including people “like us” (ourselves, our daughters, our sisters) or people who clearly deserve our sympathy (e.g. victims of rape, or women whose fetuses are severely deformed). The phrase “most cases” makes us feel that abortion would be available to us if we were to need it.
As for the woman to whom abortion should not be available: we’ve been led by the anti-abortion movement (and conservative male lawmakers) to believe in the existence of some mythical, evil woman — a woman who could be transformed from murderer to mother if only we could prevent her from making this one selfish, impulsive decision.
We’ve been led to believe: this woman is not me; she is not my sister or anyone in tragic circumstances. She’s some other woman, someone who is doing this for the wrong reasons. Give me and my loved ones the right to abortion; let the law handle her.
But who is the woman who would make that wrong, impulsive decision? Who is the woman whose abortion we would like to leave in the hands of the courts?
I am here to tell you that she does not exist. In twelve years of providing abortions, I’ve never met this woman, nor anyone remotely resembling her. I haven’t found a colleague who has met her either.
Let me tell you about the women I do encounter in the abortion clinic:
I meet women ending their pregnancies for all kinds of reasons besides those “acceptable” ones listed above: she doesn’t have the money to raise a child; she’s just starting college; her birth control failed; she’s in an abusive relationship.
I meet many, many women who tell me that they’re thankful to be able to have an abortion, and they still feel terrible about it. I imagine you have met this woman, too.
I meet women who tell me, through tears, that although they are certain this is the right decision, it is not an easy one.
I meet women who tell me that they don’t really “believe in” abortion, but that they have to do it just this once.
You wouldn’t believe how many times I hear this last one. It gives me chills every time, because it shows just how precarious the woman’s right to an abortion really is — what a thin line stands between her and the kinds of restrictions that would force her to carry this pregnancy to term.
Because we know roughly one in four women in America will have an abortion, we also know that this very woman, the one on the exam table in my clinic, must be captured in these public opinion polls, checking the box for supporting abortion in “most cases,” or for banning abortion altogether — never revealing that she herself has had an abortion “just this once.” Worse, she may vote this way, electing officials who promise to restrict legal abortions to only “acceptable” cases — not realizing that in their eyes, her own case doesn’t count.
This is the trap we have fallen into. The American court of public opinion delivers, time after time, a verdict that is based on shame, hypocrisy, and distrust — specifically distrust of the evil, selfish woman seeking “abortion on demand.” We want abortions to be available to “us,” but not to her.
I am here to reassure you: she does not exist. So the next time someone asks — or you ask yourself — about abortion, you can let go of the “most cases” or “some restrictions” clause. For abortion to be available to you and your loved ones, it must be available to everyone. It is reasonable and safe to demand this from our lawmakers. It is also urgent — now more than ever.
