Finally have a moment to drop a comment in here to express my gratitude to you, Jessica, for writing this. When will women be valued enough for society to recognize our potential to live fully and freely post-abortion and create a ripple effect of beauty and life that would not have been possible were it not for our right to choose that abortion? It's infuriating, yes, but fucking heartbreaking and I'm just tired. I haven't even been at this that long. I'm 42 and I started really engaging in activism after Sandy Hook in the gun violence prevention arena. I, like so many, took Roe for granted. Assuming it was settled law and ignorant of Hyde and the struggle for low income women, women of color, women in red states to access the same rights I enjoyed in the various blue places I've always lived. I called myself a "single issue voter" in line with many affiliated with Moms Demand Action and was adamant that I would vote for any candidate - regardless of party and stance on other issues - if they held common sense views on gun laws and gun violence prevention. But, now I'm a single issue voter on reproductive rights and justice. How could I not be after watching Trump obnoxiously cower over Hillary on the debate stage, reading about the Federalist Society's long and, quite frankly, brilliant plan to saturate the courts and to put conservatives on the SC bench to overturn Roe, and then to experience the Kavanaugh debacle and the Coney Barrett coup, and the spate of laws intended to chip away at Roe and render it, essentially, overturned, and now this in Texas, that does just that, but does so even more cruelly than one could even fathom by empowering civilians to snitch, coming to be under cover of the shadow docket, crickets from a court at 11:59 pm just because they could, only to issue an unsigned majority opinion a day after???? Gaslighting, triggering, taunting, torturing women across the country with their purposeful cruelty. Shocking, but not surprising. We knew it was coming, but I don't think we imagined it would be this bad. As soon as the news broke, there were two people whose reaction I awaited most - Jessica Valenti and Rebecca Traister. Traister was a guest Dalia Lithwick's emergency podcast episode to unpack the Texas law (along w/ prof Michelle Goodwin, a must hear ep) and you, of course, wrote this and so eloquently put into words what so many of us know and feel and what gets such inadequate attention in this whole conversation. The untapped potential, the resulting life and freedom and choices and experiences and love and careers and on and on that come about when we make a choice that enables and empower us to seek all that. We are so worth that. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your story in this beautiful piece❤️ I'm so glad you were able to access abortion care when you needed it, and hope someday we can get to the point our basic rights aren't under such constant attack :(
Btw, for anyone who shops from Amazon (I'm trying to use it less, but if I do I use Amazon Smile)- you can select several Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas to receive donations from your purchases!
I took the so-called “morning after” pill after a broken condom incident just before packing up and moving across the Atlantic to begin a new life, which would have been disastrously impacted by an unwanted pregnancy. I didn’t know if I was pregnant but I was so grateful to my gynecologist for handing me the prescription every year at my checkup, “just in case.” It was a Saturday in France when I filled that Rx: there was no way to get a prescription if I didn’t have one that weekend, and I never felt prouder of my gynecologist for saying, “it almost never happens at the right moment, so just hold onto this till next year.” She left the date infilled for me. I wasn’t even sexually active at the time. Just in case, indeed.
It felt like one of the most responsible decisions I’d ever made in my life, not the opposite, which is what the anti-choicers would have people believe. I still thank my lucky stars thirty years later, whenever I think about it.
After my first child I had several what were called spontaneous abortions, not by choice but because my body rejected the pregnancies for whatever physical reason. I grieved those losses but I eventually carried two more pregnancies to full term.
Like you, I celebrate what I have, not what might have been. What is, not what if. Thank you for deciding to share your story. My heart aches for all those women who are losing their right to choose. That is not a society I would want to live in.
I have been supporting my local abortion fund for years; the work they do is so important and valuable. At their annual fundraiser, back when we could do it in person, they would read testimonies from the people who used their help to access abortion, and it never failed to bring me to (happy) tears at the lives saved. Stories like yours; people who could go on to study abroad, finish degrees, escape unhealthy or abusive relationships- so much good made possible. It's devastating to think of the lives and possibilities that will be lost if abortion is taken away.
I have a knot in my stomach about this law going into affect. I would not be the person I am today nor would I be the Mother I am without having had an abortion at a time in my life when I could not have supported or cared for a child. I have NEVER regretted that decision! To think that women will basically be forced to have a child against their will is barbaric!!! I am outraged!!!
Thank you for sharing your story. It ought to be a personal choice. I worry that vigilantes will use this to ruin the reputation of girls, young women, women. My healthcare is nobody's business. And, I'm imagining traumatized rape victims being outed. The whole thing is so awful. And, the hypocrisy, of course, of those in power freely accessing abortion services. Ugh!
Thank you, and you're right, obviously; abortion is one of the decisions a person may make, one path taken.
We must not allow the anti-choice crowd to set that agenda: to make having or not having an abortion the central narrative of a life.
(I'm still so bitter about the Bernie Bros and all the others who claimed Clinton was as bad as Trump; the damage Trump has done through the Supreme Court alone may haunt especially women for years, if not decades.)
Finally have a moment to drop a comment in here to express my gratitude to you, Jessica, for writing this. When will women be valued enough for society to recognize our potential to live fully and freely post-abortion and create a ripple effect of beauty and life that would not have been possible were it not for our right to choose that abortion? It's infuriating, yes, but fucking heartbreaking and I'm just tired. I haven't even been at this that long. I'm 42 and I started really engaging in activism after Sandy Hook in the gun violence prevention arena. I, like so many, took Roe for granted. Assuming it was settled law and ignorant of Hyde and the struggle for low income women, women of color, women in red states to access the same rights I enjoyed in the various blue places I've always lived. I called myself a "single issue voter" in line with many affiliated with Moms Demand Action and was adamant that I would vote for any candidate - regardless of party and stance on other issues - if they held common sense views on gun laws and gun violence prevention. But, now I'm a single issue voter on reproductive rights and justice. How could I not be after watching Trump obnoxiously cower over Hillary on the debate stage, reading about the Federalist Society's long and, quite frankly, brilliant plan to saturate the courts and to put conservatives on the SC bench to overturn Roe, and then to experience the Kavanaugh debacle and the Coney Barrett coup, and the spate of laws intended to chip away at Roe and render it, essentially, overturned, and now this in Texas, that does just that, but does so even more cruelly than one could even fathom by empowering civilians to snitch, coming to be under cover of the shadow docket, crickets from a court at 11:59 pm just because they could, only to issue an unsigned majority opinion a day after???? Gaslighting, triggering, taunting, torturing women across the country with their purposeful cruelty. Shocking, but not surprising. We knew it was coming, but I don't think we imagined it would be this bad. As soon as the news broke, there were two people whose reaction I awaited most - Jessica Valenti and Rebecca Traister. Traister was a guest Dalia Lithwick's emergency podcast episode to unpack the Texas law (along w/ prof Michelle Goodwin, a must hear ep) and you, of course, wrote this and so eloquently put into words what so many of us know and feel and what gets such inadequate attention in this whole conversation. The untapped potential, the resulting life and freedom and choices and experiences and love and careers and on and on that come about when we make a choice that enables and empower us to seek all that. We are so worth that. Thank you.
This is beautiful Jessica. I hope many read it.
Thank you for sharing your story in this beautiful piece❤️ I'm so glad you were able to access abortion care when you needed it, and hope someday we can get to the point our basic rights aren't under such constant attack :(
Btw, for anyone who shops from Amazon (I'm trying to use it less, but if I do I use Amazon Smile)- you can select several Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas to receive donations from your purchases!
I took the so-called “morning after” pill after a broken condom incident just before packing up and moving across the Atlantic to begin a new life, which would have been disastrously impacted by an unwanted pregnancy. I didn’t know if I was pregnant but I was so grateful to my gynecologist for handing me the prescription every year at my checkup, “just in case.” It was a Saturday in France when I filled that Rx: there was no way to get a prescription if I didn’t have one that weekend, and I never felt prouder of my gynecologist for saying, “it almost never happens at the right moment, so just hold onto this till next year.” She left the date infilled for me. I wasn’t even sexually active at the time. Just in case, indeed.
It felt like one of the most responsible decisions I’d ever made in my life, not the opposite, which is what the anti-choicers would have people believe. I still thank my lucky stars thirty years later, whenever I think about it.
Does anyone know of a good charity my mom and I can donate to that helps women in Texas needing abortion access that may need to go to other states?
After my first child I had several what were called spontaneous abortions, not by choice but because my body rejected the pregnancies for whatever physical reason. I grieved those losses but I eventually carried two more pregnancies to full term.
Like you, I celebrate what I have, not what might have been. What is, not what if. Thank you for deciding to share your story. My heart aches for all those women who are losing their right to choose. That is not a society I would want to live in.
I have been supporting my local abortion fund for years; the work they do is so important and valuable. At their annual fundraiser, back when we could do it in person, they would read testimonies from the people who used their help to access abortion, and it never failed to bring me to (happy) tears at the lives saved. Stories like yours; people who could go on to study abroad, finish degrees, escape unhealthy or abusive relationships- so much good made possible. It's devastating to think of the lives and possibilities that will be lost if abortion is taken away.
I have a knot in my stomach about this law going into affect. I would not be the person I am today nor would I be the Mother I am without having had an abortion at a time in my life when I could not have supported or cared for a child. I have NEVER regretted that decision! To think that women will basically be forced to have a child against their will is barbaric!!! I am outraged!!!
Thank you for sharing your story. It ought to be a personal choice. I worry that vigilantes will use this to ruin the reputation of girls, young women, women. My healthcare is nobody's business. And, I'm imagining traumatized rape victims being outed. The whole thing is so awful. And, the hypocrisy, of course, of those in power freely accessing abortion services. Ugh!
Thank you, and you're right, obviously; abortion is one of the decisions a person may make, one path taken.
We must not allow the anti-choice crowd to set that agenda: to make having or not having an abortion the central narrative of a life.
(I'm still so bitter about the Bernie Bros and all the others who claimed Clinton was as bad as Trump; the damage Trump has done through the Supreme Court alone may haunt especially women for years, if not decades.)