Why access to abortion should be legal, paid for, and free of shame

Nothing has a clock like an unwanted pregnancy. Nothing is more precisely moving you toward a pact you do not wish to make, or are ambivalent about making, or are too scared to make, or too traumatized to consider. We do not have to be raped to have a hall pass to abortion. We do not need to have had a birth control failure to be given basic empathy. We do not need to be talked into or out of anything that was placed in our body either accidentally, or passively, or violently, or lazily, or drunkenly, or with passionate abandon. None of these must find human form just because. There is no “just because he had sex with me” that can possibly force a person to become a caregiver for the rest of their lives, nor a designated incubator for those who wish to adopt. Right to privacy means autonomy and agency over one’s body. Violating that is against the law. Privacy doesn’t mean suffering in silence, shutting up other women, or getting to abuse people in secret.

 Suddenly gone from the news cycle and social media feeds right now—replaced by gun violence and domestic terrorism perpetuated by xenophobia and misogyny—abortion rights take a backseat again. 

It should not be necessary for women to tell their personal healthcare stories in order to add humanity to the abortion issue. And yet, we have 5K runs and buy pink bracelets to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer, because it is killing women, with no cure in sight. A lack of properly protected access to abortion has the potential to kill women, too, but we do not wish to see it this way or have such fanfare around the topic. We still cringe and cannot get behind this cause with the same gusto and lack of shame that we do for cancers or any other medical issue we need to tackle with urgency. Maybe because it is not an actual disease but the attitudes and politics around it that are gangrenous and metastasizing.

Suddenly gone from the news cycle and social media feeds right now—replaced by gun violence and domestic terrorism perpetuated by xenophobia and misogyny—abortion rights take a backseat again. The issues are actually connected: straight men do the shooting, impregnating, and the abandoning of responsibilities because they can, and because they either hate women or take their privilege for granted and abstain from the fight for equality and change. The change should be about bringing men into the revolution of mental health care, vasectomies, the call for male birth control, sexual education, and activism within intersectional feminism.

I have had to explain, to smart and informed women and men, just the other day, what exactly I meant by: my plan B failed. As in, some thought it’s a pill that prevents a pregnancy. It’s a pill that can prevent ovulation and cannot work for you if you have already ovulated, in which case, implantation may occur and is not reversible in any way by the hormones present in a plan B pill. Plan B once made me barf because I was already surging with progesterone and so I took another to make double sure. That’s a hundred dollars of crossed fingers down the drain. I wasn’t at all certain what my next options would be at the time. Reproductive health is both emotionally complicated and concretely scientific—there are answers. But since it is women who have their bodies on the line while men vote on what happens to them, or ejaculate into them and walk away, we should make this education a high priority in our daily lives, our schools, our communities, and our bars—yes, that is where we need it to happen most. It shouldn’t be up to me to explain what an IUD does or why I wouldn’t want one. Men should weigh the cost/benefit of having a vasectomy early in life (which can sometimes be reversed) and banking sperm instead of us and our uteruses having to bear the entire responsibility, chaos, costs, and consequences.

You know you live in a very sick world when you utter the words, “I was lucky to have my abortions in Oregon.” Our state seems like a liberal bastion of a carefree blue shade, but Portland is a dot in a sea of red. Oregon is broke—we can’t fund our schools, we can’t help our houseless population, we have an ongoing mental health crisis with more services decreasing and clinics shutting down. The good news is that almost two years ago, Governor Kate Brown did sign one of the most progressive reproductive health bills in the nation—including requirements that the full cost of abortion would be covered by private insurance or the state. Women with alien status, lack of coverage, and even those on Providence’s Catholic-run insurance can now potentially be reimbursed by the state. The economic barrier to accessing a necessary medical procedure was removed, adding dignity where there used to be punitive measures. But we still have to do a lot of leg work to make sure we are actually fully covered; we still have to advocate for ourselves. Frankly, I still am getting a bill for my abortion instead of them following the law.

 Why is there no mandate requiring the care of our bodies, as well as mental health services, during and after an abortion, to be billed to the man? 

As a single parent of two children, with a fluctuating income as a freelancer, this bill personally affected me on three separate occasions. Most recently, my new insurance, Moda, refused to cover the complete cost of my abortion and so I chose to reach out to the person who got me pregnant to supplement the balance and not end up in collections. Money shouldn’t even have to enter a woman’s mind at a time like this. Walking my OB/GYN bill over to my ex-boyfriend and asking him to write a check was not pleasant, but at least it was safe enough for me to track him down. This is not an option to many girls who are raped, to women who had a casual fling they are fully entitled to, to those who have abusive partners, to those of us who are in complicated relationships.

What would go into making sure men are the ones who take care of the financial burden? Would it be demeaning for some people who can get pregnant to think that men are designated payees for our bodies, for our private health services? Are women supposed to chase down the men who are half of the responsible party (and the only reason we are pregnant in the first place) when it comes to covering our basic health care? Or, should men’s insurance policies be what pays the full burden of the bill since we are the ones living with every conceivable physical, emotional, and public inconvenience and turmoil? Why is there no mandate requiring the care of our bodies, as well as mental health services, during and after an abortion, to be billed to the man?

Case in point, the men who have gotten me pregnant each have other instances of accidental pregnancies under their belts. When they see a doctor, if they see a doctor, do they get asked how many abortions, miscarriages, and live deliveries they caused as a matter of routine? For one of my ex-partners that number is high enough, maybe 8-10, that it should create traction, maybe raise alarm. The concerned face my provider gives me is a face a man never tends to see. The process is rendered invisible. The men that get multiple women pregnant may need mental health counseling to figure out why they continue to remain fertile and refuse condoms when they cause so many unwanted pregnancies. That’s just for starters.

 I had three abortions in Oregon. Safe and necessary abortions. It is not a crime, not here. It is not a badge. It is not a secret. It’s a moment I shared with a man where we ultimately made a mistake. 

The days I have spent puking, crying in bed, bleeding, and talking with my therapist, (who I pay out of pocket), all because my partner was ambivalent about having more children, but certain about having unprotected sex with me have cost me dearly. There is no price for some errors to be corrected but there is the matter of the actual procedures that were covered incompletely. Yes, there are other quantifiable damages. One of them being my inability to meet this very deadline and get paid for an article I really do wish to write because it is too close to the bone still, because, while absolutely necessary, the procedure I went through cut me to the white meat and has been too hot to touch with words. I am in both worlds; the gratitude and the rage.

And yet, I think I should say it again and again: I had three abortions in Oregon. Safe and necessary abortions. It is not a crime, not here. It is not a badge. It is not a secret. It’s a moment I shared with a man where we ultimately made a mistake. When I began dating for the first time since my husband and I separated, almost five years ago now, I ended up needing an abortion. The man was a friend who had a passionate crush on me and did want to have a child of his own with the woman he loved. We got blackout drunk one night when I took pain pills and didn’t realize how they would affect me. I was having terrible back spasms from an old injury and the stress of my new life as a mother without an extra set of hands around and young children who were reeling from the loss of their parents’ unity. I had the good fortune to see my regular doctor and be treated like a human being. No one protested me because it wasn’t a special kind of office known for providing abortions. The same clinic where I got check-ups for my daughter growing inside of me years ago handled my termination lovingly and carefully—within three minutes I was no longer pregnant. I had state insurance at the time and they covered the entirety of the $1,200 procedure.

I had two more abortions during my most recent relationship. With both of these pregnancies I took a Plan B pill as soon as possible. We both have two kids and were hoping to start a new life together. The first time we got pregnant, it was simply way too soon. We had just fallen in love, madly and passionately, a month before. I was able to go to Planned Parenthood and get a pill and take it at home without much drama. My insurance ended before I could get the post-op visit in and I am still paying off that bill in monthly chunks. The abortion pill completely turned my cycle, my moods, and my hold on my body topsy-turvy. I was starting to recover and feel like myself again when we had an intense break-up. The next day I took a test and realized I was pregnant again. The grief of the break-up while the cells of the man I left grew inside of me put me into a deep and dark depression so heavy that I worried about it fusing with my baby, enveloping her, swallowing us both whole. It was my choice alone to make and my doctor helped to see that I was right, that fear is a normal part of assessing one’s options clearly—and that I would be okay.

I had a D&C at my doctor’s office, who withheld judgement but was angry about this man’s role in my life. A dear girlfriend came with me to hold my hand. All the women in the room held space for me and my grief but only wanted to help me gain autonomy and a chance at a better life.

I wanted this last pregnancy to become my child very much. I planned to keep it at first because I was still so in love with my ex, but realized I would be on my own yet tethered to him, forty years old, with three kids and barely any resources or support around, living hand to mouth. Poor women, trans men with wombs, young people with no community support, raped girls, and—always, always—women of color living in states hostile to women will fare the worst, will be shut out and excluded. They are not allowed to do what is right for themselves. They are shamed and legislated against; their clinics are taken away, and their doctors cannot perform this three-minute, safe procedure. Their doctors are shot to death.

I went ahead and did what was right for me, my living children, and mostly, my mental health—because I could, with gratitude. Most people get that. Most people would have done the same thing. Our fight now is for the reasons to be irrelevant. It’s the cause, the root, the reasons we are pregnant and have to scramble to get care and coverage that should be examined. The men must come out and do the work not just as allies but as fertile humans taking full responsibility for what and how their own bodies produce within the abortion war. Our stories are yet to be told without a crisis to overcome, if only to have a record, to look back on this history and see it as archaic and ancient and inhumane. And, lacking straight men in the struggle to overcome

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Artwork by Sophia Shalmiyev.

Sophia Shalmiyev is the author of the memoir Mother Winter. She emigrated from Leningrad to New York City in 1990. She is an MFA graduate of Portland State University with a second master’s degree in creative arts therapy from the School of Visual Arts. She lives in Portland with her two children