Trusting that still, small voice
On speaking personally about abortion
Am I an advocate for women if I don’t talk about abortion? Outside of expressing my political stance, I realized, I had never written about this issue in any depth. So here we go.
“There is something within you that may have been quieted for a time. It doesn't have to be quieted forever.”
This month’s guest on The Babblery podcast is Merle Hoffman, who started one of the US’s first legal abortion clinics in 1971 and has been on the front lines of women’s health ever since. The interview was fascinating—and not only because Merle is a true raconteur, someone who sees life as an adventure and a continuing challenge. For me it was fascinating because of the way that Merle emphasizes the role that we all have to play in women’s health.
When I was 18 and dating my first college boyfriend, a friend marched me into the college bookstore and made me buy a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves. I needed it. Raised in a relatively traditional midwestern town, my education about women’s health occurred in the elementary school’s gym on a Tuesday evening. The girls whose parents had given permission piled into uncomfortable chairs to learn all about what you find “down there” in girls and in boys.
And that was the last time women’s health was mentioned in all of my schooling.
You might think that’s surprising, but when Merle opened the door of Choices in 1971, there was no field of women’s health. Women went to male doctors, whose training was similar to a plumber’s—they understood what part of the equipment attached to the other. But the complexity of the interconnected systems of a woman’s body had not yet reached medical school textbooks, and it certainly hadn’t reached my elementary school by the mid-70s.
So all of this to say, I had very little to draw on when it came to talking about women’s bodies. A black-and-white film, girls giggling in the dark, and a hippie book full of words that I had never heard spoken out loud. Like for so many women before me, that book changed everything.
Everybody’s talking about it
Everybody’s talking about abortion these days, but we’re not really talking about it. We’re talking about laws, for sure, and we’re talking about shocking news articles. But we aren’t talking about the central role that abortion plays in our health and the health of the women around us.
Merle pointed out that abortion is still taboo—we talk about the politics of it, but very few people talk about it in a personal way.
“People are very amazed when they ask their families or people that they know, “Hey, you know, I heard this thing about abortion. Did you ever know anyone that—” Sometimes that'll just open up a channel for people to talk because it's still something that people don't really feel comfortable about talking about.”
She’s right. I have had so many conversations with women about our bodies and our rights, yet no matter how intimate the relationship, the conversation about abortion hardly ever becomes personal. One out of four of American women has had an abortion, so if it were any other medical fact—anything from bunions to heart attacks—we’d talk about it. But on abortion, we’re silent. I assume I’m pretty typical of American women: I’ve never had a personal conversation about abortion with friends or with family.
The personal isn’t always political
As soon as I understood the abortion debate as a teen, I knew which side I stood on politically. No argument has ever swayed me from my conviction that women have the right to determine what happens to their bodies. A fetus is a potential person; a woman is a living, independent being. Until viability, it is a woman’s choice and hers alone whether to continue the pregnancy. At viability it becomes more complex, but I firmly believe that any woman who chooses abortion after that point—and any doctor that agrees to perform it—will have a very good reason. In any case it’s still her choice, as much as others might not agree with it.
I’ve never had an abortion—thank goodness I never had to make that decision. It would have been very hard for me. Merle and I agree. For us, “it’s not just blood and tissue.” For me—personally—terminating a pregnancy, however unexpected, would have been a huge decision. I know other women don’t feel the same and I’m fine with that—human beings are a spectrum in every way. But since I never faced a desperate situation, I actually have no idea what my choice would have been, just that it would have been hard.
I did, however, face the potential of having to make a decision when pregnant with both of my children. When I got pregnant with my first child, my OB’s practice was allied with a Catholic hospital. There were assurances—of course—that the mother comes first, but I’d read enough stories about women being denied life-saving abortions in that hospital system that I decided to switch doctors. I knew, no matter how desperately I loved that little being growing inside of me, that if it came down to him or me I’d want the doctor to choose me.
My second pregnancy happened after that line when you move from mother to “geriatric mother,” so it was recommended that the fetus be screened for genetic abnormalities. While my husband and I both verbally agreed on the abnormalities that would lead us to terminate, my brain wasn’t going to leave it at that. Between the day the needle took a tiny sample of amniotic fluid and the day we got the results, I wondered how I’d mourn the abortion of a fetus with devastating disabilities. I thought about all the people I’d known with disabilities who lived full lives. In the end, again, I didn’t have to make the decision, but I knew it would have been hard for me—personally.
Only she can decide
Feminists came up with the slogan “the personal is political” because what women see as a personal choice—how they maintain their body’s physical and mental health—was made political by (mostly) male politicians. If you look at the history of abortion, the fact is that the Republican Party saw a convenient wedge issue and started pounding on it. Before then, support of abortion rights wasn’t aligned with a political party; after, it became a litmus test.
I think the politicization of personal choices is probably the most disgusting thing any politician can do, no matter party or ideology. I expect any decent person in political life to feel free to state their own position—“abortion is defined as a sin in my religion,” for example—but then to state the reality: “We can’t legislate the decisions people make about their own bodies.”
For me, the political line is clear: Fertile women1 have the unique ability to gestate human life, but women have the same rights as men to choose how to maintain our physical and mental health. We would never write a law that cuts off life-saving care for males—never. We would never write a law that removes men’s access to a legal, proven-safe drug—never. We would never write a law that penalizes only men for crossing state lines to take part in a legal service in another state—never. And since “never” is the unequivocal answer to all those hypotheticals, it must be the same answer for women.
Only a man himself can determine whether to refuse life-saving care at an emergency room—no doctor gets to determine that for him. Yet pregnant women face being denied lifesaving care wherever abortion has been restricted.
Only a man himself can decide whether to take a drug he’s been prescribed after reading the warning label—no state tells him he can’t weigh the risks. Yet women are being denied a proven-safe drug wherever abortion has been restricted.
Only a man himself can decide to leave his state because he wants to take part in an activity that isn’t legal in his state—no trooper can stop his car because they don’t like where he’s going. Yet women are being denied the freedom to travel for the purpose of their physical and mental health.
When it comes to a woman’s body, only a woman can decide.
I don’t know how I would have decided personally, but that is utterly beside the point.
We are an enormous constituency
Although the majority of Americans believe abortion is a personal decision, it has been politicized and we have to deal with that. Merle Hoffman points out how large the constituency is:
“One in four women are projected to have abortions in their lifetime. That is an enormous constituency. And then there are their friends and their mothers and their partners. There is a tremendous role for men. They have wives and sisters and daughters and nieces.”
And that constituency has proven itself powerful in states where the vote was put directly to the people. Manipulative forces, however, can’t leave it at that. So sure are they that their power comes from controlling the lives of others, they’ll do anything to stop giving women the freedom to live our lives as we see fit.
I worry that the constituency that understands abortion when they see it in black and white on their ballot doesn’t apply the same scrutiny to the politicians they vote for. If all of us voted for politicians who represented our political views, this country would look very different. Look at any poll about Americans’ true values and it’s clear.
But people vote for vibes, not facts. They read about a woman dying in their state, tsk-tsk about how things should be done differently, and blithely either vote without thinking about the effect on women, or don’t vote at all. I consider the former choice democratic malpractice and the latter the deepest democratic sin.
The question has always been and remains: How do we get people to take notice of the power they have? How can we reach them? And Merle has an answer, but it’s an uncomfortable one.
I never wrote about abortion
I never felt like I had that much to say. I am just one woman who may or may not have had an abortion had she been faced with a crisis. I am just one woman who vowed as a teenager never to vote for an anti-choice politician. I am just one more woman who doesn’t know which of the women around her were faced with the choice of abortion, and how many of them decided it was the right choice.
But I’m writing now. I think Merle is right. We allowed a political party to take this most personal decision, the nurturing of life and the decision whether to become a mother, and turn it into politics.
But it’s not politics. It’s our lives. Our bodies. Our lives. Period.
“Listen to that still, small voice”
“We are in this together, but in an environment where everybody's in their own silo, you see? So how do you break out of those bubbles? The first thing is to realize that you are in one. Listen to that still, small voice. Talk about it.
“Think about the fact that you only have a certain amount of time on this being alive, right? Only a certain amount. How do you want to spend it? Youth goes quickly and sexuality changes. Just think and trust a little bit in your still, small voice within yourself.”
Talk about it.
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I appreciate and support the choice of medical practitioners to use pregnant people as their term of care, but the fact is that abortion restrictions are intended to hurt women. Unfortunately, politicians have a plethora of other ways to hurt transgender men.
I had a friend in college who'd had an abortion. I saw firsthand some of the impact on her. I also saw teens in a school for pregnant young women. And my mother once told me she'd have an abortion if she became pregnant again. (I was her youngest.) I'd probably do the same: not because it's a good option. Because I'd be looking at every child of the right age from then on and wondering if they were the child I'd given up if I gave a child up for adoption, because I don't have the energy I had (I ain't young) and I don't want to give up my future for another baby. I am fully in menopause now, but I knew these things three years ago. You make some great points, however, I do think the father of the fetus, if present, should have some say in what happens to their potential future child. I had another friend who had a baby by a man who was living a double life. He was married. She didn't tell him about the baby. When he found out, he did take some responsibility for her. It took two people to make the fetus. (This becomes more complex if there is actual physical risk to the mother. There is psychological risk either way.)
I agree 100% about having the conversation, but I also know how intimidating public scrutiny is...I write about having an abortion in my memoir and I definitely worried about being g targeted by nut jobs because of that.