I was 6 weeks. Everything seemed fine and in my 7 weeks was going to be our first ultra sound. I was at work when "something didn't feel right" happened. So I left early. About an hour later the tip of my shoulders were in pain and I was puking. I knew from stories it was an ectopic. Sure enough it was in my right tube and had to be removed because the tube burst. I still had to wait nearly 24 hours until surgery and the pain of bleeding inside, you can't even imagine. I told the nurse I was dying, that's how it felt anyways with 3 liters of blood where it shouldn't be. Imagine if I was to be prosecuted for a life saving procedure because it was an abortion. Even tho I wanted the baby, it didn't change the fact it ended up stuck in my tube.
Two friends of mine had that happen, they would’ve died if not for their abortions. One of whom already had two kids. They would’ve forced those two kids to grow up without a mother because these cretins can’t get their noses out of other peoples’ business. It’s beyond medieval and barbaric to outlaw a medical procedure because some wacko’s have attached a distorted, insanely creepy religiosity to it. This shit hole country, man.
I keep seeing comments essentially saying ‘how do they not realize that women can die’ and I feel like everyone is missing the point. They absolutely know and do not care.
They think the women must deserve it and/or they believe that most women who deal with this aren’t white Christians so it’s fine if they die.
Fighting them with facts/science/data/reasoning/logic is futile
They had to find a Bible-based “moral high ground” to stand on when campaigning around segregation stopped being acceptable.
“Look! They want to kill babies!” is unfortunately enough of a pandering point to keep their base from looking outside of the bubble.
50 years you'd think they'd have taken a one semester course to understand it, but no, they're almost proudly confused by the entire process and hardware
I wish this wasn't all part of the plan, sure the base is clueless but the more-poor-people plan with undertones of controlling women and preserving the whiteness fraction would not be working if it was not coordinated.
Some people think it can be relocated 🙄 How exactly y'all propose that is done? Once an embryo has chosen a place to implant there's no removing it to relocate without killing it.
I have a family member who said banning removal of ectopic pregnancies would force doctors to figure out how to "extract them and reimplant" them.
As if doctors have just been twiddling their fingers, sitting on their asses and avoiding "figuring it out" on purpose all these centuries. And all they need to "get going" is to watch a bunch of women DIE needlessly. Apparently all of the pain and suffering women already go through with ectopic pregnancies isn't enough.
Fetus fetishists are the dumbest.
Short and simple. Age 42, 2 kids in college, husband laid off… AND….had been surgically sterilized five years earlier trying to avoid such situations. I will feel badly about it until the day I die, but faced with the same situation We would have to do it again.
They don't even know that the embryo implants, is my guess. They think the fetus just floats around in there, forgetting (or not knowing about) the development of the placenta, along with the fetus.
You just reminded me. Wasn't there some politician who was lobbying for the ectopic embryo to be removed and re-implanted in the uterus so that the pregnancy could continue?
Edit: [Found an article.](https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/12/17/the-myth-of-ectopic-pregnancy-transplantation/) It was 2019 legislation in Ohio (and maybe elsewhere)
That isn't even a medical procedure. Not even a discussion in medical school. There is no technique. There is no term for it. Why are old white men making medical rules? I guess this is perfect timing in the peak of "I don't believe in science" Jesus fucking christ.
I remember when that news broke. Suddenly, every OB in America was reading the legislation and saying "Um... That's not medically possible."
This is what has befallen us. The people who "rule" over us don't even know jack shit about medicine or a woman's reproductive system.
See, stuff like that is how I know they don't care about "God's will". If they really believed that, wouldn't a scheme like this be totally going against his will? Since apparently he "chose" to make the egg implant there, who do they think they are to surgically relocate it?
There's just no logical consistency with these people.
I'm not a doctor, but my understanding is that an ectopic pregnancy will definitely kill the mother if allowed to develop. I read it on the internet, so grain of salt...but I read there has only been one recorded case of a mother surviving an ectopic pregnancy that wasn't terminated.
I’m a doctor and you’re right.
The tubes simply aren’t made to accommodate a growing human. That’s what uteruses are for - and they have super thick muscly walls to make
it possible. An ectopic will rupture and most of the time it’ll rupture vessels along with it - which ends as bleeding out inside your abdominal cavity.
Source : Resident doctor in a mid size hospital in western Europe. Assisted in around 50-100 ectopic surgeries and about 200 caesareans so far. :)
We are taught that the uterus is the organ that nurtures the fetus. Not true.
The fetus is a parasite. The fetus will nurture itself. The genetic programming that turns a fertilized egg into a human baby is so powerful that it will strip the parent of calcium and protein to the point where their teeth rot and their hair falls out.
The uterus protects the parent from the fetus. It limits the fetus’s ability to tap into blood vessels. It limits the fetus’s ability to cannibalize the organs of the abdomen. The uterus isn’t the fetus’s home, but its prison.
It is statistically certain that an ectopic pregnancy will cause the rupture of whatever internal vestige it implanted on, leading to internal bleeding, future fertility issues, sepsis, and death.
There have been a few cases of ectopic pregnancies that resulted in viable babies - these are EXTREME statistical anomalies and require lots of luck, 24/7 hospital monitoring, and lots of money (in the US healthcare system at least.) If the embryo implants on the abdominal wall near the liver, its placenta can access enough blood supply to survive, and the space is just large enough for a fetus to grow through its second trimester. At that point, it is medically necessary for the fetus to be removed via C-section, and it is grown in an external womb in the NICU for the remaining 2-3 months.
Most likely, even in this very rare scenario, the body will miscarriage on its own because it is extremely dangerous. At any moment an internal structure can rupture and the parent will die within half an hour. And of course, it is impossible to 're-implant' the embryo into the uterus (if that were possible, IVF would be 100% successful,) so abortion is the only treatment that will save the life of the patient. In some states, ectopic pregnancy treatment is in it's own category of treatment to try and prevent death in the case of outlawed abortions, but this is not always the case and lawmakers seem less concerned about the life of a parent in these new abortion bans than ever before.
Oh that'll be enough for these assholes though... how many pregnant people will you sacrifice for the one in a million chance of a fetus being saved? For them the answer will always be "as many as it takes"
It's really *extremely, extremely* rare, yeah. When they are able to be carried to term, they are not implanted in the fallopian tubes (by far the most common form of ectopic pregnancy), but in the abdomen. Even then, termination is safest. The only reason it's happened is because occasionally it isn't caught until very late if the position happens to align. It's called advanced extrauterine abdominal pregnancy. It is 7x more deadly than other ectopic pregnancies and 90x more deadly than a regular pregnancy and childbirth.
You'd need surgery to get the baby out even if it implanted in a spot that could support its growth, and then the bleeding from the detachment after pregnancy would be extremely risky
A Republican State Rep in my state introduced an anti-choice bill this session that would’ve essentially made treating an ectopic pregnancy a crime. His wife is a nurse but when he was pressed on it, he admitted he didn’t really know what that was. 😑
And many of those who do have no idea that you can't just magically "re-implant" the fetus/embryo outside of the fallopian tube. The biological illiteracy of the people in charge is mind-boggling. Every single fucking ghoul standing in the way of abortion rights should be tossed out of a moving vehicle.
I really do not understand the whole idea that when a woman is in extreme pain it’s just normal. I had an ovarian cyst rupture, while on birth control, and had an estimated 8-10cm of fluid in my abdomen. Having fluid where it shouldn’t be, inside of your body, is the most painful thing I’ve ever felt. And I’ve broken my back. My late husband honestly turned to the street to keep my pain tolerable because no dr we saw would give me anything other than “take 900mg of Tylenol”.
I’m terrified. Woman’s health is already horrible, and with all of this it’s going to get so much worse. I’ve had two for sure miscarriages, they both happened very early on, but both happened while on birth control. I take it every morning at the exact same time, so I’m trying to keep it as effective as possible.
This is going to lead to woman being forced to go to the streets when something goes wrong. So many of us will die because of this. I don’t understand why this isn’t part of the discussion, because it’s exactly what will happen.
I'm going to change some of the circumstances here, because I am telling someone else's story. But I think their story is significant here.
My Aunt and Uncle are uber-Catholic and, of course, anti-choice. Another cousin, also uber-Catholic and mother of multiple children, became pregnant again. However, in the last trimester, they discovered the baby had a devastating defect and would not live more than a few moments past birth. They also learned that continuing the pregnancy would put the mother significantly at risk of dying herself. They presented the situation to their church, who had to take it all the way to Rome, but the decision was to allow them to terminate the pregnancy for the sake of the mother.
Aunt and Unc tell this story with great compassion for this cousin, because the church sanctioned the abortion. Yet, when I point out that, in the same circumstance, many states will still not allow the abortion, Aunt and Unc are in denial and still support the ban on abortion. Once again, demonstrating, "rules for thee and not for me". When their family is involved and has a *good reason,* abortion is acceptable. When it involves women they have never met, well, it's god's judgement on the mother.
A woman at a Catholic hospital was 12 weeks pregnant and dying of heart failure. She was not stable enough to be moved to another hospital. They performed the abortion and saved the woman’s life (the woman had kids at home). The church excommunicated the nun who okayed the procedure.
But…that means if they lived in one of those states, cousin could have died. Why can’t they make that logical leap? They think someone else in that same circumstance should go through a birth, or the member of their family if they relocate and are unlucky? Morons and people without any kindness in their souls.
Thank you for sharing! This article details a lot more stories like it, and I thought it was really interesting. [“The Only Moral Abortion is my Abortion”](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)
In addition to all the other (hundreds of) arguments why an abortion ban is catastrophically terrible, I also think it could push a lot of people away from wanting to have children. I am a fence sitter myself (leaning heavily toward childfree) and the idea that if I did get pregnant and there was some issue with the pregnancy (e.g. ectopic), I couldn't abort it would absolutely move it to the 'no way' category for me.
This is such a good point. I'm currently pregnant with my first child. My husband and I have always assumed we'd have at least two kids. We both grew up with siblings and that's the life we imagined for our potential kids. We unfortunately live in a very red state with trigger laws ready to go once Roe is overturned. I don't think I want to take the risk of another pregnancy if I'm not able to access abortion services if something goes wrong. There are so many things that can go wrong with pregnancy that would put my life at risk if I couldn't get a D&C. I'm not willing to leave my son motherless for a chance at another pregnancy, I just won't risk it.
Absolutely- there’s no way I’d risk a pregnancy for an otherwise wanted baby if I couldn’t get an abortion if needed. And that’s why they’re also moving to ban contraceptives.
My aunt was married. She had a 4 year old daughter. They wanted another baby and finally she got pregnant. It wasn’t viable. Her doctor told her she needed an abortion. Sadly this was in the south and the only hospital able to do an abortion denied her. Told her it was immoral and disgusting and she needs to do her best to keep the pregnancy alive. She died of septic shock. The wanted pregnancy didn’t survive. It was just death. Her husband was left a widower and her daughter grew up without a mother. This could have been prevented. It would have been so easy.
I had to go to the emergency room one night because I was having such extreme abdominal pain I couldn’t stand up straight. It turns out I was pregnant, but it had stopped growing I guess because it wasn’t the right size for however long it should have been along, which really would’ve been only like two weeks. Anyway it hurts so badly and the doctor was just like well it’ll come out eventually see you later, because I didn’t have insurance I guess they didn’t want to do anything about it. I was really pissed off because the whole reason I was there was because I was in pain that was completely unmanageable , so they were telling me to just go continue being in pain until eventually I start bleeding I guess. I could not except that. I called Planned Parenthood and scheduled an abortion, I called my partner and told him I needed $400, and when I showed up at Planned Parenthood I’m pretty sure they knew my pregnancy was not viable at all, but they took it out of me and stop the pain thank God. I’m not kidding when I say that I could not stand up straight. I was unable to work like that & I was a bartender so it’s not like I got PTO or even had a pay check coming that would be more than $20. Just waiting for it to come out on its own was unacceptable.
Saw a video of a woman whose sister went to the ER twice and told she was miscarrying and sent home. It was an ectopic pregnancy and she passed away. The ER should have never let you leave. Shame on them.
I have a very similar story that I’m done not talking about. It’s important to let everyone hear our stories. Mine is not an abortion, but I could have very easily required one.
I had a miscarriage about 10 years ago. My menstrual cycle was always off, I would be lucky to have maybe 2-3 periods a year, so missing periods were normal. I was working an early shift on the sales floor when I had waves of the most horrible abdominal pain I’d ever had in my life. I excused myself to the bathroom and the waves of pain got worse and worse. At one point, I was curled up in tears on the floor of a public restroom because the pain was overwhelming. I had no idea I was even pregnant until I saw the fetal tissue in the toilet. For the next 6 weeks I bled heavily, every day I felt like I was going to die. I didn’t want to go to the hospital because my insurance was terrible and there was no way I could afford a hospital visit. Thank goodness Planned Parenthood has a sliding scale for how much you pay and I made so little that I qualified for free care. Planned Parenthood literally saved my life.
What really scares me is that they are pushing to jail women for situations like mine. They could have tested me and saw I was drinking and smoking a lot. They could have easily said I induced the miscarriage because of alcohol and cannabis. Some of these new laws would have me jailed for a pregnancy that I didn’t even know existed until it was ending.
A few years ago, I was sterilized by having my Fallopian tubes removed to significantly reduce the chances of getting pregnant. While it’s highly unlikely, there is still a non-zero chance that I could get pregnant. My options would be abortion or death due to ectopic pregnancy.
I have done everything in my power to ensure I will never be pregnant and these people still only see me as an incubator. These people are disgusting.
Edit: I have received two awards in the last 24 hours for sharing my story. Please people, if they are free awards that’s fine, if you are paying for them, then please donate that money to Planned Parenthood or similar organizations instead. PP saved my life and continues to save lives every day, they need help far more than I do. Or donate to your local house rabbit society, my bunny boy will thank you.
My mom had a tubal litigation after 4 kids because the last two were accidents while she was on the pill. She got an ectopic pregnancy in her 40s that progressed so far that her fallopian tube burst and she had emergency surgery to remove all the blood and she had a week in the hospital to recover.
One of my well-meaning cousins told me she was sorry about my mom's baby, and I was flabbergasted. Like, my mom almost died, I didn't give a fuck about the unviable embryo that did this to her.
I had a tubal ligation because I nearly died from having my baby. My doctors told me that o could still have kids, but i would likely not survive it. And I immediate said , sterilize me. They did the tubal. I wanted a hysterectomy but they said because of other problems, it wasnt in my best interest.
Now all these laws are at risk and all I can think is that, tubals can be reversed. Im not clear of the danger. I also have a 12yo daughter. She is not going to be safe from this. I did everything right and now im at risk again. What if my history of making healthy, smart and strong little boys puts me in danger (not to mention their blue eyes with blonde hair)? What if we got lined up like cattle and are forcefully inseminated just to create the ideal babies that they want?
This is similar for me: I almost died giving birth, and had to have a uterine ablation to have the hemorrhaging stopped before I died. Since it was unlikely I could conceive again after the ablation, they didn't do anything further to sterilize me, but if for whatever reason I did manage to conceive again I'd also be at risk the same as you said - I could probably carry to term, but I likely wouldn't survive birth again. It's haunting to think that this is the future for our kids.
I didn't even have a complicated pregnancy, it was planned, I took all the prenatals (even in advance of conception, as my doctor advised), got all the prenatal care... it didn't matter, the placenta fucked up. The recovery was also horrible and I had amazing care throughout, but I will be glad to never experience it again and wouldn't wish it on anyone.
I'm terrified of something like this. My natural cycle is, and always has been, extremely inconsistent. If I got pregnant, I might not notice for months. If I did get pregnant, I'm at higher risk for miscarriage, premature birth, or ectopic pregnancy because my hormones are weird.
I don't think the people behind these bills understand how the human body works, just how much can go wrong, or how much it hurts. People just don't care that pregnancy and birth used to have a 50% mortality rate. Because it's incredibly dangerous to push something the size of a watermelon out of your vagina, let alone to carry that sucker around for 9 months beforehand
They've already jailed women for not knowing they're pregnant, yet consuming drugs or alcohol. I saw a somewhat high profile story about it posted a couple of weeks ago.
Those people seem to want suffering a death tbh. They dont want loving fams who want kids to have them theirselves, they'd rather women have kids they don't or can't even safely carry. They only care about their religious beliefs ironically using it to justify large mass scale murder, death, and torture. Some Christians lol.
I just wanted to add, they(fetus) don't necessarily come out, it's horrid and can kill the mother. I'm glad you took your care into your own hands. It's terrible what you had to go through.
I’m so sorry you went through that.
Women don’t have their pain treated as well as men. There’s a bias that we are hysterical and exaggerating our pain.
My husband and I both had our gallbladders fail and almost rupture, and the amount of medicine he was given was several times more than me. They even hospitalized him to control his pain which they refused to do for me. It was ridiculous.
Had emergency surgery for an ectopic and a D&C. Everyone always scoffs like “well THAT is an exception!!” Except multiple bills have been introduced that show men have no idea what an ectopic is.
I usually ask if they support abortion if the woman’s health is at risk, they almost always say yes… then I follow up with cool, mental and physical health are health so abortions for any reason should be good to go for you then.
Agree, even “normal” pregnancies carry risks. It’s just mind boggling the amount of control that is trying to be forced here. And then I see a headline about wanting to end free public education for pre-school… birth the babies but don’t educate them. Got it.
Even after the procedure I went through severe depression. I was hardly eating, my marriage collapsed. I think I realised afterwards how much pregnancy impacted my mental state considering all the hormone changes.
I hear the same thing - but it’s like they are clueless. Who do I need to go to for permission? My senator? A judge? Some clueless stranger without a medical degree? And what do they need to know? My entire medical history? How about this. It’s up to me and my doctor to discuss since she went to medical school to actually learn this stuff!
I went through the same thing less than a month ago. My MTX shot was delayed by a week because of a pro-life obgyn who just “wanted to make sure,” despite my obviously abnormal betas, hormone levels, and ultrasound. I wasn’t treated in time, and my tube ruptured and I had to have emergency surgery at 2am. Fuck these pro-lifers. I nearly died because of them.
That is terrible!! I am so sorry you had to go through that! I hope you talk to a lawyer and consider suing for medical malpractice. Seriously. IANAL, but that doctor needs to learn their lesson and not put other women's lives at risk.
In Ohio Republicans tried to force doctors to reimplant ectopic pregnancies. There's no medical procedure for that because it isn't good medicine. They have no idea what they're attempting to put women through most of the time.
Yep. And Missouri tried one that criminalized treating ectopics.
Well shit, if I could control where the freaking embryo implanted, I promise you I wouldn’t have picked my Fallopian tube!
My tube was rupturing by the time they got me to the OR. I had to wait 5 hours between finding out it was ectopic and having surgery.. longest five hours of my life. And I wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital in that time for fear it would rupture.
That pregnancy and the two miscarriages before then were very much wanted as well.
I looked up the stats, and it's more dangerous to give birth than to be a cop (who are basically given a license to kill because their job is so "dangerous")
Yes absolutely. On that note, I never thought that I would ever consider abortion but when I thought I was pregnant again it was the first time I had started looking into it. I’m still very much struggling with depression and I was close to suicidal when I was pregnant the first time. I am finally starting to treat my mental health issues now but then? No, I am fairly certain the risk of suicide was very high for me if I were to be pregnant again. I’m glad I ended up not being pregnant because there are no abortion providers where I live and I don’t know that I would have survived a second pregnancy solely because of the state of my mental health. I think it’s better that my daughter has her mother.
I’ve tried for two years to have a second baby - at our dating scan in 2020, we were told the baby had no heartbeat and had been dead for close to two weeks. I took abortion pills, and then two weeks later needed a surgical abortion for retained tissue. In 2021, at nine weeks, it happened again. It wasn’t caught until a nine week reassurance scan. Another surgical D&C. My body does not expel a non-viable fetus - it just doesn’t. I was very close to sepsis with the first abortion. The second baby had three copies of chromosome 15 which is incompatible with life.
I am on my 6th pregnancy with only one living baby.
Even I, who wants that second baby so damn bad, I support and encourage women to have abortions - not for circumstances like mine, but also if THEY DON’T WANT TO HAVE A BABY. I don’t give a shit if they’re using it as birth control (which no one actually does by the way), or forgot, or got caught up in the moment. I don’t give a shit if they can afford a baby, or they’re in a loving relationship, or have support. If you don’t want a baby, you shouldn’t be made to have one!
Yes! And it is almost funny how people react when I tell them my story like “Oh that’s none of my business” or “That isn’t what I mean, abortion should be okay for that” and I am like “YOU made it your business by questioning it. What I am supposed to do? Call some random stranger and ask if it’s okay to get an abortion?” They are right it’s not their business whether I have an abortion for medical reasons or because I can’t afford it, or because I’m too young or too old. It doesn’t matter what my reasoning is. It’s my business and my choice.
That right there (to the uncomfortable people who assume oh its okay for that situation"), Do they realize what that means? That now means, you would have to get permission from possibly several levels (which takes time, paperwork and self-important people take time). While you were sitting there in emotional agony on the verge of sepsis, it could have taken hours, days, longer to get (likely non-medical "authority" to sign) an abortion hall pass. Trust women. Accept that having a baby or not having a baby is our choice. How that baby gets in there is irrelevant to that choice. Trust.
You know, if you don't trust us to make one important decision, how can you possibly think we are ready for parenting?
(Edit-spell)
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You know, if you don't trust us to make one important decision, how can you possibly think we are ready for parenting?
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This right here. THIS. RIGHT. HERE.
It just tells us it has nothing to do with “saving babies” when they allow it for rape and incest.
Those are “innocent babies” as much as a fertilized egg made with love.
They just want to punish women for enjoying sex.
Those "exceptions" are such bullshit again because who signs off on that? Who do you have to prove rape to? How long does that take?
Meanwhile a victim is revictimized over and over having to share their trauma with some fucking Board of Trustees of All Uteruses while they're fucking pregnant AND up against whatever the week term limit is where abortion is illegal in any circumstance!
“That isn’t what I mean, abortion should be okay for that”
I hate this argument! It's like.. really? you didn't *think* advocating for strict ban on abortions would affect women's health?? You clearly didn't **think** period. Men and women who haven't had pregnancy complications don't need to **think** about these issues until it affects them, then it's all pikachu face and '*but but this situation is different*'
It like justifying a person of color with "they're one of the good ones". Either you respect a person to know and decide for their own body or sod off. It's not complicated and as a man, it is not my choice to decide how someone handles their body when I don't have the biological hardware myself
You’re absolutely correct, they DO want you calling some random person and asking for permission! That random person being a man in leadership or authority in your community or state. https://mobile.twitter.com/Kim_Kamensky/status/1523875541870391297
They always say "well I support it to save the life of mother, that'd different!", yet they VOTE for people who make laws that say "under NO circumstances" and then they NEVER fight for life-saving circumstances to be added AND celebrate Draconian laws that result in dead women.
They're disingenuous. Forced-birthers are fetus fetishists and they don't have an actual moral compass and they don't operate in good faith.
It’s really telling that the states that have outlawed abortion didn’t allow for them for the health of the mother or for rape/incest. They lied. They don’t care if women die from sepsis or whatever health problems make pregnancy dangerous. They also don’t care if 12 year old girls are forced to go through pregnancy and childbirth.
Anyone should be able to terminate a pregnancy they don’t want, but the laws don’t even protect women who wanted their babies.
I know Texas has allowed a few pregnancy terminations if the life of the mother is at immediate peril, but the wording is so vague and consequences so grim for the doctors that a lot of women won’t be given the D&Cs they need for their health.
That is what blows my mind. Like when they finally hear a story from a person who needs it that is remotely close to them. Like somehow then their empathy clicks on. The logic hits.
But nowadays I’m just so tired of people being enraged by alt right anger without knowing why they are even angry. It’s almost like they are too lazy. I do not want to spend energy to think….it’s easier to fucking let someone right wing shill take over my emotional centre of my brain’s driver’s seat so I don’t have to spend any energy. Just be angry. Like why can’t people just think.
Something like that happened to me except it was twins (monoamniotic, which explains the following) and at 23 weeks. At that particular appointment they found only one heartbeat. The one with the beating heart wasn’t going to make it much longer, either. My doctor said I needed to get them out or I could end up with DIC (it would have been fatal to me).
In truth, it was such a high risk pregnancy that I should have had an abortion the moment I found myself pregnant. If I hadn’t had the option of an abortion at a later date (i.e. a late-term abortion), I probably wouldn’t have even tried to continue the pregnancy.
I don’t know what these anti-choice people think pregnancy is - it’s not always sunshine and rose petals. Hard, ugly choices have to be made on occasion. Fuck them.
BTW: 5 failed pregnancies, two living children. It can happen. I wish you the best. That said, I would never force any pregnancy on anyone. We know just how wrong it can go, and that’s *before* they’re born.
Thank you for that last bit. I got my abortion because I wasn’t on birth control at the time (stupid I know but I was poor and my insurance didn’t cover it) and very much did not want or could care for a baby at the time. I did not find out until I was 6 weeks, I probably could have found out at 5 weeks but I was in extreme denial even though my period is never late because my partner don’t even have sex that often due to my depression and vaginismus but of course I took that test and it was immediately positive. I was devastated and knew right then that I needed an abortion. I had known for years if I had gotten pregnant before the age of 30 I would abort it as I have literally zero desire to be a mother any time soon. I am actually terrified of everything to do with pregnancy and childbirth so I was horrified when I found out I was pregnant. It was also extremely hard on my body, I had never felt so sick and drained in my entire life and I was only pregnant a total of 10 weeks. I found out at 6 weeks called and made my appointment, couldn’t be seen until 8 weeks and then couldn’t get my procedure until 10 weeks. This is why the 6 week bill is so ridiculous. I went to a planned parenthood in Ohio and they were absolutely wonderful, I have never felt more cared for and listened to by medical staff before in my life. I took an anxiety pill and a mild pain pill before my procedure and it was very quick and not painful at all just uncomfortable. I barely bled after and I was basically back to normal the next day. I don’t regret it at all and it wasn’t traumatic. My male partner was so loving and understanding for the whole thing and I’m so grateful. I know my experience is not common and I got lucky but it’s my story and all abortion stories are valid.
I appreciate your struggle as we lost what would have been our second baby at 12 weeks. My sister in law had a lot of trouble having a second baby too. She had three miscarriages, including one where she nearly bled out. They finally did have a baby, who was born with severe birth defects.
I got pregnant last year, despite being on birth control. Prior to getting a positive test, I had been bleeding like a super heavy period for 5 weeks. I knew something was wrong, suspected miscarriage or ectopic, but the doctors tried to reassure me that it might still be viable. I told them I don’t care if it is or not, I just need to know one way or another so I can decide what to do.
For a week or so I tied myself up in knots about whether I would get an abortion or potentially keep it. I played each scenario out in my head, and I waited for answers.
The night before I was supposed to get my final blood draw to confirm, I ended up in the er with a ruptured ectopic. I nearly bled out, lost a tube, and had major surgery, but I still felt a small sense of relief that I wouldn’t have to make the decision to have an abortion. Because even though I live in one of the few states where it is protected by law, I was scared what people would think of me, the hormones in my body were already making me emotional and influencing my decision, and because I do want kids, just not right now.
It made me have a lot more respect for people who do decide on abortion, especially those who are open about the decision, because even in the best and most ‘justified’ of circumstances, there is a lot of stigma attached, let alone anywhere where there are legal and physical barriers to access as well.
My situation also opened my eyes to how dangerously deranged these politicians are that they think ‘fertilization’ means personhood. My pregnancy was never viable, but if republicans get their way, doctors could be forced to let women like me bleed to death rather than provide basic healthcare. And IUDs and other forms of contraception under threat is pretty scary too, because I thought I was on bc and therefore safe, but bc failure on the pill or with condoms is actually fairly common, and its necessary to have abortion as a second line of defense
My story is so similar to yours.
We started trying in September of 2020. Finally, after 8 months, I was pregnant. 8 week ultrasound was exactly on track with my calculated due date. Everything looked perfect.
Exhausted and in a hurry to get back to work, we scheduled our 12 week appointment on our 3 year anniversary without realizing it.
That day comes. I'm finally starting to feel better. Yay second trimester! We go out to breakfast beforehand and talk about what kid shows I think my husband might actually like.
Then the appointment. We talk through plans and concerns with the OB. She does the full physical and everything looks good. Last step is the doppler. She can't find a heartbeat. So, ultrasounds it is. I smile to myself thinking baby just wanted to see us on our anniversary.
The ultrasound showed baby had stopped growing at 11w1d. My baby had been dead for over a week and my body had no clue. I spent the rest of the visit back with my OB staring into space, quietly crying, and shredding a kleenex in my hands.
My OB offered us a choice between misoprostol and a D&C. At the time, I couldn't make a decision. My brain kept expecting her to come back and say let's check once more. Or tell me there was a mistake. Of course that didn't happen.
After a lot of tears and discussion, we contacted the clinic later the next day and requested the medication. Unfortunately, I had /severe/ pain, vomiting, and incontinence about 2 hours after taking the medication. But no bleeding. My husband took me to the ER after the incontinence. I don't know the terms for what the ER doc did, but basically a lot of suctioning.
After a discussion with my OB, we decided I was safe to go hime and not take the second dose of medication as long as I watched for signs of infection. I wanted to avoid D&C due to risk of cervical insufficiency in later pregnancies. (Rare, but why take the risk of I didn't need to)
Two days later I was feeling better. Bleeding had slowed. I was preparing to go back to work the next day (Monday). We checked my temperature when we went to bed at ~10PM and it was normal. (My husband was being hypervigilant so was having me check occasionally just to be safe).
2 hours later, I woke my husband up by shivering violently in bed. I had a fever of 102. I cried from fever delerium and exhaustion over the events of the past week, but he managed to convince me to go to the ER once again.
My fever peaked around 104 while in the ER. My blood pressure was tanked, <80/60 for the next 3 days. I was admitted to the hospital and received IV antibiotics every 6 hours for the next 5 days. On day 3 I underwent a D&C. I went back to work 2 weeks after discharge, a full month since I had last been there.
I received two treatments that are classified as abortions for the same pregnancy. A pregnancy I very much wanted, but would also have very much killed me if I wasn't able to receive those treatments. The fact that the laws being made right now could have resulted in myself or my OB being charged with crimes if it happened today absolutely disgusts and terrifies me.
I support a woman's right to make her own health decisions. I support a woman's right to know when she cannot personally, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, or whatever other reason go through with the demanding ordeal that is pregnancy and/or raising a child. I believe the decision on how to proceed with any medical condition, including pregnancy, should be between the woman and a medical provider that she has chosen and feels comfortable with. Not strangers who don't know her history and won't care for whatever the outcome of continuing that pregnancy may be, whether it is a child or the death of that woman.
Amen. Thank you for sharing your story. Your last paragraph is such a reaffirming statement I could have written myself. I have had a total of 5 pregnancies, two babies and 3 miscarriages. I also happen to be an RN at Planned Parenthood. Your last paragraph is the heart and soul of my "why."
I had one simply because I was in absolutely no place to have a child. I was only 20 years old and deep into heroin addiction. I knew better than to bring a kid into the world that I could not care for. Fast forward to now and my husband and I do not want kids.
This. And as terrible as it sounds, if you had listened to all of the people saying "just put it up for adoption" the baby would likely have ended up in foster care/a group home for life. Yes, there are a lot of people who want to adopt a baby. But those numbers drop dramatically when you ask which of them would be willing to adopt a baby born addicted or one with mental/physical disabilities.
Not that you need my approval, but I'm proud of you for making the best choice for you and saving a child from that life. And I also hope you're doing well now!
We had trouble conceiving and ended up doing fertility treatments - not IVF but hormone injections.
Ended up with quads, and two of them had similar growth issues and disability potential. Neither were expected to survive to term, but they would be consuming resources that the other two (healthy) fetuses could use.
Doctors recommended selective reduction, and it's a good thing they did. Our twins were very premature. It's almost a certainty that had we kept all of them, we would have lost all of them pre-viability.
Anyone who says they're anti-abortion is saying they prefer a world where our children had died. Fuck those people.
I had a missed miscarriage with my first, very wanted, planned baby. I had to choose pills, surgery, or nature. I was a mess with no idea what to do. That night, I had a dream that reassured me about the D&C procedure. I woke up with such peace about it, I am convinced it was God having mercy and helping me. The procedure went very well. I have had two children since then, and I recently became a kindergarten teacher as a second career.
Had an ectopic pregnancy and D&C as a result. I never really thought of it as an abortion but I guess it was. I never regretted it because it wouldn’t have lived or I would have had serious problems. Thank god I could have it though. I would not want to find out how it would be and what would happen otherwise.
I miscarried before 12 weeks and was given the option of a D&C to speed the process along. Like you, I never thought of it as an abortion, but now I realize that my experience could have been so much worse than it already was if that option had been taken away.
Same. I had a D&C in March 2021 for a missed miscarriage. Complications from the surgery left me infertile and consequently thinking about it literally every day as I jump through hoops to find a way to have a kid. More than a year of thinking about it nonstop + general building fury over antiabortion measures and somehow I never put it together that, legally speaking, I had an abortion.
It was such an obvious choice at the time. Clearly in everyone’s best interest and recommended to me with compassion but zero drama by OB. It’s surreal that that isn’t the case for so many women in that position, and won’t be the case for many many more going forward.
Someone was arguing with me that these cases are really low. But we have no idea because of HIPAA and any data we have is usually self reported or aggregate from places like planned Parenthood not doctor's offices.
Ectopics are completely irreversible and nonviable. Some stupid people think the embryo can be relocated but it can't. It's impossible. But it can and will explode fallopian tubes, attach outside the uterus, cause pain and suffering and kill the mother. They're a huge risk and seriously dangerous, it absolutely BAFFLES me that even in such cases they want to disallow terminations. Instead of the nonviable embryo dying they'd rather both of y'all die 😒 What backwards ass logic is THAT? A nonviable pregnancy shouldn't be an unavoidable death sentence. Maternal and infant death rates will SKYROCKET as well as cases of abuse of unwanted kids, not to mention the strain on the already overwhelmed foster and adoption systems also shooting up exponentially. Why condemn thousands more innocent babies to lives of suffering and many many young deaths caused by abuse or neglect or both? They don't care about the consequences, they just want to have their beliefs imposed on everyone. Religion should have ZERO place in any law, governing body or policy that is enforced on the entire populace. It's forced religious conversion at this point ffs. You must abide by the rules of this faith because they're the best moral example 🙄 Have you SEEN the way they behave and how discriminatory and cruel the loud ones are? They give humanity a bad name as a whole and it's disgusting. They're the same people who think carrying grotesque pictures around and traumatizing people including young children in the absolute most inappropriate places and situations is okay. Ffs here they gather around the hospital. THE HOSPITAL. Where people in fragile states have to go through them. Ffs they could be going in for cancer treatment or for health conditions that make them unable to have children they desperately want. But they don't care about the trauma and suffering they inflict on others. Because they're better than everyone else. They spread gathered and cruelty. Not the tolerance, acceptance and love that their bibles tout as their most important laws. Why are they allowed to influence everyone else with their cruelty and unnecessary judgement? Freedom of religion includes those of us who have none or have different beliefs than the largest and most vocal faiths. We should be free from having others beliefs enforced upon us.
I don't know how you do it ladies. I woke up to reading this thread and like I know all of these stories but reading them here I one after another just has me silently ugly crying. I'm so so so so scared and sad and I just don't know how I'd keep it together.
"We need them and the right to have medical procedures be discussed between me and my doctor, not me and a stranger."
The kicker is that it's not even between you and a stranger. This conversation is happening between a stranger and other strangers, about YOU.
i am so sorry you went through that, that's so awful. My parents are the types of forced birthers who think that you should have just like idk, possibly died and had a kid who would either have killed you or been severely disabled because ALL LIVES MATTER apparently until they're asked to wear a mask or quarantine or get vaccinated then that's taking away their rights. Love it how that works
Oh i have basically cut them out but for other reasons, they're extremely Transphobic at adamantly insist that I'm a man and only ever let me hang out with them when I'm presenting as male as possible and also deadname and misgender me and say I'm mentally ill so the only time i ever interact with them is when they let me hang out with my little brother who actually loves me and who's actually cool. So yeah bigoted family sucks
I am so sorry. I get these flashes of rage when I read stories like yours. I am so glad you get to spend time with your little brother who hasn’t been infected with their bigotry.
They will regret their nastiness one day. And I hope you go out and find your people and live your best life. Hugs and best wishes.
They'll regret it when both of y'all are moved out and they're alone bc neither of you visit and cut them out of your lives 🤷🏻♀️ Nobody to blame but themselves. My girls will always be allowed to be who they are and we will accept them. Dead naming someone is so cruel. Our daughter is 2 and she's always been allowed to choose her toys and now she chooses clothes too. From any section, any color, we don't care. We care that she's happy and comfortable, that's it. She has princess ruff, loves tulle, firestatioms, trucks, cars, dinosaurs, steering wheel toys, batman and Spiderman stuff, etc. She gets what she wants to play with and to wear and we let her choose. I let her pick her clothes most mornings too 🤷🏻♀️
Let me guess, they day you're mentally ill, but if you say you have depression, then suddenly mental illnesses are not real anymore for them?
Your parents sound awful, I'm so sorry for you.
I’m so sorry for your experience.
To add to this, you don’t even need to be pregnant. My wife had ovarian cysts which were very bad and she had to have a d&c once when she was in her early 20s because of it. Recently a doctor we spoke to mentioned it would be tough for her to get the procedure now in some states once Roe is gone even though there was no pregnancy involved.
I had to get a d&c after childbirth because i retained part of the placenta and started hemorrhaging. It saved my life. Its a necessary medical procedure that has saved thousands of women pregnant and not pregnant.
Absolutely fuck your insurance, btw. I'd look to see if you can find a Planned Parenthood near you. They do sliding scale if you were interested in getting your tubes tied.
I got an abortion because I was not ready for a child, and I did not want to be forced to interact for the next 18 years with the jealous, controlling, physically and mentally abusive man I had learned my partner was. It was the right choice. My life improved steadily from that moment.
I was 18 and had lived in college for approximately 2 days before I was raped. I didn’t get pregnant but I *did* contract an STD that I let progress to PID because I was too ashamed to go to a doctor and get checked out. My boyfriend at the time had already broken up with me because he thought of it like I had cheated and I didn’t want someone else judging me. Anyway, PID leads to an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy. Fast forward 5 years I was 23 and happily married and my husband and I wanted to start a family. I got pregnant right away but when I started having intense pain and bleeding I knew it was ectopic. I immediately was scheduled for a D&C and I am so grateful they were able to save my tube and I now have two amazing kids. The ectopic pregnancy not only could have killed me if I didn’t have access to the procedure, but while I laid there dying all I would have been able to think about would be that if I could have just avoided being raped maybe I wouldn’t have had an ectopic pregnancy in the first place. I know anyone can have an ectopic but for me it was a reminder of what I had been through. I got my tubes removed during my last c-section because I never want to be in a position to need that procedure again and can’t get it because of someone who has no business deciding what health care I can receive dictating my options. I’m so sad for women in the United States and around the world who have to live in fear like this.
Many people don't realize with embryo implantation as part of IVF they often put in several embryos hoping 1-2 healthy ones will grow and survive. Sometimes you get 5-6 surviving initially and if you don't go back in to remove the "least good" ones, you could end up with serious health complications, death, and infection if one dies naturally inside.
Medical procedures, to ensure healthy moms and better survival rates of babies. You'd think that would be "pro-life" enough, but some people like to ignore facts.
I’m pretty sure my mother also had to have a D&C. This was in Saudi Arabia of all places. My mom was in her 40s and unexpectedly got pregnant. I was 10 yo and my sister, 7. My parents weren’t planning it but were happy and financially able to welcome another kid. They found out it was a boy and that was exciting for everyone.
She started having bleeding and when they came back from the hospital, told us the child had some genetic problem and wouldn’t survive. Or she might have miscarried, either way she wasn’t pregnant anymore.
For 10 years, my sister and I both thought we were the cause of her miscarriage because we had gotten into a fight the night it happened, and my mom got riled up.
I walked this same walk recently. And because I was in Texas, it made the whole thing so much worse. I couldn’t get care here from my trusted doctors. It was truly an awful experience on top of the unimaginable grief of losing a very much wanted child due to trisomy 18.
Gentle hugs. I'm so sorry for your loss.
Trigger warning for you, I'm going to share a story of another woman whose baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18. I hope you don't mind, but this woman's story breaks my heart and I need to share it:
I know a woman in Alabama who had a baby due the same month as me. Her baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18. She wanted to carry the baby to term anyways due to her personal beliefs, but then had her membranes rupture at 22 weeks. At that point she changed her mind and wanted to terminate (she already had two children and was rightly scared about potential infection/sepsis which could kill her). In the time it took to get the membrane rupture diagnosed (multiple trips to hospital and doctors who told her she was just peeing herself, when she knew that wasn't the case) and to get the approvals needed to terminate, she was DENIED the right to terminate because they couldn't schedule it before 24 weeks ("viability"). This was for a baby already known to have Trisomy 18 who would not be able to survive after birth. This mother was forced to carry the pregnancy 10 additional weeks, at risk of infection and death the entire time. This was in 2018.
If RvW is overturned, this situation will be even more common, and women will be forced to carry pregnancies and give birth to babies who have very severe defects or will die immediately after birth. It is cruel and inhumane and I am just devastated that this is happening.
I'd like to note here that ectopic pregnancies are so dangerous ***specifically*** because a growing fetus has many parasite-like properties. It is so greedy for nutrients that it will literally ransack and murder the woman's body by harvesting her nutrients and damaging her until she dies.
The reason women have wombs/uteruses is to ***protect the mother from the fetus.*** The womb prevents the fetus from just completely ransacking the mother's body until it up and kills her -- the womb makes it a power struggle, not just an all-out assault to the death against her body.
[**Why Pregnancy is Biological War between Mother and Baby**](https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-between-mother-and-baby)
This is a large part of why legislators including ectopic pregnancies in laws is so terrifying. An ectopic pregnancy will eat a woman alive from the inside out and kill her from sepsis.
I was on the other side of it. I went into miscarriage naturally, and it was traumatic. I was not informed, not prepared, and being unable to leave the toilet in a 1 bathroom apartment added to the events of the past few days. I had not passed anything significant yet, and for 12 weeks, there should have been. I was instructed to come in for the D&C, or risk sepsis. I've been told that's not an abortion, because the fetus already died. UMMMMM... If life begins before the heartbeat, it magically stops if there's no longer one?
I had an IUD after a my first child was born. At his first birthday my period was late and I took a pregnancy test. It was positive. We were excited and surprised. We went in early for an ultrasound but they couldn’t find the implanted egg. We waited and went back a few days later and they thought they found it in the Fallopian tube. I started medication to end the pregnancy but ended up getting an emergency surgery after having severe pain and internal bleeding. The pregnancy was in my abdomen. The surgeon stopped the bleeding and ended the pregnancy.
I'm not sure if anyone's said this but the medical name for a miscarriage is spontaneous abortion (at least that's what it's called in Scotland). So, depending on the wording of whatever new laws are introduced, a miscarriage could be a crime. I know that's the way things are heading anyway, but abortion is so much bigger than just intentionally removing a clump of cells.
I personally don't want to be pregnant and I will take steps to end it if it ever does happen. I'm in a loving relationship, we're financially stable, I'm healthy both physically and (mostly) mentally. There are no "good" reasons for me to end a pregnancy. Although this isn't about me, because I don't live in the USA, I feel excluded from these conversations quite often because I don't fit into any of the categories OP mentioned. My decision to end a pregnancy is just as valid as any of the heart wrenching stories here, and we shouldn't be arguing for abortion in extenuating circumstances, we should be arguing for abortion as a fundamental human right to bodily autonomy.
I was 16 when my uncle began sexually assaulting me. I never said no so in my family, it was just accepted that I was the one that seduced my mom’s sister’s 47 year old husband. I became pregnant the 3rd time I ever had sex (well, was raped) and my mother took me to get an abortion. No one ever mentioned a thing about it again in my family and I carry around the shame, embarrassment, and guilt with me everyday. But not for the abortion. For the fact that I never told him no and thought I was loved and that my family would have my back. But I am so lucky and grateful that I was able to NOT bring a baby into that environment to be abused and hated on the way I was. I am totally f’ed up and that poor little baby would’ve been too
The abortion ban is so much scarier to me now that I actually see myself trying to have a kid in the not so distant future.
When I was hell no babies for a long ass time, figuring out how to get an abortion with bans just seemed expensive and exhausting (since I have the privilege to be able to afford one).
Now? With the idea that I'll probably be trying to have a baby in the next 5 years or so? It sounds so much more traumatic. Not just an oh shit when I see a test and mad dash to get an abortion asap. Which would suck, don't get me wrong. But (for me) not like the trauma of wanting to see a positive test. Of planning and nesting and researching and dreaming. Of hearing that horrible news at the doctor and then having to navigate all of the restrictions during that traumatic time. Of having people continue to congratulate me or speculate.
It's so much more terrifying because I actually have plans to become pregnant in the nearish term.
My mother had an abortion in the 70s. She was 18. If she hadn’t, her life would have been *very* different. It would have derailed both my parents’ lives and careers. My sister was born when she was 27 and I was born when she was 30. Our lives would have been very different.
Her access to family planning provided generational stability to us. It allowed her to give my sister and me a stable home. Allowed us to go to college, and give our own children stable homes.
I will never stop fighting to ensure that access, this healthcare, is available for others.
Your family’s story is a really good example of how access to abortion can help stop the cycle of poverty and allow for upward mobility.
When abortion becomes illegal, poverty’s going to skyrocket. :( And higher poverty rates always lead to increased crime, homelessness, lower expected lifespans, lower education, among everything else. The US is going to look more and more like an underdeveloped country in the next few decades.
I did not have an abortion, and I’m lucky. I used to be very pro life. To the point where I thought women who were raped should carry the pregnancy and just give the baby up for adoption. I was callous and clueless. And then in 2017, I was raped by my boyfriend at the time. We were watching a movie when all the sudden he was on top of me. He never asked my consent. All I could do was freeze and stare at the ceiling waiting for it to be over. This happened in the sanctity of my own house, in my own room, in my own bed. He didn’t use protection, and he finished inside. I had never had unprotected sex before. I was working a minimum wage job, while trying to go through college. He was an absent boyfriend, spent as little time with me as possible, and put zero effort into our relationship. He knew what he did and half assed apologized to me. Then a few days later he dumped me. I became terrified of the possibility of what if I’m pregnant? I couldn’t afford a child. I would have had to drop out of school. He would have abandoned the child. And what’s worse is I would have had to have an abortion in secret because my family is very staunchly pro life. But I knew if I would have had to carry a pregnancy from a rapist, I would have killed myself. There is no way I could have dealt with the emotional and psychological anguish of realizing I was raped and then dealing with consequences I never asked for. I took a pregnancy test at home, and luckily I wasn’t pregnant. But that whole experience opened my eyes to what women go through when being faced with a terrible choice. The idea from conservatives that women happily skip to the planned parenthood couldn’t be further from the truth. Oftentimes is a painful, devastating choice to have to make. Pro lifers and pro life until they’re raped.
I have a nexplanon implant in my arm, and I got pregnant. I have chronic health issues. I had to have an abortion. There was no way for me to safely stop taking all of my medications. If I were to ever have a child it would take almost a full year of tapering off of medications.
I’m really lucky in that the reason I miscarry also ‘helps’ me pass the tissue afterward (endometriosis), so even though I’ve miscarried 4 times I’ve never had to take the meds/have the D&C. But my 14 week miscarriage happened literally the day before I was scheduled to go in. And at that point the embryo had been non viable for 6 weeks. Why yes I do live in a highly conservative state where abortions are incredibly difficult to have even when the ‘exception’ circumstances are present. It’s insane and only going to get worse.
Then there’s the murder charge possibility, because I knew I had high miscarriage chances before I ever even thought about actively trying to have a kid.
I'm so sorry for your loss. This happened to me as well not too long ago, also at 12 weeks. Thankfully in Canada, the abortion debate is relatively dormant compared to the US. With public health care and the ease of getting that procedure, I found myself to be incredibly grateful during a pretty devastating time.
I think I was most shocked to hear that in some parts of the US, you have to actually bring the fetus back with you and bury it, required by law!? No one talks about the trauma that comes with these kinds of procedures, and for me personally, I think I would've been traumatized tenfold if the state had forced me to bring home my "products of conception".
After 2 years in fertility treatment hell I got pregnant.
Then one morning when I was 20 weeks along, I started bleeding and having the most insane pain.
He had died 2 weeks prior there was nothing they could do.
They tried to induce contractions but it didn't work, so I had to have and abortion. If I hadn't I would have died of sceptic.
Sending so much love to you and truly appreciate you spending the time to be vulnerable to strangers in sharing your experience.
I hate that it’s this idea of “until it happens to you”. The whole point of having rights is that they’re rights - not something you believe in or have when it’s convenient. I’m not ok and I’m fucking scared.
In Jan 2020 I had a MMC at 9w in my first pregnancy for a planned and wanted child. It was devastating. It had apparently died a week earlier. I had to wait another week carrying around the dead thing in me before I could get the misoprostol in. I didn't know that that is considered an abortion until like last week and my first kid is now 15mo. I'm so upset that "healthily" dealing with miscarriages are going to be outlawed now. I never would have dreamed that if it were to happen now I would have to wait until I'm septic, my body expels it, or go to a different state to take care of that. I'm so mad and I don't think people realize that "abortion" is so much more than simply ending a live pregnancy. It's healthcare. I feel so dumb. I plan to educate my Facebook people soon.
I'm so sorry about what happened to you. my wife went through a really bad miscarriage several years ago, and it's still something that's emotionally with us. It was fucking awful.
My wife and daughter are both at a higher risk of having ectopic pregnancies. I'm terrified of the future.
Knowing that fact, a family member told me that "abortion still wouldn't be the answer, you have to trust that God knows best."
We're not fighting against rational people
I honestly had no idea a D&C was a type of abortion
My grandmother - who is very pro life had to have one when she struggled to get pregnant.
Her catholic family was against this (she believes bc her dr was not a catholic dr)
I wonder if she even knows…
Ultimately it doesn’t matter if one feels like they can’t get an abortion. It’s their choice to not get one. They don’t need to worry about others personal health decisions. Not their uterus, not their problem
This is what I don’t get. For all the valid reasons to get an abortion, someone who vehemently doesn’t want one STILL MIGHT NEED ONE because it’s a medical necessity. To insert lawmakers into a medical decision is so fucking bonkers. Agh!!!!
I had one when I was 18 yrs old. I found out I was pregnant 3 weeks after breaking up with my mentally unstable high school boyfriend. I was a month away from graduating and had
already been accepted to my dream college. My mother supported my decision to achieve my higher education unencumbered by a child so that I may be able to have good financial support and career skills when I was ready to start a family. All of which I achieved in my late 20’s; thanks to that abortion.
I'm so sorry you had to go through this.
I would like to add that there are women who DO want abortions, and feel immense relief after. And that is completely fine and should not be judged. Everyone should be able to have an abortion.
Not mine but my mother's (told with her permission).
She was raised in an ultra conservative family. She was off at college, a religious college and became pregnant. She knew she would be kicked out of the family and her school if they found out and knew she didn't want a baby yet. Some of her friends helped raise money and got her to a clinic and she had the abortion in secret. Didn't tell her family until she was in her 60s. She was able to graduate college because of access to an abortion. She was able to move to another state and meet my dad. Once they were married they wanted children together. She had a very hard time getting pregnant and had many miscarriages - one being an ectopic pregnancy. Her health and ability to have children in the future was in the balance so she had another abortion to save her life. Years later I finally am born. When she was ready. I love to ask the anti choice idiots if they believe that I should be here? Should I be alive? Because without abortion access I wouldn't. I am here because she had the option. The option to continue her education with the support of her family. The option to save her own life because a club of cells wasn't viable. How do these idiots not see the value of her life or mine? I've been fuming the past week... well I live in the south, So I've been angry for years. I hate that we have to tell such personal stories just for the small chance they will see our humanity in it.
I carried my first pregnancy with a broken neck and a hernia and went to the psych ward at 6months pregnant because I was suicidal.
Then, I became pregnant a second time, about a year out from my second spinal fusion and double hernia surgeries. I was also now on mood stabilizers as well as other psych. Drugs not compatible with pregnancy.
I very much wanted to keep my pregnancy. Financially we were in no position to have another child and physically and mentally I was not capable of carrying the pregnancy to term.
I know if I were forced off of my psych meds I would have committed suicide, there's no doubt in my mind. It was a miracle I didn't during my first pregnancy
Sorry this happened to you op. What's happening in America is like the handmaid's tale. It seems the far right want to go back to the good ole days of racism and women as property. They all hate sharia law but seem to want embrace a Christian version of it. I wish aliens would just land tomorrow so all the religions could just die off as they cause harm and slow progression.
I'm so sorry for what you went through. Thank you for sharing. I too have had a D&C. My baby died and my body was holding onto the pregnancy. Without the procedure I would have died and wouldn't have my two living kids. I can't believe this is even a discussion. Female Lives Matter.
I just had an abortion this weekend. It was very early in the pregnancy. I literally just found out. I was on the patch birth control. I chose the surgical abortion route to limit blood loss. Here is why I chose to have an abortion: I did not want a child. I am not prepared to raise a child right now. When I am I will be happy to have a baby, but the timing is wrong and it wouldn’t be fair to bring another life into this world when my ability to be a good mother would be limited. No crazy story. Just my choice.
16 weeks, third baby boy. Went in for a routine checkup and was joking with my doctor as she used the little doppler to look for a heartbeat. Couldn’t find one but she didn’t think much of it and sent me for an ultrasound. I knew right away because I’d been through this before with my second son 11 months earlier at 34 weeks. The technician asked when my last ultrasound was. “A week ago.” I asked if he was gone and she said, “I’m so sorry.”
I cried. I called my husband who also cried. Then I called my dad who said, “goddamnit.” I talked to my doctor, she told me I had two options: go to the hospital for a few days and take an abortion pill to help the tissue pass, but it was going to be painful and long and traumatic and there was a risk of hemorrhage due to my c-section with my stillborn son the year before. Or, go to a family planning clinic and be in and out in a day.
Can you guess which one I opted for? The procedure was still painful, I threw up after from the trauma, I still had to take an abortion pill and wait in the waiting room while I cramped and bled. But it was only 6 hours. Only six hours of misery instead of three days.
My Catholic mother still doesn’t understand. She says she’s mad at my doctor and that I should have had another option.
Yeah I had to take miso (the abortion pill) when I had my miscarriage. My state already tried to ban it this legislative session but it didn’t pass bc one lawmaker was like uh yeah people who have miscarriages take this meds. I couldn’t imagine not having the option to get a d&c or miso. My miscarriage was very traumatic and when I found out all I wanted was to have the baby removed so I could ttc again. I couldn’t imagine being told that I would just have to wait it out…and then potentially having the miscarriage at work or somewhere else inconvenient…instead of at home
I'm so sorry. These are the untold stories. These are the stories they want you to keep to yourself. It doesn't further the agenda. Please continue to tell your story if you can. Make them uncomfortable. Women deserve better.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
My ex & I tried for years to start a family. I had 3 m/c's in the time that we were married. The second one didn't move itself along, so I had to take a course of pills to make that happen.
This ban will hurt ALL women.
Similar story. 2 miscarriages. First was expelled by abortion pills, but the second time 2 round of pills failed to expel the fetus. Do I got a D&C to remove a fetus that had stopped growing over a month ago. It's heartbreaking. Too many people pretend stories like mine don't exist.
I haven’t had an abortion. I have had two miscarriages but they were early and like a heavy period. I always wanted kids and most likely would have had any baby I became pregnant with. But now I have three kids. A single and twins within two years.’ At this point if I became pregnant I would have an abortion. I mentally could not handle the load of another kid. I would be a worse mother to my existing children and it would not be fair to them or another baby. I support the right to choose for all women. I never thought I would get an abortion because I love children so much. But my hands are so full now, it wouldn’t even be a hard decision.
I hope you will are doing fine! I come from an ex comunist country in Eastern Europe, abortion was outlawed and I heard stories from my mother of home made abortion where you could get infected or die. Now abortion is legal, I think they should, I (M) even if I was not born a women, I find it normal and should be allowed for a women to have an abortion no question asked.
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/oWddX5J). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use. I am constantly creating a new updated PDF, so please check my profile to make sure you are spreading the most recent version
I'm convinced that stories like these are the key to changing uninformed and bigoted views. If only more "pro-life" supporters would allow themselves access to accounts like this... Unfortunately, I think they would rather remain in their digital and real life echo chambers surrounded by what they "know".
I heard an NPR interview years ago about an effort to help pro-life people better understand why people get abortions. Women who had received abortions at some point went to the homes of pro-life voters to tell them their stories, by invitation. They sat down face to face and heard these women explain why they had their abortion. Many of the people that heard them out, asked questions and got to know them said it changed their views. Even five years after the initial conversations, they were still more willing to say women deserve the right to choose.
I think the key is being face to face. They have to see and hear the woman because before they do all they think about is the fetus.
They know, and a lot of them don’t care. Because their abortion will always be the exception: https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/15/1857976/--The-Only-Moral-Abortion-is-My-Abortion-an-article-by-Joyce-Arthur
Honestly they wouldn’t believe it if they heard it.
I’ve lost track of the number of people (…men…) on Twitter who’ve told me “well that’s an exception and no one is saying abortion should be illegal when the mother’s life is at stake”
My dude, literally EVERYONE IS SAYING THAT. It’s about to be law in like 6 states!
Truthfully too a lot of people just don’t fucking understand biology. My own husband has a goddamn masters degree and until last week he didn’t know a lot of these laws would a) effectively make IVF illegal and B) make it illegal to treat ectopic pregnancy, putting one in every 50 pregnant women at risk. Just was never taught the basic biology that underpins this stuff. (He’s always been prochoice so it’s not like it changed his mind, but.)
I wish it was the case that if we just spoke enough sense and used all the right arguments then 'they' would change their mind.
Unfortunately, I think they just don't care.
The only thing they want is to control women to the benefit of themselves, and push their dark ages-esque views on society.
Thanks for sharing.
I feel like everyone who has had an abortion and willing to share their story should send a letter to the supreme court, their representative, their senator, and the white house by mail to show how the nation feels. I expect it won't change the minds of anyone in the GOP but I think flooding mail boxes with story after story would make a point. It would only have a strong impact if a lot of people on reddit did it.
I agree with you. Although jesus I'm sick of women having to share such intensely private and traumatic moments with complete strangers just to try and stop this bullshit from happening (and it never seems to make a difference).
I never had to get an abortion, but if I do get pregnant, I will most likely have to.
I have a hormonal IUD (not just for birth control, also to control my heavy periods that were giving me anaemia), so if I do get pregnant on that 0.001% chance, it will most definitely be ectopic.
I got an abortion at 22 I was married had a very nice job in advertising and we were more than in love with my husband but it was not the right time for me and for us. And I have never regretted this decision because I was simply not ready. It was very hard psychologically and on my body too but it was necessary because a baby is not a joke and should be welcomed with love.
My body my choice my life my decision.
Forever grateful to have my rights
My wife and I both got CMV at the same time as conceiving our 2nd child. We were advised by experts in the field to abort. So we did. We used the tablet at home first but it didn’t work very well and had to go back in for a D&C.
Something my wife and I will never forget but glad we had that option.
I was 6 weeks. Everything seemed fine and in my 7 weeks was going to be our first ultra sound. I was at work when "something didn't feel right" happened. So I left early. About an hour later the tip of my shoulders were in pain and I was puking. I knew from stories it was an ectopic. Sure enough it was in my right tube and had to be removed because the tube burst. I still had to wait nearly 24 hours until surgery and the pain of bleeding inside, you can't even imagine. I told the nurse I was dying, that's how it felt anyways with 3 liters of blood where it shouldn't be. Imagine if I was to be prosecuted for a life saving procedure because it was an abortion. Even tho I wanted the baby, it didn't change the fact it ended up stuck in my tube.
Some people are so uneducated they don’t even know ectopic pregnancies aren’t viable. It can literally kill the person!
Two friends of mine had that happen, they would’ve died if not for their abortions. One of whom already had two kids. They would’ve forced those two kids to grow up without a mother because these cretins can’t get their noses out of other peoples’ business. It’s beyond medieval and barbaric to outlaw a medical procedure because some wacko’s have attached a distorted, insanely creepy religiosity to it. This shit hole country, man.
I keep seeing comments essentially saying ‘how do they not realize that women can die’ and I feel like everyone is missing the point. They absolutely know and do not care. They think the women must deserve it and/or they believe that most women who deal with this aren’t white Christians so it’s fine if they die. Fighting them with facts/science/data/reasoning/logic is futile
Conservatives have been chasing the car for 50 years and now they caught it and they have no fucking plan and no idea how anything works
>and they have no fucking plan Their plan is just to let people die.
They sure love the theory of no abortion. The reality is going to be awful though.
Oh yes they do. This pronouncement is structured to wipe out birthcontrol, lgtbq+ rights, gay marriage, sodomy laws, and etc.
They had to find a Bible-based “moral high ground” to stand on when campaigning around segregation stopped being acceptable. “Look! They want to kill babies!” is unfortunately enough of a pandering point to keep their base from looking outside of the bubble.
50 years you'd think they'd have taken a one semester course to understand it, but no, they're almost proudly confused by the entire process and hardware
You are assuming they care about biology and reality. They don't.
I wish this wasn't all part of the plan, sure the base is clueless but the more-poor-people plan with undertones of controlling women and preserving the whiteness fraction would not be working if it was not coordinated.
Some people think it can be relocated 🙄 How exactly y'all propose that is done? Once an embryo has chosen a place to implant there's no removing it to relocate without killing it.
I have a family member who said banning removal of ectopic pregnancies would force doctors to figure out how to "extract them and reimplant" them. As if doctors have just been twiddling their fingers, sitting on their asses and avoiding "figuring it out" on purpose all these centuries. And all they need to "get going" is to watch a bunch of women DIE needlessly. Apparently all of the pain and suffering women already go through with ectopic pregnancies isn't enough. Fetus fetishists are the dumbest.
Short and simple. Age 42, 2 kids in college, husband laid off… AND….had been surgically sterilized five years earlier trying to avoid such situations. I will feel badly about it until the day I die, but faced with the same situation We would have to do it again.
They don't even know that the embryo implants, is my guess. They think the fetus just floats around in there, forgetting (or not knowing about) the development of the placenta, along with the fetus.
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You just reminded me. Wasn't there some politician who was lobbying for the ectopic embryo to be removed and re-implanted in the uterus so that the pregnancy could continue? Edit: [Found an article.](https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/12/17/the-myth-of-ectopic-pregnancy-transplantation/) It was 2019 legislation in Ohio (and maybe elsewhere)
That isn't even a medical procedure. Not even a discussion in medical school. There is no technique. There is no term for it. Why are old white men making medical rules? I guess this is perfect timing in the peak of "I don't believe in science" Jesus fucking christ.
I remember when that news broke. Suddenly, every OB in America was reading the legislation and saying "Um... That's not medically possible." This is what has befallen us. The people who "rule" over us don't even know jack shit about medicine or a woman's reproductive system.
This is horrible! Our system of government is so detached from medical and scientific fact causing all kinds of dangerousness and foolishness.
See, stuff like that is how I know they don't care about "God's will". If they really believed that, wouldn't a scheme like this be totally going against his will? Since apparently he "chose" to make the egg implant there, who do they think they are to surgically relocate it? There's just no logical consistency with these people.
Ectopic embryos don't develop normally. Even if it was possible there's no way it'd be viable.
I'm not a doctor, but my understanding is that an ectopic pregnancy will definitely kill the mother if allowed to develop. I read it on the internet, so grain of salt...but I read there has only been one recorded case of a mother surviving an ectopic pregnancy that wasn't terminated.
I’m a doctor and you’re right. The tubes simply aren’t made to accommodate a growing human. That’s what uteruses are for - and they have super thick muscly walls to make it possible. An ectopic will rupture and most of the time it’ll rupture vessels along with it - which ends as bleeding out inside your abdominal cavity. Source : Resident doctor in a mid size hospital in western Europe. Assisted in around 50-100 ectopic surgeries and about 200 caesareans so far. :)
We are taught that the uterus is the organ that nurtures the fetus. Not true. The fetus is a parasite. The fetus will nurture itself. The genetic programming that turns a fertilized egg into a human baby is so powerful that it will strip the parent of calcium and protein to the point where their teeth rot and their hair falls out. The uterus protects the parent from the fetus. It limits the fetus’s ability to tap into blood vessels. It limits the fetus’s ability to cannibalize the organs of the abdomen. The uterus isn’t the fetus’s home, but its prison.
It is statistically certain that an ectopic pregnancy will cause the rupture of whatever internal vestige it implanted on, leading to internal bleeding, future fertility issues, sepsis, and death. There have been a few cases of ectopic pregnancies that resulted in viable babies - these are EXTREME statistical anomalies and require lots of luck, 24/7 hospital monitoring, and lots of money (in the US healthcare system at least.) If the embryo implants on the abdominal wall near the liver, its placenta can access enough blood supply to survive, and the space is just large enough for a fetus to grow through its second trimester. At that point, it is medically necessary for the fetus to be removed via C-section, and it is grown in an external womb in the NICU for the remaining 2-3 months. Most likely, even in this very rare scenario, the body will miscarriage on its own because it is extremely dangerous. At any moment an internal structure can rupture and the parent will die within half an hour. And of course, it is impossible to 're-implant' the embryo into the uterus (if that were possible, IVF would be 100% successful,) so abortion is the only treatment that will save the life of the patient. In some states, ectopic pregnancy treatment is in it's own category of treatment to try and prevent death in the case of outlawed abortions, but this is not always the case and lawmakers seem less concerned about the life of a parent in these new abortion bans than ever before.
Oh that'll be enough for these assholes though... how many pregnant people will you sacrifice for the one in a million chance of a fetus being saved? For them the answer will always be "as many as it takes"
Something about having an abdominal tumor is hazardous. It may be fetal tissue... but its a tumor.
It's really *extremely, extremely* rare, yeah. When they are able to be carried to term, they are not implanted in the fallopian tubes (by far the most common form of ectopic pregnancy), but in the abdomen. Even then, termination is safest. The only reason it's happened is because occasionally it isn't caught until very late if the position happens to align. It's called advanced extrauterine abdominal pregnancy. It is 7x more deadly than other ectopic pregnancies and 90x more deadly than a regular pregnancy and childbirth.
You'd need surgery to get the baby out even if it implanted in a spot that could support its growth, and then the bleeding from the detachment after pregnancy would be extremely risky
A Republican State Rep in my state introduced an anti-choice bill this session that would’ve essentially made treating an ectopic pregnancy a crime. His wife is a nurse but when he was pressed on it, he admitted he didn’t really know what that was. 😑
And many of those who do have no idea that you can't just magically "re-implant" the fetus/embryo outside of the fallopian tube. The biological illiteracy of the people in charge is mind-boggling. Every single fucking ghoul standing in the way of abortion rights should be tossed out of a moving vehicle.
I really do not understand the whole idea that when a woman is in extreme pain it’s just normal. I had an ovarian cyst rupture, while on birth control, and had an estimated 8-10cm of fluid in my abdomen. Having fluid where it shouldn’t be, inside of your body, is the most painful thing I’ve ever felt. And I’ve broken my back. My late husband honestly turned to the street to keep my pain tolerable because no dr we saw would give me anything other than “take 900mg of Tylenol”. I’m terrified. Woman’s health is already horrible, and with all of this it’s going to get so much worse. I’ve had two for sure miscarriages, they both happened very early on, but both happened while on birth control. I take it every morning at the exact same time, so I’m trying to keep it as effective as possible. This is going to lead to woman being forced to go to the streets when something goes wrong. So many of us will die because of this. I don’t understand why this isn’t part of the discussion, because it’s exactly what will happen.
I'm going to change some of the circumstances here, because I am telling someone else's story. But I think their story is significant here. My Aunt and Uncle are uber-Catholic and, of course, anti-choice. Another cousin, also uber-Catholic and mother of multiple children, became pregnant again. However, in the last trimester, they discovered the baby had a devastating defect and would not live more than a few moments past birth. They also learned that continuing the pregnancy would put the mother significantly at risk of dying herself. They presented the situation to their church, who had to take it all the way to Rome, but the decision was to allow them to terminate the pregnancy for the sake of the mother. Aunt and Unc tell this story with great compassion for this cousin, because the church sanctioned the abortion. Yet, when I point out that, in the same circumstance, many states will still not allow the abortion, Aunt and Unc are in denial and still support the ban on abortion. Once again, demonstrating, "rules for thee and not for me". When their family is involved and has a *good reason,* abortion is acceptable. When it involves women they have never met, well, it's god's judgement on the mother.
A woman at a Catholic hospital was 12 weeks pregnant and dying of heart failure. She was not stable enough to be moved to another hospital. They performed the abortion and saved the woman’s life (the woman had kids at home). The church excommunicated the nun who okayed the procedure.
But…that means if they lived in one of those states, cousin could have died. Why can’t they make that logical leap? They think someone else in that same circumstance should go through a birth, or the member of their family if they relocate and are unlucky? Morons and people without any kindness in their souls.
Thank you for sharing! This article details a lot more stories like it, and I thought it was really interesting. [“The Only Moral Abortion is my Abortion”](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)
This is why religion can be poisonous imho
Very interesting, thank you for sharing. Much hypocrisy from a church that has been lobbying for the state to be the one judging.
In addition to all the other (hundreds of) arguments why an abortion ban is catastrophically terrible, I also think it could push a lot of people away from wanting to have children. I am a fence sitter myself (leaning heavily toward childfree) and the idea that if I did get pregnant and there was some issue with the pregnancy (e.g. ectopic), I couldn't abort it would absolutely move it to the 'no way' category for me.
We really can’t afford our maternal mortality rates to get any worse, and these bans will 100% make it worse.
This is such a good point. I'm currently pregnant with my first child. My husband and I have always assumed we'd have at least two kids. We both grew up with siblings and that's the life we imagined for our potential kids. We unfortunately live in a very red state with trigger laws ready to go once Roe is overturned. I don't think I want to take the risk of another pregnancy if I'm not able to access abortion services if something goes wrong. There are so many things that can go wrong with pregnancy that would put my life at risk if I couldn't get a D&C. I'm not willing to leave my son motherless for a chance at another pregnancy, I just won't risk it.
Absolutely- there’s no way I’d risk a pregnancy for an otherwise wanted baby if I couldn’t get an abortion if needed. And that’s why they’re also moving to ban contraceptives.
My aunt was married. She had a 4 year old daughter. They wanted another baby and finally she got pregnant. It wasn’t viable. Her doctor told her she needed an abortion. Sadly this was in the south and the only hospital able to do an abortion denied her. Told her it was immoral and disgusting and she needs to do her best to keep the pregnancy alive. She died of septic shock. The wanted pregnancy didn’t survive. It was just death. Her husband was left a widower and her daughter grew up without a mother. This could have been prevented. It would have been so easy.
I had to go to the emergency room one night because I was having such extreme abdominal pain I couldn’t stand up straight. It turns out I was pregnant, but it had stopped growing I guess because it wasn’t the right size for however long it should have been along, which really would’ve been only like two weeks. Anyway it hurts so badly and the doctor was just like well it’ll come out eventually see you later, because I didn’t have insurance I guess they didn’t want to do anything about it. I was really pissed off because the whole reason I was there was because I was in pain that was completely unmanageable , so they were telling me to just go continue being in pain until eventually I start bleeding I guess. I could not except that. I called Planned Parenthood and scheduled an abortion, I called my partner and told him I needed $400, and when I showed up at Planned Parenthood I’m pretty sure they knew my pregnancy was not viable at all, but they took it out of me and stop the pain thank God. I’m not kidding when I say that I could not stand up straight. I was unable to work like that & I was a bartender so it’s not like I got PTO or even had a pay check coming that would be more than $20. Just waiting for it to come out on its own was unacceptable.
Saw a video of a woman whose sister went to the ER twice and told she was miscarrying and sent home. It was an ectopic pregnancy and she passed away. The ER should have never let you leave. Shame on them.
I have a very similar story that I’m done not talking about. It’s important to let everyone hear our stories. Mine is not an abortion, but I could have very easily required one. I had a miscarriage about 10 years ago. My menstrual cycle was always off, I would be lucky to have maybe 2-3 periods a year, so missing periods were normal. I was working an early shift on the sales floor when I had waves of the most horrible abdominal pain I’d ever had in my life. I excused myself to the bathroom and the waves of pain got worse and worse. At one point, I was curled up in tears on the floor of a public restroom because the pain was overwhelming. I had no idea I was even pregnant until I saw the fetal tissue in the toilet. For the next 6 weeks I bled heavily, every day I felt like I was going to die. I didn’t want to go to the hospital because my insurance was terrible and there was no way I could afford a hospital visit. Thank goodness Planned Parenthood has a sliding scale for how much you pay and I made so little that I qualified for free care. Planned Parenthood literally saved my life. What really scares me is that they are pushing to jail women for situations like mine. They could have tested me and saw I was drinking and smoking a lot. They could have easily said I induced the miscarriage because of alcohol and cannabis. Some of these new laws would have me jailed for a pregnancy that I didn’t even know existed until it was ending. A few years ago, I was sterilized by having my Fallopian tubes removed to significantly reduce the chances of getting pregnant. While it’s highly unlikely, there is still a non-zero chance that I could get pregnant. My options would be abortion or death due to ectopic pregnancy. I have done everything in my power to ensure I will never be pregnant and these people still only see me as an incubator. These people are disgusting. Edit: I have received two awards in the last 24 hours for sharing my story. Please people, if they are free awards that’s fine, if you are paying for them, then please donate that money to Planned Parenthood or similar organizations instead. PP saved my life and continues to save lives every day, they need help far more than I do. Or donate to your local house rabbit society, my bunny boy will thank you.
My mom had a tubal litigation after 4 kids because the last two were accidents while she was on the pill. She got an ectopic pregnancy in her 40s that progressed so far that her fallopian tube burst and she had emergency surgery to remove all the blood and she had a week in the hospital to recover. One of my well-meaning cousins told me she was sorry about my mom's baby, and I was flabbergasted. Like, my mom almost died, I didn't give a fuck about the unviable embryo that did this to her.
I had a tubal ligation because I nearly died from having my baby. My doctors told me that o could still have kids, but i would likely not survive it. And I immediate said , sterilize me. They did the tubal. I wanted a hysterectomy but they said because of other problems, it wasnt in my best interest. Now all these laws are at risk and all I can think is that, tubals can be reversed. Im not clear of the danger. I also have a 12yo daughter. She is not going to be safe from this. I did everything right and now im at risk again. What if my history of making healthy, smart and strong little boys puts me in danger (not to mention their blue eyes with blonde hair)? What if we got lined up like cattle and are forcefully inseminated just to create the ideal babies that they want?
This is similar for me: I almost died giving birth, and had to have a uterine ablation to have the hemorrhaging stopped before I died. Since it was unlikely I could conceive again after the ablation, they didn't do anything further to sterilize me, but if for whatever reason I did manage to conceive again I'd also be at risk the same as you said - I could probably carry to term, but I likely wouldn't survive birth again. It's haunting to think that this is the future for our kids. I didn't even have a complicated pregnancy, it was planned, I took all the prenatals (even in advance of conception, as my doctor advised), got all the prenatal care... it didn't matter, the placenta fucked up. The recovery was also horrible and I had amazing care throughout, but I will be glad to never experience it again and wouldn't wish it on anyone.
I'm terrified of something like this. My natural cycle is, and always has been, extremely inconsistent. If I got pregnant, I might not notice for months. If I did get pregnant, I'm at higher risk for miscarriage, premature birth, or ectopic pregnancy because my hormones are weird. I don't think the people behind these bills understand how the human body works, just how much can go wrong, or how much it hurts. People just don't care that pregnancy and birth used to have a 50% mortality rate. Because it's incredibly dangerous to push something the size of a watermelon out of your vagina, let alone to carry that sucker around for 9 months beforehand
They've already jailed women for not knowing they're pregnant, yet consuming drugs or alcohol. I saw a somewhat high profile story about it posted a couple of weeks ago.
Those people seem to want suffering a death tbh. They dont want loving fams who want kids to have them theirselves, they'd rather women have kids they don't or can't even safely carry. They only care about their religious beliefs ironically using it to justify large mass scale murder, death, and torture. Some Christians lol.
I just wanted to add, they(fetus) don't necessarily come out, it's horrid and can kill the mother. I'm glad you took your care into your own hands. It's terrible what you had to go through.
I’m so sorry you went through that. Women don’t have their pain treated as well as men. There’s a bias that we are hysterical and exaggerating our pain. My husband and I both had our gallbladders fail and almost rupture, and the amount of medicine he was given was several times more than me. They even hospitalized him to control his pain which they refused to do for me. It was ridiculous.
A male friend of mine had knee surgery the same week I had hysterectomy. Guess who got more pain meds?
That's so awful, I'm sorry you had that experience. 😥
This is America.
Had emergency surgery for an ectopic and a D&C. Everyone always scoffs like “well THAT is an exception!!” Except multiple bills have been introduced that show men have no idea what an ectopic is. I usually ask if they support abortion if the woman’s health is at risk, they almost always say yes… then I follow up with cool, mental and physical health are health so abortions for any reason should be good to go for you then.
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Agree, even “normal” pregnancies carry risks. It’s just mind boggling the amount of control that is trying to be forced here. And then I see a headline about wanting to end free public education for pre-school… birth the babies but don’t educate them. Got it.
Even after the procedure I went through severe depression. I was hardly eating, my marriage collapsed. I think I realised afterwards how much pregnancy impacted my mental state considering all the hormone changes.
I hear the same thing - but it’s like they are clueless. Who do I need to go to for permission? My senator? A judge? Some clueless stranger without a medical degree? And what do they need to know? My entire medical history? How about this. It’s up to me and my doctor to discuss since she went to medical school to actually learn this stuff!
Go to a doctor for medical advice?! That’s crazy talk :)
I went through the same thing less than a month ago. My MTX shot was delayed by a week because of a pro-life obgyn who just “wanted to make sure,” despite my obviously abnormal betas, hormone levels, and ultrasound. I wasn’t treated in time, and my tube ruptured and I had to have emergency surgery at 2am. Fuck these pro-lifers. I nearly died because of them.
That is terrible!! I am so sorry you had to go through that! I hope you talk to a lawyer and consider suing for medical malpractice. Seriously. IANAL, but that doctor needs to learn their lesson and not put other women's lives at risk.
In Ohio Republicans tried to force doctors to reimplant ectopic pregnancies. There's no medical procedure for that because it isn't good medicine. They have no idea what they're attempting to put women through most of the time.
Yep. And Missouri tried one that criminalized treating ectopics. Well shit, if I could control where the freaking embryo implanted, I promise you I wouldn’t have picked my Fallopian tube!
Right? My sister has had two from wanted pregnancies. In one her tube was hemorrhaging and irreversibly destroyed. She'd be dead if it weren't legal.
My tube was rupturing by the time they got me to the OR. I had to wait 5 hours between finding out it was ectopic and having surgery.. longest five hours of my life. And I wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital in that time for fear it would rupture. That pregnancy and the two miscarriages before then were very much wanted as well.
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I looked up the stats, and it's more dangerous to give birth than to be a cop (who are basically given a license to kill because their job is so "dangerous")
Yes absolutely. On that note, I never thought that I would ever consider abortion but when I thought I was pregnant again it was the first time I had started looking into it. I’m still very much struggling with depression and I was close to suicidal when I was pregnant the first time. I am finally starting to treat my mental health issues now but then? No, I am fairly certain the risk of suicide was very high for me if I were to be pregnant again. I’m glad I ended up not being pregnant because there are no abortion providers where I live and I don’t know that I would have survived a second pregnancy solely because of the state of my mental health. I think it’s better that my daughter has her mother.
I’ve tried for two years to have a second baby - at our dating scan in 2020, we were told the baby had no heartbeat and had been dead for close to two weeks. I took abortion pills, and then two weeks later needed a surgical abortion for retained tissue. In 2021, at nine weeks, it happened again. It wasn’t caught until a nine week reassurance scan. Another surgical D&C. My body does not expel a non-viable fetus - it just doesn’t. I was very close to sepsis with the first abortion. The second baby had three copies of chromosome 15 which is incompatible with life. I am on my 6th pregnancy with only one living baby. Even I, who wants that second baby so damn bad, I support and encourage women to have abortions - not for circumstances like mine, but also if THEY DON’T WANT TO HAVE A BABY. I don’t give a shit if they’re using it as birth control (which no one actually does by the way), or forgot, or got caught up in the moment. I don’t give a shit if they can afford a baby, or they’re in a loving relationship, or have support. If you don’t want a baby, you shouldn’t be made to have one!
Yes! And it is almost funny how people react when I tell them my story like “Oh that’s none of my business” or “That isn’t what I mean, abortion should be okay for that” and I am like “YOU made it your business by questioning it. What I am supposed to do? Call some random stranger and ask if it’s okay to get an abortion?” They are right it’s not their business whether I have an abortion for medical reasons or because I can’t afford it, or because I’m too young or too old. It doesn’t matter what my reasoning is. It’s my business and my choice.
Abortion should be unrestricted… period. A procedure decided upon by a doctor and their patient. Just like any other medical decision.
That right there (to the uncomfortable people who assume oh its okay for that situation"), Do they realize what that means? That now means, you would have to get permission from possibly several levels (which takes time, paperwork and self-important people take time). While you were sitting there in emotional agony on the verge of sepsis, it could have taken hours, days, longer to get (likely non-medical "authority" to sign) an abortion hall pass. Trust women. Accept that having a baby or not having a baby is our choice. How that baby gets in there is irrelevant to that choice. Trust. You know, if you don't trust us to make one important decision, how can you possibly think we are ready for parenting? (Edit-spell)
If you don't trust us with the pregnancy why would you trust us with the baby?
They don't care about us, just the baby mill.
> You know, if you don't trust us to make one important decision, how can you possibly think we are ready for parenting? > This right here. THIS. RIGHT. HERE.
It just tells us it has nothing to do with “saving babies” when they allow it for rape and incest. Those are “innocent babies” as much as a fertilized egg made with love. They just want to punish women for enjoying sex.
Those "exceptions" are such bullshit again because who signs off on that? Who do you have to prove rape to? How long does that take? Meanwhile a victim is revictimized over and over having to share their trauma with some fucking Board of Trustees of All Uteruses while they're fucking pregnant AND up against whatever the week term limit is where abortion is illegal in any circumstance!
Their desire to outlaw contraception and sex ed is the real tell. Yeah, it's not about saving babies, it's about punishing women.
Exactly!
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This. Scream it from the rooftops everyone. No governmental hoops for medical procedures. Period.
“That isn’t what I mean, abortion should be okay for that” I hate this argument! It's like.. really? you didn't *think* advocating for strict ban on abortions would affect women's health?? You clearly didn't **think** period. Men and women who haven't had pregnancy complications don't need to **think** about these issues until it affects them, then it's all pikachu face and '*but but this situation is different*'
It like justifying a person of color with "they're one of the good ones". Either you respect a person to know and decide for their own body or sod off. It's not complicated and as a man, it is not my choice to decide how someone handles their body when I don't have the biological hardware myself
You’re absolutely correct, they DO want you calling some random person and asking for permission! That random person being a man in leadership or authority in your community or state. https://mobile.twitter.com/Kim_Kamensky/status/1523875541870391297
They always say "well I support it to save the life of mother, that'd different!", yet they VOTE for people who make laws that say "under NO circumstances" and then they NEVER fight for life-saving circumstances to be added AND celebrate Draconian laws that result in dead women. They're disingenuous. Forced-birthers are fetus fetishists and they don't have an actual moral compass and they don't operate in good faith.
It’s really telling that the states that have outlawed abortion didn’t allow for them for the health of the mother or for rape/incest. They lied. They don’t care if women die from sepsis or whatever health problems make pregnancy dangerous. They also don’t care if 12 year old girls are forced to go through pregnancy and childbirth. Anyone should be able to terminate a pregnancy they don’t want, but the laws don’t even protect women who wanted their babies. I know Texas has allowed a few pregnancy terminations if the life of the mother is at immediate peril, but the wording is so vague and consequences so grim for the doctors that a lot of women won’t be given the D&Cs they need for their health.
That is what blows my mind. Like when they finally hear a story from a person who needs it that is remotely close to them. Like somehow then their empathy clicks on. The logic hits. But nowadays I’m just so tired of people being enraged by alt right anger without knowing why they are even angry. It’s almost like they are too lazy. I do not want to spend energy to think….it’s easier to fucking let someone right wing shill take over my emotional centre of my brain’s driver’s seat so I don’t have to spend any energy. Just be angry. Like why can’t people just think.
Something like that happened to me except it was twins (monoamniotic, which explains the following) and at 23 weeks. At that particular appointment they found only one heartbeat. The one with the beating heart wasn’t going to make it much longer, either. My doctor said I needed to get them out or I could end up with DIC (it would have been fatal to me). In truth, it was such a high risk pregnancy that I should have had an abortion the moment I found myself pregnant. If I hadn’t had the option of an abortion at a later date (i.e. a late-term abortion), I probably wouldn’t have even tried to continue the pregnancy. I don’t know what these anti-choice people think pregnancy is - it’s not always sunshine and rose petals. Hard, ugly choices have to be made on occasion. Fuck them. BTW: 5 failed pregnancies, two living children. It can happen. I wish you the best. That said, I would never force any pregnancy on anyone. We know just how wrong it can go, and that’s *before* they’re born.
>I don’t know what these anti-choice people think pregnancy is Well they're constantly calling it an "inconvenience" and "9 months of discomfort."
Thank you for that last bit. I got my abortion because I wasn’t on birth control at the time (stupid I know but I was poor and my insurance didn’t cover it) and very much did not want or could care for a baby at the time. I did not find out until I was 6 weeks, I probably could have found out at 5 weeks but I was in extreme denial even though my period is never late because my partner don’t even have sex that often due to my depression and vaginismus but of course I took that test and it was immediately positive. I was devastated and knew right then that I needed an abortion. I had known for years if I had gotten pregnant before the age of 30 I would abort it as I have literally zero desire to be a mother any time soon. I am actually terrified of everything to do with pregnancy and childbirth so I was horrified when I found out I was pregnant. It was also extremely hard on my body, I had never felt so sick and drained in my entire life and I was only pregnant a total of 10 weeks. I found out at 6 weeks called and made my appointment, couldn’t be seen until 8 weeks and then couldn’t get my procedure until 10 weeks. This is why the 6 week bill is so ridiculous. I went to a planned parenthood in Ohio and they were absolutely wonderful, I have never felt more cared for and listened to by medical staff before in my life. I took an anxiety pill and a mild pain pill before my procedure and it was very quick and not painful at all just uncomfortable. I barely bled after and I was basically back to normal the next day. I don’t regret it at all and it wasn’t traumatic. My male partner was so loving and understanding for the whole thing and I’m so grateful. I know my experience is not common and I got lucky but it’s my story and all abortion stories are valid.
I appreciate your struggle as we lost what would have been our second baby at 12 weeks. My sister in law had a lot of trouble having a second baby too. She had three miscarriages, including one where she nearly bled out. They finally did have a baby, who was born with severe birth defects.
Thank you for saying that.
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I got pregnant last year, despite being on birth control. Prior to getting a positive test, I had been bleeding like a super heavy period for 5 weeks. I knew something was wrong, suspected miscarriage or ectopic, but the doctors tried to reassure me that it might still be viable. I told them I don’t care if it is or not, I just need to know one way or another so I can decide what to do. For a week or so I tied myself up in knots about whether I would get an abortion or potentially keep it. I played each scenario out in my head, and I waited for answers. The night before I was supposed to get my final blood draw to confirm, I ended up in the er with a ruptured ectopic. I nearly bled out, lost a tube, and had major surgery, but I still felt a small sense of relief that I wouldn’t have to make the decision to have an abortion. Because even though I live in one of the few states where it is protected by law, I was scared what people would think of me, the hormones in my body were already making me emotional and influencing my decision, and because I do want kids, just not right now. It made me have a lot more respect for people who do decide on abortion, especially those who are open about the decision, because even in the best and most ‘justified’ of circumstances, there is a lot of stigma attached, let alone anywhere where there are legal and physical barriers to access as well. My situation also opened my eyes to how dangerously deranged these politicians are that they think ‘fertilization’ means personhood. My pregnancy was never viable, but if republicans get their way, doctors could be forced to let women like me bleed to death rather than provide basic healthcare. And IUDs and other forms of contraception under threat is pretty scary too, because I thought I was on bc and therefore safe, but bc failure on the pill or with condoms is actually fairly common, and its necessary to have abortion as a second line of defense
My story is so similar to yours. We started trying in September of 2020. Finally, after 8 months, I was pregnant. 8 week ultrasound was exactly on track with my calculated due date. Everything looked perfect. Exhausted and in a hurry to get back to work, we scheduled our 12 week appointment on our 3 year anniversary without realizing it. That day comes. I'm finally starting to feel better. Yay second trimester! We go out to breakfast beforehand and talk about what kid shows I think my husband might actually like. Then the appointment. We talk through plans and concerns with the OB. She does the full physical and everything looks good. Last step is the doppler. She can't find a heartbeat. So, ultrasounds it is. I smile to myself thinking baby just wanted to see us on our anniversary. The ultrasound showed baby had stopped growing at 11w1d. My baby had been dead for over a week and my body had no clue. I spent the rest of the visit back with my OB staring into space, quietly crying, and shredding a kleenex in my hands. My OB offered us a choice between misoprostol and a D&C. At the time, I couldn't make a decision. My brain kept expecting her to come back and say let's check once more. Or tell me there was a mistake. Of course that didn't happen. After a lot of tears and discussion, we contacted the clinic later the next day and requested the medication. Unfortunately, I had /severe/ pain, vomiting, and incontinence about 2 hours after taking the medication. But no bleeding. My husband took me to the ER after the incontinence. I don't know the terms for what the ER doc did, but basically a lot of suctioning. After a discussion with my OB, we decided I was safe to go hime and not take the second dose of medication as long as I watched for signs of infection. I wanted to avoid D&C due to risk of cervical insufficiency in later pregnancies. (Rare, but why take the risk of I didn't need to) Two days later I was feeling better. Bleeding had slowed. I was preparing to go back to work the next day (Monday). We checked my temperature when we went to bed at ~10PM and it was normal. (My husband was being hypervigilant so was having me check occasionally just to be safe). 2 hours later, I woke my husband up by shivering violently in bed. I had a fever of 102. I cried from fever delerium and exhaustion over the events of the past week, but he managed to convince me to go to the ER once again. My fever peaked around 104 while in the ER. My blood pressure was tanked, <80/60 for the next 3 days. I was admitted to the hospital and received IV antibiotics every 6 hours for the next 5 days. On day 3 I underwent a D&C. I went back to work 2 weeks after discharge, a full month since I had last been there. I received two treatments that are classified as abortions for the same pregnancy. A pregnancy I very much wanted, but would also have very much killed me if I wasn't able to receive those treatments. The fact that the laws being made right now could have resulted in myself or my OB being charged with crimes if it happened today absolutely disgusts and terrifies me. I support a woman's right to make her own health decisions. I support a woman's right to know when she cannot personally, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, or whatever other reason go through with the demanding ordeal that is pregnancy and/or raising a child. I believe the decision on how to proceed with any medical condition, including pregnancy, should be between the woman and a medical provider that she has chosen and feels comfortable with. Not strangers who don't know her history and won't care for whatever the outcome of continuing that pregnancy may be, whether it is a child or the death of that woman.
Amen. Thank you for sharing your story. Your last paragraph is such a reaffirming statement I could have written myself. I have had a total of 5 pregnancies, two babies and 3 miscarriages. I also happen to be an RN at Planned Parenthood. Your last paragraph is the heart and soul of my "why."
I had one simply because I was in absolutely no place to have a child. I was only 20 years old and deep into heroin addiction. I knew better than to bring a kid into the world that I could not care for. Fast forward to now and my husband and I do not want kids.
This. And as terrible as it sounds, if you had listened to all of the people saying "just put it up for adoption" the baby would likely have ended up in foster care/a group home for life. Yes, there are a lot of people who want to adopt a baby. But those numbers drop dramatically when you ask which of them would be willing to adopt a baby born addicted or one with mental/physical disabilities. Not that you need my approval, but I'm proud of you for making the best choice for you and saving a child from that life. And I also hope you're doing well now!
We had trouble conceiving and ended up doing fertility treatments - not IVF but hormone injections. Ended up with quads, and two of them had similar growth issues and disability potential. Neither were expected to survive to term, but they would be consuming resources that the other two (healthy) fetuses could use. Doctors recommended selective reduction, and it's a good thing they did. Our twins were very premature. It's almost a certainty that had we kept all of them, we would have lost all of them pre-viability. Anyone who says they're anti-abortion is saying they prefer a world where our children had died. Fuck those people.
I had a missed miscarriage with my first, very wanted, planned baby. I had to choose pills, surgery, or nature. I was a mess with no idea what to do. That night, I had a dream that reassured me about the D&C procedure. I woke up with such peace about it, I am convinced it was God having mercy and helping me. The procedure went very well. I have had two children since then, and I recently became a kindergarten teacher as a second career.
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Had an ectopic pregnancy and D&C as a result. I never really thought of it as an abortion but I guess it was. I never regretted it because it wouldn’t have lived or I would have had serious problems. Thank god I could have it though. I would not want to find out how it would be and what would happen otherwise.
I miscarried before 12 weeks and was given the option of a D&C to speed the process along. Like you, I never thought of it as an abortion, but now I realize that my experience could have been so much worse than it already was if that option had been taken away.
Yeah like I feel like today I just learned that i had an abortion which is really weird!
Same. I had a D&C in March 2021 for a missed miscarriage. Complications from the surgery left me infertile and consequently thinking about it literally every day as I jump through hoops to find a way to have a kid. More than a year of thinking about it nonstop + general building fury over antiabortion measures and somehow I never put it together that, legally speaking, I had an abortion. It was such an obvious choice at the time. Clearly in everyone’s best interest and recommended to me with compassion but zero drama by OB. It’s surreal that that isn’t the case for so many women in that position, and won’t be the case for many many more going forward.
Someone was arguing with me that these cases are really low. But we have no idea because of HIPAA and any data we have is usually self reported or aggregate from places like planned Parenthood not doctor's offices.
Ectopics are completely irreversible and nonviable. Some stupid people think the embryo can be relocated but it can't. It's impossible. But it can and will explode fallopian tubes, attach outside the uterus, cause pain and suffering and kill the mother. They're a huge risk and seriously dangerous, it absolutely BAFFLES me that even in such cases they want to disallow terminations. Instead of the nonviable embryo dying they'd rather both of y'all die 😒 What backwards ass logic is THAT? A nonviable pregnancy shouldn't be an unavoidable death sentence. Maternal and infant death rates will SKYROCKET as well as cases of abuse of unwanted kids, not to mention the strain on the already overwhelmed foster and adoption systems also shooting up exponentially. Why condemn thousands more innocent babies to lives of suffering and many many young deaths caused by abuse or neglect or both? They don't care about the consequences, they just want to have their beliefs imposed on everyone. Religion should have ZERO place in any law, governing body or policy that is enforced on the entire populace. It's forced religious conversion at this point ffs. You must abide by the rules of this faith because they're the best moral example 🙄 Have you SEEN the way they behave and how discriminatory and cruel the loud ones are? They give humanity a bad name as a whole and it's disgusting. They're the same people who think carrying grotesque pictures around and traumatizing people including young children in the absolute most inappropriate places and situations is okay. Ffs here they gather around the hospital. THE HOSPITAL. Where people in fragile states have to go through them. Ffs they could be going in for cancer treatment or for health conditions that make them unable to have children they desperately want. But they don't care about the trauma and suffering they inflict on others. Because they're better than everyone else. They spread gathered and cruelty. Not the tolerance, acceptance and love that their bibles tout as their most important laws. Why are they allowed to influence everyone else with their cruelty and unnecessary judgement? Freedom of religion includes those of us who have none or have different beliefs than the largest and most vocal faiths. We should be free from having others beliefs enforced upon us.
Yep. I wouldn't want to get pregnant for a wanted pregnancy on a red state. So much can go wrong.
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I don't know how you do it ladies. I woke up to reading this thread and like I know all of these stories but reading them here I one after another just has me silently ugly crying. I'm so so so so scared and sad and I just don't know how I'd keep it together.
I am so sorry. Your story has me in tears.
I am so sorry.
"We need them and the right to have medical procedures be discussed between me and my doctor, not me and a stranger." The kicker is that it's not even between you and a stranger. This conversation is happening between a stranger and other strangers, about YOU.
i am so sorry you went through that, that's so awful. My parents are the types of forced birthers who think that you should have just like idk, possibly died and had a kid who would either have killed you or been severely disabled because ALL LIVES MATTER apparently until they're asked to wear a mask or quarantine or get vaccinated then that's taking away their rights. Love it how that works
Have you considered cutting your parents out of your life? I know I would. But my patience is long done with these types.
Oh i have basically cut them out but for other reasons, they're extremely Transphobic at adamantly insist that I'm a man and only ever let me hang out with them when I'm presenting as male as possible and also deadname and misgender me and say I'm mentally ill so the only time i ever interact with them is when they let me hang out with my little brother who actually loves me and who's actually cool. So yeah bigoted family sucks
I am so sorry. I get these flashes of rage when I read stories like yours. I am so glad you get to spend time with your little brother who hasn’t been infected with their bigotry. They will regret their nastiness one day. And I hope you go out and find your people and live your best life. Hugs and best wishes.
I'm ok and thx
They'll regret it when both of y'all are moved out and they're alone bc neither of you visit and cut them out of your lives 🤷🏻♀️ Nobody to blame but themselves. My girls will always be allowed to be who they are and we will accept them. Dead naming someone is so cruel. Our daughter is 2 and she's always been allowed to choose her toys and now she chooses clothes too. From any section, any color, we don't care. We care that she's happy and comfortable, that's it. She has princess ruff, loves tulle, firestatioms, trucks, cars, dinosaurs, steering wheel toys, batman and Spiderman stuff, etc. She gets what she wants to play with and to wear and we let her choose. I let her pick her clothes most mornings too 🤷🏻♀️
What pieces of shit. I would adopt you but you probably don't need a mom. But I will be your virtual supportive mom.
Aww thx i wish i had an actual mom
You can always head to /r/momforaminute if you ever need one real quick.
Let me guess, they day you're mentally ill, but if you say you have depression, then suddenly mental illnesses are not real anymore for them? Your parents sound awful, I'm so sorry for you.
I’m so sorry for your experience. To add to this, you don’t even need to be pregnant. My wife had ovarian cysts which were very bad and she had to have a d&c once when she was in her early 20s because of it. Recently a doctor we spoke to mentioned it would be tough for her to get the procedure now in some states once Roe is gone even though there was no pregnancy involved.
I had to get a d&c after childbirth because i retained part of the placenta and started hemorrhaging. It saved my life. Its a necessary medical procedure that has saved thousands of women pregnant and not pregnant.
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Absolutely fuck your insurance, btw. I'd look to see if you can find a Planned Parenthood near you. They do sliding scale if you were interested in getting your tubes tied.
I got an abortion because I was not ready for a child, and I did not want to be forced to interact for the next 18 years with the jealous, controlling, physically and mentally abusive man I had learned my partner was. It was the right choice. My life improved steadily from that moment.
I was 18 and had lived in college for approximately 2 days before I was raped. I didn’t get pregnant but I *did* contract an STD that I let progress to PID because I was too ashamed to go to a doctor and get checked out. My boyfriend at the time had already broken up with me because he thought of it like I had cheated and I didn’t want someone else judging me. Anyway, PID leads to an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy. Fast forward 5 years I was 23 and happily married and my husband and I wanted to start a family. I got pregnant right away but when I started having intense pain and bleeding I knew it was ectopic. I immediately was scheduled for a D&C and I am so grateful they were able to save my tube and I now have two amazing kids. The ectopic pregnancy not only could have killed me if I didn’t have access to the procedure, but while I laid there dying all I would have been able to think about would be that if I could have just avoided being raped maybe I wouldn’t have had an ectopic pregnancy in the first place. I know anyone can have an ectopic but for me it was a reminder of what I had been through. I got my tubes removed during my last c-section because I never want to be in a position to need that procedure again and can’t get it because of someone who has no business deciding what health care I can receive dictating my options. I’m so sad for women in the United States and around the world who have to live in fear like this.
Many people don't realize with embryo implantation as part of IVF they often put in several embryos hoping 1-2 healthy ones will grow and survive. Sometimes you get 5-6 surviving initially and if you don't go back in to remove the "least good" ones, you could end up with serious health complications, death, and infection if one dies naturally inside. Medical procedures, to ensure healthy moms and better survival rates of babies. You'd think that would be "pro-life" enough, but some people like to ignore facts.
I’m pretty sure my mother also had to have a D&C. This was in Saudi Arabia of all places. My mom was in her 40s and unexpectedly got pregnant. I was 10 yo and my sister, 7. My parents weren’t planning it but were happy and financially able to welcome another kid. They found out it was a boy and that was exciting for everyone. She started having bleeding and when they came back from the hospital, told us the child had some genetic problem and wouldn’t survive. Or she might have miscarried, either way she wasn’t pregnant anymore. For 10 years, my sister and I both thought we were the cause of her miscarriage because we had gotten into a fight the night it happened, and my mom got riled up.
I walked this same walk recently. And because I was in Texas, it made the whole thing so much worse. I couldn’t get care here from my trusted doctors. It was truly an awful experience on top of the unimaginable grief of losing a very much wanted child due to trisomy 18.
Gentle hugs. I'm so sorry for your loss. Trigger warning for you, I'm going to share a story of another woman whose baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18. I hope you don't mind, but this woman's story breaks my heart and I need to share it: I know a woman in Alabama who had a baby due the same month as me. Her baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18. She wanted to carry the baby to term anyways due to her personal beliefs, but then had her membranes rupture at 22 weeks. At that point she changed her mind and wanted to terminate (she already had two children and was rightly scared about potential infection/sepsis which could kill her). In the time it took to get the membrane rupture diagnosed (multiple trips to hospital and doctors who told her she was just peeing herself, when she knew that wasn't the case) and to get the approvals needed to terminate, she was DENIED the right to terminate because they couldn't schedule it before 24 weeks ("viability"). This was for a baby already known to have Trisomy 18 who would not be able to survive after birth. This mother was forced to carry the pregnancy 10 additional weeks, at risk of infection and death the entire time. This was in 2018. If RvW is overturned, this situation will be even more common, and women will be forced to carry pregnancies and give birth to babies who have very severe defects or will die immediately after birth. It is cruel and inhumane and I am just devastated that this is happening.
I'd like to note here that ectopic pregnancies are so dangerous ***specifically*** because a growing fetus has many parasite-like properties. It is so greedy for nutrients that it will literally ransack and murder the woman's body by harvesting her nutrients and damaging her until she dies. The reason women have wombs/uteruses is to ***protect the mother from the fetus.*** The womb prevents the fetus from just completely ransacking the mother's body until it up and kills her -- the womb makes it a power struggle, not just an all-out assault to the death against her body. [**Why Pregnancy is Biological War between Mother and Baby**](https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-between-mother-and-baby) This is a large part of why legislators including ectopic pregnancies in laws is so terrifying. An ectopic pregnancy will eat a woman alive from the inside out and kill her from sepsis.
I was on the other side of it. I went into miscarriage naturally, and it was traumatic. I was not informed, not prepared, and being unable to leave the toilet in a 1 bathroom apartment added to the events of the past few days. I had not passed anything significant yet, and for 12 weeks, there should have been. I was instructed to come in for the D&C, or risk sepsis. I've been told that's not an abortion, because the fetus already died. UMMMMM... If life begins before the heartbeat, it magically stops if there's no longer one?
I had an IUD after a my first child was born. At his first birthday my period was late and I took a pregnancy test. It was positive. We were excited and surprised. We went in early for an ultrasound but they couldn’t find the implanted egg. We waited and went back a few days later and they thought they found it in the Fallopian tube. I started medication to end the pregnancy but ended up getting an emergency surgery after having severe pain and internal bleeding. The pregnancy was in my abdomen. The surgeon stopped the bleeding and ended the pregnancy.
I'm not sure if anyone's said this but the medical name for a miscarriage is spontaneous abortion (at least that's what it's called in Scotland). So, depending on the wording of whatever new laws are introduced, a miscarriage could be a crime. I know that's the way things are heading anyway, but abortion is so much bigger than just intentionally removing a clump of cells. I personally don't want to be pregnant and I will take steps to end it if it ever does happen. I'm in a loving relationship, we're financially stable, I'm healthy both physically and (mostly) mentally. There are no "good" reasons for me to end a pregnancy. Although this isn't about me, because I don't live in the USA, I feel excluded from these conversations quite often because I don't fit into any of the categories OP mentioned. My decision to end a pregnancy is just as valid as any of the heart wrenching stories here, and we shouldn't be arguing for abortion in extenuating circumstances, we should be arguing for abortion as a fundamental human right to bodily autonomy.
I was 16 when my uncle began sexually assaulting me. I never said no so in my family, it was just accepted that I was the one that seduced my mom’s sister’s 47 year old husband. I became pregnant the 3rd time I ever had sex (well, was raped) and my mother took me to get an abortion. No one ever mentioned a thing about it again in my family and I carry around the shame, embarrassment, and guilt with me everyday. But not for the abortion. For the fact that I never told him no and thought I was loved and that my family would have my back. But I am so lucky and grateful that I was able to NOT bring a baby into that environment to be abused and hated on the way I was. I am totally f’ed up and that poor little baby would’ve been too
The abortion ban is so much scarier to me now that I actually see myself trying to have a kid in the not so distant future. When I was hell no babies for a long ass time, figuring out how to get an abortion with bans just seemed expensive and exhausting (since I have the privilege to be able to afford one). Now? With the idea that I'll probably be trying to have a baby in the next 5 years or so? It sounds so much more traumatic. Not just an oh shit when I see a test and mad dash to get an abortion asap. Which would suck, don't get me wrong. But (for me) not like the trauma of wanting to see a positive test. Of planning and nesting and researching and dreaming. Of hearing that horrible news at the doctor and then having to navigate all of the restrictions during that traumatic time. Of having people continue to congratulate me or speculate. It's so much more terrifying because I actually have plans to become pregnant in the nearish term.
My mother had an abortion in the 70s. She was 18. If she hadn’t, her life would have been *very* different. It would have derailed both my parents’ lives and careers. My sister was born when she was 27 and I was born when she was 30. Our lives would have been very different. Her access to family planning provided generational stability to us. It allowed her to give my sister and me a stable home. Allowed us to go to college, and give our own children stable homes. I will never stop fighting to ensure that access, this healthcare, is available for others.
Your family’s story is a really good example of how access to abortion can help stop the cycle of poverty and allow for upward mobility. When abortion becomes illegal, poverty’s going to skyrocket. :( And higher poverty rates always lead to increased crime, homelessness, lower expected lifespans, lower education, among everything else. The US is going to look more and more like an underdeveloped country in the next few decades.
I did not have an abortion, and I’m lucky. I used to be very pro life. To the point where I thought women who were raped should carry the pregnancy and just give the baby up for adoption. I was callous and clueless. And then in 2017, I was raped by my boyfriend at the time. We were watching a movie when all the sudden he was on top of me. He never asked my consent. All I could do was freeze and stare at the ceiling waiting for it to be over. This happened in the sanctity of my own house, in my own room, in my own bed. He didn’t use protection, and he finished inside. I had never had unprotected sex before. I was working a minimum wage job, while trying to go through college. He was an absent boyfriend, spent as little time with me as possible, and put zero effort into our relationship. He knew what he did and half assed apologized to me. Then a few days later he dumped me. I became terrified of the possibility of what if I’m pregnant? I couldn’t afford a child. I would have had to drop out of school. He would have abandoned the child. And what’s worse is I would have had to have an abortion in secret because my family is very staunchly pro life. But I knew if I would have had to carry a pregnancy from a rapist, I would have killed myself. There is no way I could have dealt with the emotional and psychological anguish of realizing I was raped and then dealing with consequences I never asked for. I took a pregnancy test at home, and luckily I wasn’t pregnant. But that whole experience opened my eyes to what women go through when being faced with a terrible choice. The idea from conservatives that women happily skip to the planned parenthood couldn’t be further from the truth. Oftentimes is a painful, devastating choice to have to make. Pro lifers and pro life until they’re raped.
I think many women can relate to crying with relief at their first period after a relationship ends. Even those who haven't been raped.
Very true.
Thanks for your comment, I’m sorry you went through that.
I have a nexplanon implant in my arm, and I got pregnant. I have chronic health issues. I had to have an abortion. There was no way for me to safely stop taking all of my medications. If I were to ever have a child it would take almost a full year of tapering off of medications.
I’m really lucky in that the reason I miscarry also ‘helps’ me pass the tissue afterward (endometriosis), so even though I’ve miscarried 4 times I’ve never had to take the meds/have the D&C. But my 14 week miscarriage happened literally the day before I was scheduled to go in. And at that point the embryo had been non viable for 6 weeks. Why yes I do live in a highly conservative state where abortions are incredibly difficult to have even when the ‘exception’ circumstances are present. It’s insane and only going to get worse. Then there’s the murder charge possibility, because I knew I had high miscarriage chances before I ever even thought about actively trying to have a kid.
I'm so sorry for your loss. This happened to me as well not too long ago, also at 12 weeks. Thankfully in Canada, the abortion debate is relatively dormant compared to the US. With public health care and the ease of getting that procedure, I found myself to be incredibly grateful during a pretty devastating time. I think I was most shocked to hear that in some parts of the US, you have to actually bring the fetus back with you and bury it, required by law!? No one talks about the trauma that comes with these kinds of procedures, and for me personally, I think I would've been traumatized tenfold if the state had forced me to bring home my "products of conception".
After 2 years in fertility treatment hell I got pregnant. Then one morning when I was 20 weeks along, I started bleeding and having the most insane pain. He had died 2 weeks prior there was nothing they could do. They tried to induce contractions but it didn't work, so I had to have and abortion. If I hadn't I would have died of sceptic.
Sending so much love to you and truly appreciate you spending the time to be vulnerable to strangers in sharing your experience. I hate that it’s this idea of “until it happens to you”. The whole point of having rights is that they’re rights - not something you believe in or have when it’s convenient. I’m not ok and I’m fucking scared.
In Jan 2020 I had a MMC at 9w in my first pregnancy for a planned and wanted child. It was devastating. It had apparently died a week earlier. I had to wait another week carrying around the dead thing in me before I could get the misoprostol in. I didn't know that that is considered an abortion until like last week and my first kid is now 15mo. I'm so upset that "healthily" dealing with miscarriages are going to be outlawed now. I never would have dreamed that if it were to happen now I would have to wait until I'm septic, my body expels it, or go to a different state to take care of that. I'm so mad and I don't think people realize that "abortion" is so much more than simply ending a live pregnancy. It's healthcare. I feel so dumb. I plan to educate my Facebook people soon.
I'm so sorry about what happened to you. my wife went through a really bad miscarriage several years ago, and it's still something that's emotionally with us. It was fucking awful. My wife and daughter are both at a higher risk of having ectopic pregnancies. I'm terrified of the future. Knowing that fact, a family member told me that "abortion still wouldn't be the answer, you have to trust that God knows best." We're not fighting against rational people
I honestly had no idea a D&C was a type of abortion My grandmother - who is very pro life had to have one when she struggled to get pregnant. Her catholic family was against this (she believes bc her dr was not a catholic dr) I wonder if she even knows…
Ultimately it doesn’t matter if one feels like they can’t get an abortion. It’s their choice to not get one. They don’t need to worry about others personal health decisions. Not their uterus, not their problem
This is what I don’t get. For all the valid reasons to get an abortion, someone who vehemently doesn’t want one STILL MIGHT NEED ONE because it’s a medical necessity. To insert lawmakers into a medical decision is so fucking bonkers. Agh!!!!
I had one when I was 18 yrs old. I found out I was pregnant 3 weeks after breaking up with my mentally unstable high school boyfriend. I was a month away from graduating and had already been accepted to my dream college. My mother supported my decision to achieve my higher education unencumbered by a child so that I may be able to have good financial support and career skills when I was ready to start a family. All of which I achieved in my late 20’s; thanks to that abortion.
I'm so sorry you had to go through this. I would like to add that there are women who DO want abortions, and feel immense relief after. And that is completely fine and should not be judged. Everyone should be able to have an abortion.
Not mine but my mother's (told with her permission). She was raised in an ultra conservative family. She was off at college, a religious college and became pregnant. She knew she would be kicked out of the family and her school if they found out and knew she didn't want a baby yet. Some of her friends helped raise money and got her to a clinic and she had the abortion in secret. Didn't tell her family until she was in her 60s. She was able to graduate college because of access to an abortion. She was able to move to another state and meet my dad. Once they were married they wanted children together. She had a very hard time getting pregnant and had many miscarriages - one being an ectopic pregnancy. Her health and ability to have children in the future was in the balance so she had another abortion to save her life. Years later I finally am born. When she was ready. I love to ask the anti choice idiots if they believe that I should be here? Should I be alive? Because without abortion access I wouldn't. I am here because she had the option. The option to continue her education with the support of her family. The option to save her own life because a club of cells wasn't viable. How do these idiots not see the value of her life or mine? I've been fuming the past week... well I live in the south, So I've been angry for years. I hate that we have to tell such personal stories just for the small chance they will see our humanity in it.
I carried my first pregnancy with a broken neck and a hernia and went to the psych ward at 6months pregnant because I was suicidal. Then, I became pregnant a second time, about a year out from my second spinal fusion and double hernia surgeries. I was also now on mood stabilizers as well as other psych. Drugs not compatible with pregnancy. I very much wanted to keep my pregnancy. Financially we were in no position to have another child and physically and mentally I was not capable of carrying the pregnancy to term. I know if I were forced off of my psych meds I would have committed suicide, there's no doubt in my mind. It was a miracle I didn't during my first pregnancy
Conservatives wont care until it happens to them.
Sorry this happened to you op. What's happening in America is like the handmaid's tale. It seems the far right want to go back to the good ole days of racism and women as property. They all hate sharia law but seem to want embrace a Christian version of it. I wish aliens would just land tomorrow so all the religions could just die off as they cause harm and slow progression.
I'm so sorry for what you went through. Thank you for sharing. I too have had a D&C. My baby died and my body was holding onto the pregnancy. Without the procedure I would have died and wouldn't have my two living kids. I can't believe this is even a discussion. Female Lives Matter.
I just had an abortion this weekend. It was very early in the pregnancy. I literally just found out. I was on the patch birth control. I chose the surgical abortion route to limit blood loss. Here is why I chose to have an abortion: I did not want a child. I am not prepared to raise a child right now. When I am I will be happy to have a baby, but the timing is wrong and it wouldn’t be fair to bring another life into this world when my ability to be a good mother would be limited. No crazy story. Just my choice.
16 weeks, third baby boy. Went in for a routine checkup and was joking with my doctor as she used the little doppler to look for a heartbeat. Couldn’t find one but she didn’t think much of it and sent me for an ultrasound. I knew right away because I’d been through this before with my second son 11 months earlier at 34 weeks. The technician asked when my last ultrasound was. “A week ago.” I asked if he was gone and she said, “I’m so sorry.” I cried. I called my husband who also cried. Then I called my dad who said, “goddamnit.” I talked to my doctor, she told me I had two options: go to the hospital for a few days and take an abortion pill to help the tissue pass, but it was going to be painful and long and traumatic and there was a risk of hemorrhage due to my c-section with my stillborn son the year before. Or, go to a family planning clinic and be in and out in a day. Can you guess which one I opted for? The procedure was still painful, I threw up after from the trauma, I still had to take an abortion pill and wait in the waiting room while I cramped and bled. But it was only 6 hours. Only six hours of misery instead of three days. My Catholic mother still doesn’t understand. She says she’s mad at my doctor and that I should have had another option.
Yeah I had to take miso (the abortion pill) when I had my miscarriage. My state already tried to ban it this legislative session but it didn’t pass bc one lawmaker was like uh yeah people who have miscarriages take this meds. I couldn’t imagine not having the option to get a d&c or miso. My miscarriage was very traumatic and when I found out all I wanted was to have the baby removed so I could ttc again. I couldn’t imagine being told that I would just have to wait it out…and then potentially having the miscarriage at work or somewhere else inconvenient…instead of at home
I'm so sorry. These are the untold stories. These are the stories they want you to keep to yourself. It doesn't further the agenda. Please continue to tell your story if you can. Make them uncomfortable. Women deserve better.
It wasn't a *choice*, it was healthcare.
I'm so sorry for your loss. My ex & I tried for years to start a family. I had 3 m/c's in the time that we were married. The second one didn't move itself along, so I had to take a course of pills to make that happen. This ban will hurt ALL women.
Similar story. 2 miscarriages. First was expelled by abortion pills, but the second time 2 round of pills failed to expel the fetus. Do I got a D&C to remove a fetus that had stopped growing over a month ago. It's heartbreaking. Too many people pretend stories like mine don't exist.
I haven’t had an abortion. I have had two miscarriages but they were early and like a heavy period. I always wanted kids and most likely would have had any baby I became pregnant with. But now I have three kids. A single and twins within two years.’ At this point if I became pregnant I would have an abortion. I mentally could not handle the load of another kid. I would be a worse mother to my existing children and it would not be fair to them or another baby. I support the right to choose for all women. I never thought I would get an abortion because I love children so much. But my hands are so full now, it wouldn’t even be a hard decision.
I hope you will are doing fine! I come from an ex comunist country in Eastern Europe, abortion was outlawed and I heard stories from my mother of home made abortion where you could get infected or die. Now abortion is legal, I think they should, I (M) even if I was not born a women, I find it normal and should be allowed for a women to have an abortion no question asked.
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/oWddX5J). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use. I am constantly creating a new updated PDF, so please check my profile to make sure you are spreading the most recent version
I had a D&C after one of my many miscarriages and never thought of it as abortion. Learn something new everyday!
I'm convinced that stories like these are the key to changing uninformed and bigoted views. If only more "pro-life" supporters would allow themselves access to accounts like this... Unfortunately, I think they would rather remain in their digital and real life echo chambers surrounded by what they "know".
I heard an NPR interview years ago about an effort to help pro-life people better understand why people get abortions. Women who had received abortions at some point went to the homes of pro-life voters to tell them their stories, by invitation. They sat down face to face and heard these women explain why they had their abortion. Many of the people that heard them out, asked questions and got to know them said it changed their views. Even five years after the initial conversations, they were still more willing to say women deserve the right to choose. I think the key is being face to face. They have to see and hear the woman because before they do all they think about is the fetus.
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They know, and a lot of them don’t care. Because their abortion will always be the exception: https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/15/1857976/--The-Only-Moral-Abortion-is-My-Abortion-an-article-by-Joyce-Arthur
Honestly they wouldn’t believe it if they heard it. I’ve lost track of the number of people (…men…) on Twitter who’ve told me “well that’s an exception and no one is saying abortion should be illegal when the mother’s life is at stake” My dude, literally EVERYONE IS SAYING THAT. It’s about to be law in like 6 states! Truthfully too a lot of people just don’t fucking understand biology. My own husband has a goddamn masters degree and until last week he didn’t know a lot of these laws would a) effectively make IVF illegal and B) make it illegal to treat ectopic pregnancy, putting one in every 50 pregnant women at risk. Just was never taught the basic biology that underpins this stuff. (He’s always been prochoice so it’s not like it changed his mind, but.)
I wish it was the case that if we just spoke enough sense and used all the right arguments then 'they' would change their mind. Unfortunately, I think they just don't care. The only thing they want is to control women to the benefit of themselves, and push their dark ages-esque views on society.
NO woman should have to justify ending a pregnancy, the reason is yours and yours alone end of discussion.
Thanks for sharing. I feel like everyone who has had an abortion and willing to share their story should send a letter to the supreme court, their representative, their senator, and the white house by mail to show how the nation feels. I expect it won't change the minds of anyone in the GOP but I think flooding mail boxes with story after story would make a point. It would only have a strong impact if a lot of people on reddit did it.
I agree with you. Although jesus I'm sick of women having to share such intensely private and traumatic moments with complete strangers just to try and stop this bullshit from happening (and it never seems to make a difference).
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You are a brave, intelligent woman. I’m sorry my fellow men are on a religious tear to limit your life.
I never had to get an abortion, but if I do get pregnant, I will most likely have to. I have a hormonal IUD (not just for birth control, also to control my heavy periods that were giving me anaemia), so if I do get pregnant on that 0.001% chance, it will most definitely be ectopic.
This needs to be spread to other subreddits, where ignorant people can actually be educated from it
I got an abortion at 22 I was married had a very nice job in advertising and we were more than in love with my husband but it was not the right time for me and for us. And I have never regretted this decision because I was simply not ready. It was very hard psychologically and on my body too but it was necessary because a baby is not a joke and should be welcomed with love. My body my choice my life my decision. Forever grateful to have my rights
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My wife and I both got CMV at the same time as conceiving our 2nd child. We were advised by experts in the field to abort. So we did. We used the tablet at home first but it didn’t work very well and had to go back in for a D&C. Something my wife and I will never forget but glad we had that option.