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Emotion shouldn't drive decision to abort

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1969. Vietnam. Social upheaval. Visiting the moon. Woodstock. My 19th birthday. My boyfriend ending my virginity. And learning that when contraception fails, pregnancy may follow.

My story is simple. My memories have not faded.

I was pregnant, I wanted to keep the baby, but I had to realistically acknowledge I was far too immature to raise a child. How could I penalize a baby that way?

Adoption. I knew then — and I know even more now that I have two wonderful children — that I could never give birth to a child I could not keep. My maternal instincts are frighteningly strong, and (I can speak only for myself) it would have been like tearing my heart out to put my baby into a stranger's arms.

My doctor told us about an underground organization of clergy who endorsed safe abortion practitioners. The advising minister felt our decision was right. He didn't know anyone who had met "Dr. X," but he said those on the list were considered highly reliable.

I called the doctor, and he said to bring $500 in small bills, and gave me an address in the New York City warehouse district. At midnight, we took a taxi to a moonscape — there were no people anywhere, just dark, hulking industrial buildings. We buzzed the bell in a prearranged sequence and took a freight elevator to this workers-compensation doctor's plush office.

He grabbed the envelope and counted the money, then threw on a lab coat and set out instruments without washing his hands (I was too scared to say anything) while his helper got me ready.

The doctor began when I asked, "Aren't you going to use anesthesia?"

That man just looked at me and laughed. He said, "Remember, we can all go to jail for this. I'm doing you a favor, and you'd better be out the door the minute I finish."

He told me I'd better not make a sound and gave me a wet, twisted towel to bite down on. I had no inkling of the unbelievable shock wave of pain there would be or how long it would last. For half an hour, he grumbled about how my uterus was tilted and he couldn't really do this right.

I spent half an hour close to fainting from the pain, but it was a kind of intense pain where all you can do is pray for it to end. When I made a sound, the helper said she would punch me out if I didn't shut up. I shut up.

When I asked the doctor what to do if I had problems, he looked me right in the eye and said, "Don't call me. And if you tell anyone about this, you'll be sorry."

Immediate trouble

Within a couple of hours, I had a high fever, terrible abdominal pain and was bleeding profusely. By the next day, I knew I would die without help.

I called doctors, but none would see me for fear they would be accused of performing the abortion. I didn't blame them because they risked losing everything.

By the second day, I was in unbearable pain and bleeding more than before. Luckily, my boss had a friend who was a gynecologist, whom he talked into seeing me after hours. That doctor took a tremendous risk for a stranger, for which I will always be grateful.

This doctor said I had had an incomplete abortion, with non-sterile instruments. I had a raging uterine infection, so he shot me full of medication, giving me more to take home. What he didn't tell me was that even though I would recover, the future would hold immense heartache.

Scarred by infection

I recovered quickly, went back to normal activities, got married and we started trying to get pregnant. After five years, we visited a fertility specialist and endured a battery of tests. Our doctor explained that all my reproductive organs were covered with adhesions (scar tissue) both inside and out, a legacy of the infection.

He was willing to try surgery (this was 1978, and fertility medicine was primitive compared to today) but held out little hope that it would succeed.

It felt like I cried forever mourning the child I could not conceive. Then, 13 months after the surgery, we were ecstatic to discover I was pregnant. Three months later, I miscarried. I can still feel the emotional pain as I write. We were advised to forget ever having children.

Then came our miracle. A year after miscarrying, I was pregnant again. We told nobody because we were so afraid we would lose this one, too. Imagine our bliss when our daughter, a priceless gift, came into the world. Two years later, we were thrilled to welcome our son.

A few years later, after a hysterectomy, my doctor said, "If I hadn't delivered your children myself, I would have sworn there would be no way you could have had a baby." He left the room shaking his head.

The right decision

I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people in the world. Despite all the pain, I know my decision to have an abortion was the right one for me.

It frightens me that there are people who want to see women put back into the same precarious situation I was in — dead or close to death, for the "transgression" of ending a pregnancy.

No woman should be forced to bear a child, and no woman should die ending a pregnancy.

I don't have the right to impose my beliefs on you, and I don't want you to have the right to impose your beliefs on me. And I think we forget sometimes that a pregnancy requires two people. I often wonder if this would even be an issue if it were men who got pregnant.

This story has an odd postscript. Years later, while the abortionist was on a European vacation, his office caught fire. When the firefighters chopped into the walls, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in unmarked bills. I wonder how many women had suffered and/or died so he could fill his walls with money.

If women and men don't stand up to protect a woman's basic right to choose, then women will find hard-won rights continue to erode. And losing this one will kill us, literally.