In June rain, my garden nods under the weight of the roses and peonies. In the woods, the lady-slippers fade and gnarled woody stems erupt into pink pompons of mountain Laurel. Wild roses cascade from hedge rows. Honeysuckle hums with the bees. Pollen hangs thick in the air. All smells of heaven. Time bends, and my body re-lives 10 straight days from 2012.
Ten years ago this week I was headed to Colorado to lay my baby girl, Laurel, to rest in my womb.
Ten years ago, I was an outlier. It was, at times, crushingly lonely.
Today, so much company is coming. I wish I could have remained an oddity.
*****
I recently received a text from a woman at Dr. Hern’s clinic in Boulder. My clinic. She is going through her procedure this week.
Her story is a doozy. She’d have my support regardless of her circumstances. But the fact remains that her story is sad in just about every way a story can be sad. It is also not mine to tell, so you’ll have to take my word for it. She lives in Texas. Now that Oklahoma is closed, Bolder is the next closest place to go. The wait list is long. Over a month long. So she had to wait many weeks knowing she needs this care. All the while, the pregnancy continues. It adds more to her baby’s development and takes more from her body, mind, spirit, and budget.
Nothing that I have told you here could identify this woman. This story is now common. When I went through it in 2012, ten years ago this week, I was unspeakably rare. Do you know why I had to travel from Boston to Boulder? Because my abortion was not protected by Roe v. Wade, which has accepted a dates-based “viability” metric that doesn’t make any damn sense. I needed an abortion after 25 weeks. One could argue that a child whose brain anatomy is unable to coordinate swallowing, whose life expectancy is less than 1% likely to make it to 3 years of age with all the invasive medical treatment in the world and 0% likely to make it past a week without medical intervention, is not, in fact, viable. The law does not care.
So I went Colorado.
One Monday in June, The Supreme Court will strike down Roe v. Wade. Then nobody will be protected. Soon, very soon, abortion will be made instantly illegal in about half of the United States, and less accessible than you expect everywhere else. A twisted preview, the women of Texas and Oklahoma must now travel to Boulder just as I did. Only, unlike me, they can not hurry because demand has already outpaced the rate of care that can be provided by existing clinics nation wide.
I hate the way we talk about this as a culture. Don’t let yourself get bamboozled by sneaky philosophers this June. I don’t know when life begins and neither do you. Philosophers don’t care about my baby. Priests and pastors don’t care about my baby. Politicians don’t care about my baby.
Who am I to make life and death decisions for my baby?
I am her mother. I love her.
Attend to us mothers. To me. To the woman at the other end of my phone this week.
Imagine walking past protestors — so many states’ worth of protestors, converging on the open clinics as more and more clinics close.
Imagine carrying a single book and your photo ID into the clinic, such strict security. Imagine passing the bulletproof entry and being guided from waiting room to waiting room, other patients just a whisper behind a door or the sound of footsteps in the hall around the corner.
Imagine sitting on nubby 70s upholstry, brown, orange, olive.
Imagine placing your hands on your belly, feeling the kicks, knowing for sure that you’re doing the closest thing to the right thing that there is, but not knowing if you’ll ever be ok about it.
Imagine the gratitude that you’re here, and the fear about the procedure, about what comes next. The money anxiety. What is waiting for you at home? Imagine the relief that you don’t have to go through something even worse, even more painful, even more expensive than this, and neither does your baby.
Imagine the hug of the doctor, the nurse. The dozens of tissues they hand you throughout your day.
Imagine sitting on cushions on wicker chairs and watching a video about contraception, for which the counselor apologizes. She knows you want this baby.
Then imagine getting this string of texts from me:
Let the tears come. It’s ok to cry. This is really sad.
Hang in there. Today is education and injection day. It’s a tough day, but you will be held with so much respect and safety.
You can cry all day if you need to. It’s ok. They’ll understand.
I believe that we hold all the powers of both life and death inside our womb, that they are one and the same, and that we are exactly the right people to know how and when to use them.
It’s so, so hard. I honor your wisdom so, so much.
