When we relegate abortion to the underworld we are putting dangerous tools in the hands of naïve people or greedy people. When women are at the mercy of a cutthroat system, anything can happen to them.
#abortionishealthcare #keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
...to help her abort, someone had put kerosene in her uterus.
Oh my god. #keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
It‘s horrifying, now that I know what a gynecologist is supposed to do. I went back to the dorm and cried and cried. I took scalding hot baths for days and tried to throw myself down the stairs – I heard that was the way women had miscarriages – but that was difficult to do without hurting myself.
Abortion access is vital! #keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
Those years are so vivid to me that seeing these kids who are uninvolved in the issue…abortion has always been there for them. They don‘t know what it was like before, and what it might be like if it‘s taken away. They just don‘t know what it was like.
#keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal #abortionishealthcare
Even if contraception is readily available, we still need abortion because no contraception is foolproof. Until you have actually walked in the shoes of an unwillingly pregnant woman, you can‘t understand how desperate she is.
#abortionishealthcare #keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
Half the population is female, and to make abortion illegal again would have a very adverse medical impact on women generally.
#abortionishealthcare #keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
What this case illustrates is that desperate people do desperate things, sometimes with tragic results. It all fits. When they couldn‘t get medical help, they just did what they desperately thought was the next-best thing.
#abortionishealthcare #keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
I was born in 1958. In 1962, when I was four, my mother died from an illegal abortion. She was only twenty-four.
#keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
The attitude was “How could these women do anything so stupid as to get such a dangerous abortion?” Or “Why would any smart person take such a stupid chance?” I don‘t recall any discussion about the need to provide women with safer options.
#keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
The system, and especially the lawmakers who left her with no choice, killed her just as surely as if they had held the catheter or coat hanger or whatever. I‘m still angry. It was all do unnecessary.
Then why didn‘t you do something about it?! As a doctor, you have a voice with power—why didn‘t you use it?!
#abortionishealthcare #keepabortionfundedsafeandlegal
