In 2019, legislation regulating abortion in New York and the fervor around a similar proposed bill in Virginia ignited a national conversation around later abortion. The president included the issue in his State of the Union remarks and the debate raged on cable news shows, in opinion pieces and social media posts. It continues today. But this proxy war is not about the later abortions actually happening in the country.
We know because we are the families who have gotten them.
We are later abortion patients and their partners who are concerned with the politicization of this issue at the expense of both truth and compassion. While we do not speak for every later abortion patient and do not pretend to represent everyone who seeks this care, we can speak for ourselves and our families.
The stories we hear being told about later abortion in this national discussion are not our stories. They do not reflect our choices or experiences. These hypothetical patients don’t sound like us or the other patients we know. The barbarous, unethical doctors in these scenarios don’t sound like the people who gave us safe, compassionate care.
The decision to terminate a pregnancy is never a political one, it is a personal one. Later abortions stories are ones of tragedy and loss, relief, inequality, struggles with hope, people betrayed by their bodies, and the incredible complexity of pregnancy. Many stories are ones of overcoming the many obstacles and restrictions our states have placed on these procedures. Later in pregnancy, the cost of abortion care increases, the number of providers decreases, and more restrictions go into effect. Each of these factors compounds the others.
We are not monsters. We are your family, your neighbors, someone you love. We are you, just in different circumstances. Due to ignorance, many of us may not have supported later abortion access before facing a crisis ourselves, accepting restrictions on healthcare we never imagined needing. Now we recognize that our laws may not be able to draw neat lines around each of our stories, allowing these procedures in certain, hyper-specific circumstances and not in others, because we know people will be left outside those lines. As people privileged enough to speak up, that is unacceptable to us.
Americans must start having a more nuanced conversation about later abortion that reflects the experiences of patients, the expertise of our medical providers, and the dedication of the practical support community that helps us get the care we need. We need to start listening to people with first-hand experience instead of talking heads, ideologues, and politicians.
We’ll tell you our stories if you can muster the compassion necessary to hear them. We understand that talking about later abortion can be uncomfortable. It requires us confronting the terrible reality that pregnancy, even a wanted one, is not always a blessing. It means we have to consider decisions being made with imperfect information. When we talk about later abortion, concepts we thought were simple become complicated.
Therefore, we are asking Americans to weigh the restrictions on later abortion against our stories, not the hypothetical cases that have been fabricated to win political points. We made decisions about our pregnancies, each of us experts in our own complicated lives, and we can’t imagine having to make those decisions for someone else.
With the manufactured crisis over later abortion, opportunistic politicians are seeking to exploit an already stigmatized, marginalized group of people. Our hope is that this crusade may yet lead somewhere constructive, that as ideologues turn the country’s attention to abortions that happen later in pregnancy, there may be space for education and empathy.
This is only possible if it includes the stories of real patients. And there is no good faith effort at a conversation on later abortion that does not include us.
Signed,
Scott Agatone, Pennsylvania
Jonathan Arzt, New York
Lindsay Arzt, New York
Amy Avery, California
K. Barnidge, Missouri
Peter Barar, Texas
Michael Barcone, New York
David Barnes, California
Lori Beiner, New York
Julie Bindeman, PsyD, Maryland
Lee Blecher, Maryland
Mia Blecher, Maryland
Sarah Bogdanski, New York
Jennifer Brower, Virginia
Katherine Bryant M.D., Virginia
Kimberly Buller, California
Susan Burgess, South Carolina
Egypt Burton Charles, Georgia
E. Chanzes, Georgia
J. Chanzes, Georgia
Erika A. Christensen, New York
N. Clark, California
Katrina Co, DMD, Florida
Katie Coyle, New Jersey
Jeimy Cruz, California
Malika Daniels, Georgia
Kate DeMonte, Illinois
Cristin Dennis, Maryland
Krista Burnett Drake, Indiana
Cassie Dunbar, Kansas
Karen Engelhart, New Jersey
Angelique Fabiani, New York
Holly Fahner, Michigan
Ashley Feco, Missouri
Carla J Finis, Idaho
S. Margot Finn, Ph.D., Michigan
Melissa Flook, Pennsylvania
Justin Flook, Pennsylvania
Brittan Foster, Arizona
Rachel Freedman, Ph.D., Maryland
Dessi Freeman-Barnes, California
Jillian Goldman, Pennsylvania
Krista Goodrich, Maine
Kate Grum, Pennsylvania
Laura Guerrero, New York
Robyn Gurin, New York
Nicole Gunderson, Minnesota
Nada Haq-Siddiqi, New York
Alejandro Hernandez, California
S. Holt, California
Amy Huibonhoa, MD, California
Erica Goldblatt Hyatt, DSW, LCSW, MBE, Pennsylvania
Ashley Johnson, Washington
Robert Jones, Wyoming
Tracy Jones, Wyoming
Kerri Kautzman, South Dakota
Trevor Kautzman, South Dakota
Erika King, Missouri
Marissa Lawson, Florida
Debbie Lewis, California
Amy Lynn, Colorado
Katie Lyon, California
Emily Lopez, Illinois
A. J. Mazur, Michigan
A. G. Mazur, Michigan
Tara Mendola, PhD, Massachusetts
Stephanie Millender-Grubb, California
Sonya Miller, Pennsylvania
Gabriela Morrison, Oklahoma
Laurie Myers, California
A. Noland, Florida
Miriam A. Nunberg, Esq., New York
Sarah Orem, Virginia
Doug Patterson, Georgia
Katie Paul, California
Martha Pearson, New York
Thomas Pearson, New York
Dana Peirce, DVM, Maine
Rose Penchansky, Tennessee
Noreen Pereira, Pennsylvania
Melissa Perisanidis, Connecticut
Megan T. Piasecki, Ohio
Marisa Pizii, Massachusetts
Rhonda Pohlman, PharmD, Colorado
Dan Probst, Missouri
Patricia Probst, Missouri
Jenifer Putalavage-Ross, Texas
Kala Radigan, New York
Jennifer Rakita, Florida
Josh Riman, New York
Louis Romero, New York
Kelsey Rooney-Dorst, Oklahoma
Marla Rzeszotarski, Ohio
Lamar Saxon, Texas
Reneé Saxon, Texas
Madelyn Scarpulla, New York
Heather Schumm, Pennsylvania
Lauren Sharpe, New York
K. Shea New Jersey
Dana Sloope, Florida
Adam Sloope, Florida
Amy Soprych, RN Illinois
Dorothy Spence, Oregon
Karen Stein, California
Shira Sussi, New York
Adam Swank, Iowa
Mindy Swank, Iowa
Kadie Tannehill, Missouri
Justin Tannehill, Missouri
Chris Taylor, Colorado
Margaret Thoele, Illinois
Ryan Thoele, Illinois
S. Thompson, Alabama
Alexandra Tronnes, Wisconsin
James Utz, Missouri
Melanie Wahl, Missouri
Cindi Walker, Texas
Jonathan Watling, MD, Maine
Dana Weinstein, Maryland
Lyndsay Werking-Yip, New York
Ayanna Whitmore, New York
Nicole Williams, Kansas
Phil Wood, Missouri
Janet Zaretsky, Texas