V., 50 years old Chicago, Illinois
My first exposure to abortion was a cousin who got pregnant at 16; I was probably 10 or so. I only heard snatches of hushed adult conversation, and pieced it together with a hospital visit to Passavant Lying-In Hospital for women where my cousin lay pale and still with tears on her face. Her father sat sternly outside her room door with his arms crossed, turning blacker by the minute and ignoring the looks that my mother and her mother shot him. I heard my aunt say that they had 'not only took the baby but her uterus - poor thing'. This cousin is the only one of us that is childless.
The next time I heard about abortion, I thought I was pregnant myself. Only 14 and a victim of abuse in my household, I spent 40 days looking for my period and decided to confide in my best friend, Expy who had 8 older sisters and was the source of all my information on sexuality in those pre-Oprah days. I knocked on her door and she opened it and rushed past me pulling me with her down the stairs. We ran down Blackhawk to Larrabee; and turned suddenly into a narrow gang-way. We went down some stairs while she whispered something about 'going to get my sister'. She pounded on a rear door and an Asian lady let us in; she seemed mad. The place was filthy and the strong smell of alcohol and dried blood made my stomach turn. We followed her through a dark hallway where Expys' sister, Naida sat curled up in a chair. Expy pulled her up and the seat she was sitting in had fresh blood on it. She could barely walk and we had to practically carry her home. The effort brought my period down and I remember being so relieved that I didn't have to have an illegal abortion. That was a few months before Roe vs. Wade.
Less than six months later, I waited for my period again. This time more than 60 days had passed, and I got the chance to tell Expy the whole story. Naida overheard and was so glad that things had changed - she took control. She made the appointment for me at Winfield Moody - a new clinic on Clyborne that had abortion facilities; all free and accessible on her State of Illinois public aid card. They asked me almost no questions and were so eager to use their equipment I was finished in under 2 hours. I never even had to tell my mother and I was still 14.
I have had a total of four abortions. A fact that I am not proud of, but one that has become a part of the woman that I am. All of my abortions were not as easy as the first ones or done under such dire circumstances. As the laws changed my abortions and their circumstances changed. I had to travel to Madison for a first trimester abortion done in a faceless, nameless clinic. The second one was done in Chicago on Grand Avenue but I had to fight my way through a crowd of protesters to get to the door. Even though the protesters were not the 'in your face' ones you see today with guns and pictures of dead fetuses, they were beginning to refine their techniques and shouted out Bible verses. I can remember more than one girl who stood crying outside that clinic that day. The next abortion was second trimester. The timing and my broken marriage made me a desperate procrastinator and I headed out to Madison again this time with the resources and insurance to check into a hospital and rest up for a few days afterward.
Abortion is never an easy decision each one was weighted with different reasons and circumstances and have had both favorable and negative outcomes just like my decisions to have children that I have borne. But I feel blessed to be a woman of this century that has the opportunity of decisions to make.