This weekend I stood with thousands of people across the country on the frontlines of the war against women to defend the vital work done by Planned Parenthood. I, like millions of others, owe a great deal to Planned Parenthood. They were the ones who took care of my annual screenings and wellness checks when I couldn’t afford health insurance because of preexisting conditions, they were the ones that found a giant ovarian cyst before I went on a month long backpacking trip in the wilderness (which could have been life threatening had it twisted or erupted in the field), and they were the ones who honored my choice and gave me an abortion when I needed one.
I hesitate to come out of the closet as a woman who had an abortion. I feel worried some crazy anti-choicers are going to start trolling me, but mainly I am so frustrated with Planned Parenthood’s work being continually reduced to abortion services. That is such a small portion of what they do.
However, I am also a really big believer in openly talking about issues that millions of women experience (abortion, miscarriage, menstruation, sexual assault…) that have traditionally been forced into the dark corners of secrecy. When we keep our stories in those secret corners they become magnets for feelings of shame and embarrassment. We start to think that we are the only ones who have gone through such an experience and our loneliness increases, the weight of the experience increases, and the isolation increases. Because we aren’t talking about it, we don’t get the help and support we may need. Our secrecy disempowers us as a group, which only helps the anti-woman movement.
My truth, and my confidence in my truth, is the greatest weapon I have against misogyny.
I was raped. I am not ashamed. It was not my fault. My rapist didn’t realize that when a woman is unconscious she is not giving consent, that is on him.
I had an abortion. It was one of the most painful decisions I have made in my life, and also one of the clearest. I haven’t had one regret in the fifteen years since.
I had a miscarriage. It was heartbreaking and also not my fault. It was my body working as it should, realizing that that group of cells was not strong or healthy enough to make it to full-term.
I bleed like crazy every month, I stain my sheets, I stain my underwear, I am constantly worried about leaking in public, and I have debilitating cramps that go with it. And that is not gross or inappropriate to talk about. It is a sign of my health, it is what my body was designed to do, and it allowed me to have children. (And if you are a man reading this, it is really, really time to grow up about menses. Literally almost every woman in your life deals with this, or has dealt with this, every month. Grow up and educate yourself.)
If you have the internal resources to do so, let’s start talking about our sexual assault, menstruation, miscarriages, abortions or whatever womanly secret you have been holding. When we talk about it we normalize it, when we normalize it we take the power out of the hands of the anti-woman extremists and put it back where it belongs, in us.
This weekend my abortion story had a piece of closure that I hadn’t even realized I was missing. I was nervous going to the Planned Parenthood event, I knew there would be anti-choicers there. I have not come into close personal contact with these people since my own abortion, when they harassed me as I entered the clinic and yelled “mommy?” after me. When I think about my abortion that is what first comes to mind, their vitriol. I was not looking forward to facing them again.
As I stood with about 800 fellow Santa Cruzians who value the services offered by Planned Parenthood, who were having a great time, smiling, laughing and being kind to one another, it hit me just how sad, fearful, and hateful those anti-choicers are. I realized I have nothing to be ashamed or fearful of, they can’t do anything to me, I know my truth and am good with it. I walked over to their small group with my sign and stood about five feet from them. I took their picture. I didn’t engage with them because there is no point, but I looked them in the eye. I looked them in the eye and I held my sign and I took all my power back from them, from Trump, from all the deeply ingrained misogyny that has been rearing its ugly head in our country recently.
I am a woman.
I had an abortion
I had a miscarriage
I was raped
I bleed
I am a woman
AND I AM NOT ASHAMED.
Comments