Ten people who recently had abortions in states across the country told us the story of what it took to get one
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After thinking about it for another week, I decided, okay, I do want to get an abortion. By then I was over six weeks pregnant and had to go out of state. I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood in Maryland, my home state. I didn’t really have a plan — I just figured I would get myself there. The person on the phone at PP asked if I needed help and connected me with the National Network of Abortion Funds.
I called the midwife group that I used with one of my previous pregnancies , and the midwife asked that I schedule an ultrasound for two weeks after that to confirm that finding. Those two weeks were stressful, but we still were supposed to have one healthy, viable fetus. We went to that appointment assuming that we would find that Twin A had stopped growing and Twin B was fine. But what we found out was that Twin A had stopped growing and Twin B was sick in many ways.
Everyone rushed us to make a decision as fast as possible because an abortion early in pregnancy can be as little as $500, but the point I was at — 18 weeks — costs way more. We were given a quote by the hospital of $3,900, and the hospital kept saying, if anything goes wrong, it’ll be more. The labor induction ended up taking four days. I was given misoprostol, vaginally and orally, many times and Pitocin and foley bulbs. My body just wasn’t responding to the induction.
I woke up very early, drove 30 minutes, and got there when it opened. I was terrified of running into somebody at the clinic or anybody finding out. That’s easy to happen here. Everybody knows everybody, and the rumors — my parents will even hear rumors, and they’re old. But I didn’t run into anyone.
I made an appointment on New Year’s Eve at Planned Parenthood. The first appointment available was on January 18, just for the consultation. I was like, If it’s December 31, and the first available appointment is January 18, I better just book it. I thought about the Texas six-week rule. I found out I was pregnant before I had even missed a period, and still the earliest appointment I could get was after the six-week mark. In the meantime, I talked to my primary-care physician.
I work for the state, so my insurance wouldn’t cover it because the employer contribution is tax dollars. I paid a little over $750 out of pocket. I had to dip into my savings to do it, and the guy gave me some money, but I didn’t think of going to abortion funds because I just felt like that money was for people who really, really needed it. I didn’t want to take away from people who are in desperate situations.
I ended up going to a private clinic. I got there at 4:30 in the morning after calling out of work. It’s January in Arizona, and you have to sit outside in a line that wraps around the building, and I just sat there with blankets. Everybody’s shivering and bundled up, this quiet fucking line of sad women. I sat in that line from 4:30 a.m. to about 12 p.m., and they took one person after me and sent everybody else home. All those women sat there for hours just to get turned away.
I got an ultrasound just to confirm that I was pregnant. I was about six weeks along. They give you a mini counseling session, and then you meet with a doctor and take the pill and take the other pills home with you. It felt exactly like a period. I could put my daughter to bed — she’s 3 — while I was going through the worst of it with the help of my boyfriend. For the rest of the night and the next day, I just lay in bed.
My ob-gyn, when she gave me the genetic testing news, she said she was so sorry and that if I had any other questions, let her know. But she did not counsel me about abortion. I saw two separate doctors who specialize in high-risk pregnancies, both women who said it wasn’t looking good, but neither of those doctors spoke to me about termination.
Madi, 25, Seattle In February, I was a couple of days late on my period, which is not abnormal for me. I took a pregnancy test from the dollar store. I’m not sure if it was a user error or what, but that one came back negative. Then I ended up being a week late, and one morning went to the gym, and I was so tired it was like I couldn’t work out. On the way home, I picked up a pregnancy test. That one came out positive.
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