WEBVTT

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(gentle melancholy music)

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- You never hear anybody saying, \"I had an abortion.\"

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You never hear anybody saying, you know,

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being open about it.

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- I am not sure that I\'ve ever heard

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anyone in my family talk about abortion.

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- I didn\'t tell the friends I was living with in London.

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I didn\'t tell the man in question.

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- I remembered thinking, you know,

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\"What would people do if they knew?\"

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♪ Shock, day ♪

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(upbeat flapper music)

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- I never saw my mother except once

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during the entire time that I was growing up.

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I never got a Christmas card, just never nothing.

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I became a runaway.

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I just found myself out there by yourself

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and just beginning to realize you\'re getting pregnant.

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It was just somebody that I thought that loved me.

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One of those stupid things that young women think.

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I just felt that I wanted something to love.

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I was 16 when I had it.

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They put my daughter in my arms

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and she looked at me and said,

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\"If you don\'t want me, I don\'t want you either.\"

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She had that look, very,

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and I fell in love with her then.

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(gentle music)

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And then I began to dream about giving her

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the opportunities that I never had.

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And then I went to work in a barn laundry.

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Salary was $12 and 41 cents a week.

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But I worked.

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And I took care of her and that\'s.

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Later on I sort of went with someone else

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and found myself pregnant, which I knew

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I wasn\'t gonna have no more babies.

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I wasn\'t gonna be like my mother.

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You heard about people who just did abortions.

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It was no secret.

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At that time I did not know it was illegal.

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It was something discussed.

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It was talked about.

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I can remember the place very well.

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I just walked in and the woman was ready for me.

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It was a midwife, a woman.

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Very receptive, very warm.

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And she did what needed to be done.

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And I left, paid her and left.

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I just felt that I was sort of lucky enough

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to be able to get the money to even do it.

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I did get an infection.

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I ended up in Harlem Hospital.

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And the nurses were very nasty

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because they wanted to know who did it

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and I was not gonna tell \'em who did it

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\'cause it was none of their business.

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They said, \"Oh, you\'re gonna die on the bed.\"

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(gentle music)

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But no one could tell me what I shoulda done

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and what I shouldn\'t do.

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And I did what I thought that,

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I guess I musta\' been about 20.

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At that stage in my life that I felt was important for me

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to be able to continue.

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I have no regrets.

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(upbeat music)

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- What I grew up with was really no discussion of sexuality.

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I think the most information I got

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was from a little pamphlet that Kotex used to put out

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(chuckling) and it was all about menstruation.

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It wasn\'t about sexuality.

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When I was in high school,

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the greatest shame was to get pregnant.

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(gentle music)

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It was the worst thing that could happen to you.

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It was most likely to get you banished from your family,

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disapproved of by your neighborhood,

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turned into somebody who was not a nice girl,

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and in my growing up high school neighborhood,

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there were clearly only two kinds of girls,

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nice and not nice.

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This was a very working class,

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factory working neighborhood in Toledo.

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There was so little knowledge about reliable contraception.

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So most of the people who I knew got married

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either right before they graduated from high school

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or immediately afterwards, and most of them

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got married at least in part because they had to.

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After college, I was engaged to a wonderful man,

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but not somebody I should have married.

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It would have been a disaster for both of us.

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So I broke the engagement with him.

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It was part of my motive for taking a fellowship,

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but we were together again

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just before I got on the boat to go to India.

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And I kind of knew that I was pregnant

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or feared that I was.

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I was living in London waiting for my Visa,

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which took a very long time,

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working as a waitress with no money,

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no friends, dark winter days,

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trying to figure out what to do.

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I did not see any way that I could possibly

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give birth to someone else and also give birth to myself.

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It just was impossible.

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So there was not one moment,

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not one millisecond of thinking

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that it would be a good idea to have this child.

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In some ways, ambivalence is a function of legality.

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When it was hard, you were not ambivalent.

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(chuckling) You were desperate.

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I was desperate.

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In London at that time, if you got two physicians

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to say that having a child would endanger your health

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or your mental health, that it was possible

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to get a legal abortion.

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It was not easy, but it was possible.

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I went to this wonderful doctor and he said,

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\"All right,\" he said, \"I\'ll help you.

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\"But you must promise me two things.

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\"You must never tell anyone my name.

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\"And you must promise me to do

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\"what you want to do with your life.\"

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(gentle music)

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I used to sit and think and think and think

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and I could not make myself feel guilty for a moment.

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(laughing) I felt.

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I felt only, I felt as if,

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far from feeling guilty, that was the first time

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I had taken responsibility for my own life.

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It was the first time I hadn\'t been passive.

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That I had said, \"No, I take responsibility for my life.

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\"I am going to make a decision.\"

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And it wasn\'t until I went to cover

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as a journalist myself by then in 1969,

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I think, an abortion hearing

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held by feminists downtown in a church basement.

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When I heard women standing up and saying in public

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what their abortion experience had been for the first time

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that I realized how little I was alone.

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And to this day, I would raise flags

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on all public buildings to celebrate

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the chance that I had to make that decision.

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(gentle upbeat music)

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- I grew up in the late \'50s.

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I was brought up with a very pure idea

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of what a young woman should be.

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I teased boys, I necked with my boyfriend.

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But I was terrified of real sex.

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I was terrified of becoming pregnant.

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It was a stigma that you did not want attached to yourself.

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I was determined to remain a virgin.

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In fact, I remember saying to my mother,

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\"I\'m going to get an apartment in New York.

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\"I\'m gonna have a super job in New York.

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\"I\'m gonna go to Europe.

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\"And I\'m gonna be married a virgin.\"

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So my answer to life was not to have sex with anybody.

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Until I finally did at about age 22.

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The first time.

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No protection.

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But to my horror, I remember I got pregnant

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and didn\'t know what to do about it.

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You occasionally heard stories about somebody

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who had tried to have an abortion

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using a coat hanger and how frightening

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an experience that was.

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But I knew that I had to face having an abortion.

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And just accepting the reality

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that this is what had happened to me was very hard.

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I had a girlfriend who was very sophisticated

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and I went to her and told her I was pregnant

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and she set me up with this doctor.

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As a matter of fact, this was the first time,

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as I can recall, that I\'d even

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been in the gynecological stirrups.

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So I\'m feeling very awkward.

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I remember the doctor grabbed me and made a pass at me

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and I was just totally disgusted at the end of it.

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And just feeling just very vile, horrified.

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And probably rushing out of the room.

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(dramatic music)

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Now Keith was my boss and he was very sympathetic with me.

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I told him that I\'d had this abortion.

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And now that I was no longer a virgin,

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(laughing) he felt that I was safe to date.

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So I started dating him that summer

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and by November, he\'d proposed to me

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and we were making wedding plans

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and I had this diaphragm

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and it was kinda awkward for me to use.

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But he got impatient with me

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that I was not spontaneous enough and so guess what,

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I got pregnant a second time.

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And that was even more horrifying to me,

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that I, that that could happen to me twice.

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And I just knew that going into marriage pregnant,

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I would not have a chance.

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I\'d seen my sisters who were much older than me

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coming home after being married

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with babies and being hectic

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and I just did not wanna start a marriage that way.

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I remember calling my girlfriend

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and she set me up with this doctor up in Harlem.

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He was this very kindly doctor.

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I remember waking up and just crying and crying,

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just this tremendous feeling of relief.

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So then it\'s about a month later.

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I get this ringing on the doorbell

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and I\'m handed a subpoena right at my door.

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And I have to appear at the grand jury that day.

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And I\'m just absolutely bowled over.

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The only thing I can possibly think of

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is that this doctor is being investigated for abortion.

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And my first thought was, \"Oh my god,

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\"I\'m gonna be all over the front pages

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\"of the Daily News and my father\'s

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\"gonna be commuting on the Chappaqua train

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\"and there I\'m gonna be.\"

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And I\'m in a police investigating room

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and this one police woman says to me,

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\"We were tailing this doctor.

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\"He\'s had, he\'s committed many abortions.

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\"And you have committed crime also.\"

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I have no idea how many women

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actually were hauled in that day.

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I know there were a lot.

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Or if there were other days.

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But this was somebody who was

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a practicing gynecologist at Harlem Hospital,

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who obviously was seeing totally different kinds of people,

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some black, some white, young women, older women,

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and he obviously was doing something about it.

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And he was not charging a lot.

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I think all of us when we were there

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and realized that there were others of us

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in the same boat began to talk to each other.

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And we began to share stories.

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For the first time that day, I felt like a normal person.

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That I wasn\'t just a criminal.

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And in fact, that there were other women

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who had gone through the same experience I had gone through.

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It gave me a feeling of strength

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before I went into that courtroom.

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But then when I got into the grand jury,

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they were really trying to intimidate me.

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And I had this red coat on

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and I feel like I have this large scarlet A on me

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because I realized they\'re trying to make this sound sexual.

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Were you wearing clothes?

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I said, \"I was wearing a hospital gown.\"

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\"Just answer the question.\"

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And I managed to say, without being cut off,

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but I really felt that this man was a great hero

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and that he helped many women.

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(poignant music)

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And so I think what I left with was a feeling

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of anything of being indignant

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at the lack of social justice for women.

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(gentle music)

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My mother was also an artist.

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She wanted us to meet at the Guggenheim one day.

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And I think a great deal of my seeing her that day

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was not so much to see artwork.

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I was gonna tell her the story of the abortion

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to my husband, I didn\'t wanna mention the first one.

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So we\'re finally having lunch in the cafeteria.

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And we\'re eating and I said, \"Mother,

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\"there\'s something I really have to tell you.\"

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And she said, \"Well, what is that, dear?\"

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And I said, \"Mother, I\'ve had an abortion.\"

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And my mother just was eating her yolk

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and she said, \"Well, dear, I\'ve had two.

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\"Now let\'s go look at the paintings.\"

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And it was just, it was just such a relief

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that I could tell her and that she could one up me,

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although she didn\'t know, which really

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(laughing) equaled my experience.

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But it was enough to, especially because my mother

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really was such a Puritanical person.

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And I became closer and closer to my mother after that.

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I realized there was nothing I couldn\'t tell my mother.

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(sedate chiming music)

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- My introduction to sexuality was

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a kidnapping and a rape.

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I was 11 years old at the time.

00:17:01.653 --> 00:17:05.157
I was out with a Girl Scout troop at an amusement park.

00:17:05.157 --> 00:17:08.027
Got separated from my troop and so

00:17:08.027 --> 00:17:10.229
as I\'m wandering around this amusement park,

00:17:10.229 --> 00:17:13.766
this guy offered me a ride home and next thing I knew,

00:17:13.766 --> 00:17:16.168
I was taken into some woods and raped.

00:17:19.471 --> 00:17:23.042
And fortunately for me, if there\'s a good side of it,

00:17:23.042 --> 00:17:25.744
he actually delivered me back to my neighborhood.

00:17:26.912 --> 00:17:28.747
I remember really clearly that I had on

00:17:28.747 --> 00:17:32.951
these white blue jeans and they were covered in blood.

00:17:34.386 --> 00:17:38.390
My mother took one look at me and said,

00:17:38.390 --> 00:17:41.160
\"Oh, you started your period.\"

00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:44.296
And as I was trying to explain to her what happened,

00:17:44.296 --> 00:17:47.533
she started berating me about not being with the troop.

00:17:48.500 --> 00:17:51.837
And so I didn\'t tell my mother about the rape

00:17:51.837 --> 00:17:54.940
until three later and what caused me

00:17:54.940 --> 00:17:57.409
to tell her about the rape was that

00:17:58.377 --> 00:18:01.980
I had an older cousin who used to babysit me quite a bit

00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:04.583
and he initiated sexual activity with me.

00:18:04.583 --> 00:18:07.252
He was 27, I was 14.

00:18:07.252 --> 00:18:09.588
And when I became pregnant from that,

00:18:09.588 --> 00:18:11.390
I had to try to explain to my mother

00:18:12.558 --> 00:18:14.560
the whole sexual career such as it was,

00:18:14.560 --> 00:18:16.895
one rape and then incest.

00:18:17.830 --> 00:18:20.833
But she actually started beating me for being pregnant.

00:18:20.833 --> 00:18:23.035
And I remember how painful that was,

00:18:23.035 --> 00:18:24.770
not the beating, but the fact

00:18:24.770 --> 00:18:27.239
that I was being so severely punished

00:18:27.239 --> 00:18:31.910
for being pregnant as a result of incest.

00:18:31.910 --> 00:18:33.612
I think it was because my mother

00:18:33.612 --> 00:18:36.982
was raised by her grandmother, who\'d been a slave.

00:18:36.982 --> 00:18:41.320
And so we had these strong Victorian values

00:18:41.320 --> 00:18:42.888
that dominated our house.

00:18:43.822 --> 00:18:45.757
My mother\'s idea of undergarments

00:18:45.757 --> 00:18:48.961
was like five different things, you know. (laughing)

00:18:48.961 --> 00:18:51.997
And so, I mean, the bra and the panties

00:18:51.997 --> 00:18:54.333
was the least of it in terms of what she thought

00:18:54.333 --> 00:18:56.034
you should put under your clothes.

00:18:57.269 --> 00:18:58.971
We actually explored the option

00:18:58.971 --> 00:19:01.039
of getting an underground abortion

00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:02.241
because we lived in Texas,

00:19:02.241 --> 00:19:03.876
which is very close to Mexico.

00:19:03.876 --> 00:19:06.278
And a lot of girls went across the border

00:19:06.278 --> 00:19:09.715
to get abortions, but a lot of \'em didn\'t come back either.

00:19:09.715 --> 00:19:11.016
And so I had the baby.

00:19:12.050 --> 00:19:15.120
(perky upbeat music)

00:19:25.497 --> 00:19:28.534
I had a scholarship to Radcliffe at the time.

00:19:28.534 --> 00:19:30.502
And that was such a big honor

00:19:30.502 --> 00:19:32.871
\'cause we were the first generation to go to college

00:19:32.871 --> 00:19:34.806
and all of that.

00:19:34.806 --> 00:19:37.543
And after I had the baby, they withdrew their offer

00:19:37.543 --> 00:19:40.112
\'cause I wasn\'t the right moral character for them.

00:19:42.881 --> 00:19:45.851
I got a scholarship to go to Howard University.

00:19:45.851 --> 00:19:48.453
So that\'s how I ended up in Washington, D.C.

00:19:49.755 --> 00:19:52.257
But I was also a different freshman

00:19:52.257 --> 00:19:53.892
\'cause I was also a parent.

00:19:56.962 --> 00:20:00.232
Even though I\'d had a baby, my mother,

00:20:00.232 --> 00:20:03.569
she refused to sign the permission form

00:20:03.569 --> 00:20:05.504
for me to get birth control.

00:20:05.504 --> 00:20:08.207
And so, predictably when I went to college,

00:20:08.207 --> 00:20:11.977
I became pregnant again. (laughing)

00:20:11.977 --> 00:20:14.913
I was not the one to romanticize teen pregnancy.

00:20:14.913 --> 00:20:16.582
I knew its reality already.

00:20:16.582 --> 00:20:18.483
I already had a one-year old.

00:20:18.483 --> 00:20:22.988
I was very clear that this baby I have will have no future

00:20:22.988 --> 00:20:26.692
if I mess around and have a brother and a sister for him.

00:20:26.692 --> 00:20:28.327
(sedate music)

00:20:28.327 --> 00:20:31.363
Where I went to college was one of those rare places

00:20:31.363 --> 00:20:33.865
that legalized abortion before Roe.

00:20:34.766 --> 00:20:36.568
So I was able to have a safe

00:20:36.568 --> 00:20:39.137
and legal hospital-based abortion,

00:20:39.137 --> 00:20:41.406
but I needed my mother\'s consent.

00:20:42.741 --> 00:20:45.244
She saw the pregnancy as a punishment,

00:20:45.244 --> 00:20:48.380
maybe a punishment from God, but at least a punishment

00:20:48.380 --> 00:20:50.215
for breaking her rules.

00:20:50.215 --> 00:20:52.851
And so as a result, she was not

00:20:52.851 --> 00:20:56.221
going to give me her permission to have an abortion.

00:20:56.221 --> 00:21:00.859
And so I ended up forging her signature

00:21:00.859 --> 00:21:02.227
to the consent form

00:21:02.227 --> 00:21:05.163
so I ended up having a very late term abortion

00:21:05.163 --> 00:21:07.499
because of all I had to go through

00:21:07.499 --> 00:21:09.534
to get the consent, get the money.

00:21:10.402 --> 00:21:13.572
I don\'t even know if they do the saline procedure anymore,

00:21:13.572 --> 00:21:17.976
but it\'s where they take this scarily long needle

00:21:17.976 --> 00:21:19.978
and insert it in your stomach

00:21:19.978 --> 00:21:22.648
and shoot some fluid in that actually

00:21:22.648 --> 00:21:24.750
ends up killing the fetus.

00:21:24.750 --> 00:21:28.654
It also induces labor

00:21:29.655 --> 00:21:33.058
so that you actually are like, it\'s like having a baby.

00:21:33.058 --> 00:21:36.662
Only it\'s a baby of an aborted fetus,

00:21:36.662 --> 00:21:38.697
birth through an aborted fetus.

00:21:38.697 --> 00:21:39.531
And

00:21:41.733 --> 00:21:44.002
it was painful.

00:21:44.002 --> 00:21:45.470
It was scary.

00:21:45.470 --> 00:21:49.875
It was by no means a decision anybody makes lightly.

00:22:05.724 --> 00:22:08.960
(flowing upbeat music)

00:22:11.096 --> 00:22:13.765
- When I was about 10 weeks pregnant,

00:22:15.701 --> 00:22:19.438
the editor of the Alligator, which was the newspaper

00:22:19.438 --> 00:22:21.873
of the University of Florida,

00:22:21.873 --> 00:22:24.409
decided that he would break the law and

00:22:24.409 --> 00:22:26.778
print abortion referral information.

00:22:30.482 --> 00:22:32.384
I like got the newspaper

00:22:32.384 --> 00:22:34.720
and I immediately called the number.

00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:36.988
It was like this was heaven sent.

00:22:36.988 --> 00:22:39.157
It was a godsend.

00:22:39.157 --> 00:22:41.460
Kevin wanted to get married,

00:22:41.460 --> 00:22:44.496
but I wasn\'t in love with Kevin really.

00:22:44.496 --> 00:22:47.666
His view was we would drop out of school

00:22:47.666 --> 00:22:50.869
and we would go live with his parents

00:22:50.869 --> 00:22:54.740
and he would work at the Owens Corning Glass factory

00:22:54.740 --> 00:22:56.375
where his father worked.

00:22:56.375 --> 00:22:58.176
And I would stay home with his mother

00:22:58.176 --> 00:22:59.478
and take care of the baby.

00:23:01.012 --> 00:23:03.882
This was his plan, and it was,

00:23:03.882 --> 00:23:07.786
it sends shudders up my spine still to think of it.

00:23:08.954 --> 00:23:11.223
And I learned all about what I had to do.

00:23:11.223 --> 00:23:12.791
I would have to go to New York.

00:23:12.791 --> 00:23:16.928
And I would need, besides the plane fare to get to New York,

00:23:16.928 --> 00:23:19.831
I\'d need $150 for the abortion.

00:23:20.699 --> 00:23:23.268
I was sitting around with my girlfriends in my dorm room

00:23:23.268 --> 00:23:26.772
and said, \"Let\'s put together a petition

00:23:26.772 --> 00:23:29.040
\"and go get people to sign it

00:23:29.040 --> 00:23:31.009
\"and at the same time, ask them to contribute

00:23:31.009 --> 00:23:32.811
\"to my abortion fund.

00:23:32.811 --> 00:23:34.513
\"\'Cause I don\'t see any other way

00:23:34.513 --> 00:23:36.415
\"that I\'m gonna be able to do this.\"

00:23:36.415 --> 00:23:38.483
And I was desperate enough

00:23:39.785 --> 00:23:44.256
and we went out to the quad on a October sunny day

00:23:44.256 --> 00:23:47.125
and I would approach people and say,

00:23:47.125 --> 00:23:48.760
\"I\'m pregnant, I don\'t wanna be.

00:23:48.760 --> 00:23:52.063
\"I\'ve gotta get to New York to get an abortion.

00:23:52.063 --> 00:23:54.232
\"Will you contribute and will you sign this petition

00:23:54.232 --> 00:23:55.734
\"so abortion can be legal?\"

00:23:55.734 --> 00:23:59.704
So we raised about $350 in a couple of days.

00:23:59.704 --> 00:24:01.239
(gentle upbeat music)

00:24:01.239 --> 00:24:03.542
I got on the plane and I got myself to New York.

00:24:03.542 --> 00:24:04.609
I was by myself.

00:24:07.446 --> 00:24:09.147
When I got to the clinic,

00:24:09.147 --> 00:24:13.819
there were probably about 300 women there.

00:24:13.819 --> 00:24:17.222
It\'s like everybody east of the Mississippi

00:24:17.222 --> 00:24:20.091
came to New York for their abortions.

00:24:20.091 --> 00:24:24.129
This was really an abortion mill, frankly.

00:24:24.129 --> 00:24:26.832
It took all of about five minutes.

00:24:26.832 --> 00:24:28.667
It was vacuum aspiration.

00:24:28.667 --> 00:24:33.438
And then get up and walk yourself to the recovery room

00:24:33.438 --> 00:24:36.508
where you sat for 20 minutes.

00:24:36.508 --> 00:24:41.513
And then it was the next woman in the room right behind you.

00:24:41.513 --> 00:24:44.349
I was thrilled, I was so happy.

00:24:44.349 --> 00:24:45.684
I was so relieved.

00:24:45.684 --> 00:24:46.952
It didn\'t hurt.

00:24:46.952 --> 00:24:50.222
Even the cramp didn\'t matter.

00:24:50.222 --> 00:24:53.191
I was so happy to see that blood.

00:24:53.191 --> 00:24:57.496
I felt like my life was beginning over again.

00:24:57.496 --> 00:24:59.764
And I didn\'t really have time to look around,

00:24:59.764 --> 00:25:02.534
but I was still like skipping down the street.

00:25:02.534 --> 00:25:03.869
And the great thing about New York

00:25:03.869 --> 00:25:07.372
is that I could skip down the street and I was singing.

00:25:07.372 --> 00:25:11.343
(joyful flowing music)

00:25:11.343 --> 00:25:16.314
I remember I saw a little baby in a carriage

00:25:16.314 --> 00:25:20.018
and a mom and I thought, \"Oh, I\'m so glad that\'s not me.\"

00:25:21.686 --> 00:25:25.457
And it was just overwhelming relief.

00:25:25.457 --> 00:25:27.592
A sense of overwhelming relief

00:25:27.592 --> 00:25:29.761
that I could go on with my life again.

00:25:50.148 --> 00:25:53.385
(gentle flowing music)

00:25:55.587 --> 00:25:57.522
- I grew up in a Catholic family

00:25:57.522 --> 00:26:00.058
and my parents divorced when I was 10.

00:26:02.627 --> 00:26:05.463
My mother then came out as a lesbian.

00:26:08.433 --> 00:26:11.002
And I think more than anything I just became very angry

00:26:11.002 --> 00:26:13.171
that we didn\'t have this intact family

00:26:13.171 --> 00:26:17.676
or some sense of normalcy that I saw all around me.

00:26:19.744 --> 00:26:23.315
I think that the Catholic religion really appealed to me

00:26:23.315 --> 00:26:25.550
because I was looking for some kind of normalcy

00:26:25.550 --> 00:26:27.352
and it did hold that promise for me.

00:26:29.921 --> 00:26:33.725
(gently flowing music)

00:26:33.725 --> 00:26:35.860
In religion class, they had told us

00:26:35.860 --> 00:26:37.996
that there was a baby shortage

00:26:37.996 --> 00:26:40.231
and that women were waiting,

00:26:40.231 --> 00:26:43.702
women and men were waiting years to adopt children

00:26:43.702 --> 00:26:46.004
while women with unintended pregnancies

00:26:46.004 --> 00:26:49.507
were casually going off and having abortions.

00:26:49.507 --> 00:26:52.310
And there were all of these good Catholic families

00:26:52.310 --> 00:26:54.279
and Christian families that were just

00:26:54.279 --> 00:26:56.748
awaiting these babies with open arms.

00:26:56.748 --> 00:26:59.985
So no pregnancy has to be unwanted.

00:27:01.553 --> 00:27:06.157
I took on a really punishing attitude about abortion.

00:27:08.026 --> 00:27:09.260
I think it was my sophomore year

00:27:09.260 --> 00:27:11.930
I went to peaceful abortion protests.

00:27:11.930 --> 00:27:16.635
We\'d go and hold signs or drop roses in front of a clinic.

00:27:16.635 --> 00:27:18.269
And I really wanted to send a message

00:27:18.269 --> 00:27:20.138
that it was just really a gruesome act

00:27:20.138 --> 00:27:22.507
and it was really about the babies.

00:27:27.612 --> 00:27:31.082
Shortly after I graduated from high school,

00:27:31.082 --> 00:27:33.351
I found out that I was pregnant

00:27:33.351 --> 00:27:37.622
and I was really shocked and ashamed and scared.

00:27:38.623 --> 00:27:39.924
I still believed that it happened

00:27:39.924 --> 00:27:41.993
to a certain type of person

00:27:41.993 --> 00:27:45.397
and I knew that there was no way

00:27:45.397 --> 00:27:46.731
that I could end the pregnancy,

00:27:46.731 --> 00:27:48.099
as tempting as it was.

00:27:49.534 --> 00:27:51.236
(flowing upbeat music)

00:27:51.236 --> 00:27:53.204
I called an agency out east.

00:27:53.204 --> 00:27:56.174
They would take care of expenses such as your housing

00:27:56.174 --> 00:27:57.842
and any schooling that you might need

00:27:57.842 --> 00:28:00.111
and any therapy and really any,

00:28:00.111 --> 00:28:02.313
it was just a very supportive program

00:28:02.313 --> 00:28:04.549
for young women who were going to

00:28:04.549 --> 00:28:07.252
give up the child once it was born.

00:28:08.453 --> 00:28:11.122
I was on my way to school the following year

00:28:11.122 --> 00:28:12.090
at the University of Tennessee

00:28:12.090 --> 00:28:14.659
where I had accepted a cheerleading scholarship.

00:28:14.659 --> 00:28:17.395
I thought I could take some time off

00:28:18.463 --> 00:28:22.033
for a year, come back, and just pick up the poms again

00:28:22.033 --> 00:28:24.202
and nobody would ever have to be any wiser.

00:28:26.705 --> 00:28:28.473
The woman with whom I spoke was great

00:28:28.473 --> 00:28:30.341
and she commended me for my bravery

00:28:30.341 --> 00:28:32.544
and had many, may questions

00:28:32.544 --> 00:28:36.681
about my background and was delighted to hear

00:28:36.681 --> 00:28:38.083
that I was college bound.

00:28:40.251 --> 00:28:44.122
Then it occurred to her to ask questions about my boyfriend.

00:28:45.123 --> 00:28:47.826
She should have been equally as excited to know

00:28:47.826 --> 00:28:52.130
that Dennis, too, came from an upper middle class family.

00:28:52.130 --> 00:28:53.932
He was college bound in the fall.

00:28:53.932 --> 00:28:55.734
He was going to a great school.

00:28:55.734 --> 00:28:59.304
And then she asked about Dennis\' race

00:28:59.304 --> 00:29:02.373
and when I told her, she said,

00:29:03.274 --> 00:29:05.343
\"Oh, I\'m really very sorry,

00:29:05.343 --> 00:29:07.979
\"but our agency can\'t help you.

00:29:07.979 --> 00:29:10.782
\"There just isn\'t a demand for biracial children.\"

00:29:12.117 --> 00:29:15.453
I was devastated, I had no idea.

00:29:19.190 --> 00:29:23.061
They would have you believe that all babies had,

00:29:24.829 --> 00:29:27.499
that equal value and so I think that it was really,

00:29:30.235 --> 00:29:31.703
it was a huge blow.

00:29:31.703 --> 00:29:33.772
I should have been so angry and instead

00:29:33.772 --> 00:29:37.108
I internalized all of that and I felt very ashamed.

00:29:37.108 --> 00:29:39.110
And so no, I didn\'t check.

00:29:39.110 --> 00:29:40.945
I didn\'t go to another place.

00:29:43.448 --> 00:29:47.852
At that point, I decided I have to tell my mother.

00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:52.123
I knew that I was ready to hear what my mother had to say,

00:29:52.123 --> 00:29:53.558
but I didn\'t wanna take responsibility for it

00:29:53.558 --> 00:29:56.194
because I knew that she was probably right.

00:29:56.194 --> 00:29:58.863
And I really wanted somebody else

00:29:58.863 --> 00:29:59.864
to make the decision for me.

00:29:59.864 --> 00:30:03.168
I didn\'t want to own it, because I felt so ashamed.

00:30:05.336 --> 00:30:07.105
And Dennis was going away to school

00:30:07.105 --> 00:30:09.407
and he said, \"I have no business being a father.

00:30:09.407 --> 00:30:11.309
\"I have no desire.

00:30:11.309 --> 00:30:12.911
\"You don\'t have any desire.\"

00:30:14.813 --> 00:30:17.549
So finally the day arrived.

00:30:17.549 --> 00:30:18.850
We were driving up to the clinic

00:30:18.850 --> 00:30:22.253
and my sister said, \"Oh god, don\'t look.\"

00:30:22.253 --> 00:30:27.258
And there was just some crazy protesting going on.

00:30:27.559 --> 00:30:29.661
- [Woman] Jay, jay, jay, jay, jay.

00:30:29.661 --> 00:30:32.230
- There was this man that I\'ll never forget just,

00:30:34.098 --> 00:30:35.433
he looked like a lunatic.

00:30:35.433 --> 00:30:36.434
He was raving.

00:30:36.434 --> 00:30:38.803
He had this baby carriage

00:30:38.803 --> 00:30:41.573
that he as just driving basically back and forth,

00:30:41.573 --> 00:30:43.975
up and down in front of the clinic just yelling.

00:30:45.043 --> 00:30:47.345
And they had us come through the back door

00:30:47.345 --> 00:30:50.782
and there was a woman who was very calm

00:30:50.782 --> 00:30:55.420
and she just held my hand and I just

00:30:55.420 --> 00:30:57.922
don\'t think that I could have made it without her.

00:30:59.824 --> 00:31:01.226
And then the next thing I remember,

00:31:01.226 --> 00:31:04.662
I woke up in the recovery room

00:31:04.662 --> 00:31:08.466
and I felt immensely relieved.

00:31:10.668 --> 00:31:13.004
I wouldn\'t say that I regretted it because

00:31:13.004 --> 00:31:16.474
I don\'t know that I would have done anything differently.

00:31:16.474 --> 00:31:18.743
But at the same time, I had all of this

00:31:19.711 --> 00:31:21.512
rigorous anti-choice education

00:31:21.512 --> 00:31:23.715
that I was still carrying around with me.

00:31:23.715 --> 00:31:25.750
And so I think that I experienced

00:31:25.750 --> 00:31:28.686
a great amount of shame and guilt.

00:31:31.422 --> 00:31:34.259
I got involved with a local church

00:31:34.259 --> 00:31:35.760
where I was babysitting their children

00:31:35.760 --> 00:31:37.095
on Sundays while they went to church

00:31:37.095 --> 00:31:39.597
and I remember thinking, \"You know,

00:31:39.597 --> 00:31:40.865
\"everybody thinks that I\'m so great,

00:31:40.865 --> 00:31:43.968
\"but if they knew, they wouldn\'t want me

00:31:43.968 --> 00:31:45.503
\"to babysit their children.\"

00:31:47.138 --> 00:31:48.373
After that I didn\'t talk about it

00:31:48.373 --> 00:31:50.608
for probably five or six years.

00:31:50.608 --> 00:31:52.844
I think that by not talking about my experience

00:31:52.844 --> 00:31:54.379
for so long, I think that

00:31:56.814 --> 00:32:00.585
the seed, it started out as just this seed of shame

00:32:00.585 --> 00:32:03.788
that just, my silence just provided this

00:32:04.689 --> 00:32:07.959
more and more fertile soil and it just continued to thrive

00:32:07.959 --> 00:32:11.029
and I think that when you talk about these issues,

00:32:12.130 --> 00:32:14.532
then it just, it casts the shame out.

00:32:17.101 --> 00:32:20.338
(gentle flowing music)

00:32:22.440 --> 00:32:25.476
- Abortion raises the life and death issues

00:32:25.476 --> 00:32:28.646
and it raises spiritual issues and ethical issues.

00:32:29.580 --> 00:32:34.385
I was 44 and I had two kids,

00:32:34.385 --> 00:32:37.221
a 10-year old and a one-year old.

00:32:40.158 --> 00:32:41.259
My husband and I both felt

00:32:41.259 --> 00:32:42.794
it would really be incredibly bad

00:32:42.794 --> 00:32:44.462
for our family at that point.

00:32:46.264 --> 00:32:48.599
During the session with the counselor

00:32:48.599 --> 00:32:52.203
I was crying a lot and I was really,

00:32:57.175 --> 00:33:00.211
really trying to make sure it was the right decision.

00:33:00.211 --> 00:33:02.680
I felt very connected to the baby.

00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:03.581
Now that I think of it, I mean,

00:33:03.581 --> 00:33:05.049
I thought of it as a baby and I didn\'t

00:33:05.049 --> 00:33:07.819
think of it as like a fetus or something.

00:33:07.819 --> 00:33:09.287
I had the support of everyone

00:33:09.287 --> 00:33:11.456
and I really knew it was the right thing.

00:33:12.623 --> 00:33:15.660
Even so, afterwards I did feel regret

00:33:15.660 --> 00:33:19.297
and even up until pretty recently,

00:33:19.297 --> 00:33:22.133
I would still get these pangs of regret

00:33:22.133 --> 00:33:23.901
and pangs of sadness

00:33:23.901 --> 00:33:26.137
and that maybe I\'d done the wrong thing.

00:33:27.038 --> 00:33:30.508
The way I reconciled that was that it was a challenge

00:33:30.508 --> 00:33:33.544
to me to become more comfortable with my own power.

00:33:33.544 --> 00:33:36.914
And I do have the power to give life.

00:33:36.914 --> 00:33:39.550
I\'ve had two babies and nursed them for years

00:33:39.550 --> 00:33:41.686
and been a great mother to them.

00:33:41.686 --> 00:33:43.521
And the flip side of that power

00:33:43.521 --> 00:33:45.456
is the power to not give life.

00:33:46.924 --> 00:33:48.026
I\'m not anti-abortion.

00:33:48.026 --> 00:33:49.694
I just think it\'s important to recognize

00:33:49.694 --> 00:33:51.229
that it is taking a life.

00:33:52.163 --> 00:33:54.799
It\'s like a real test for a woman\'s self respect,

00:33:54.799 --> 00:33:56.534
to be able to fully face it

00:33:56.534 --> 00:34:01.372
and say, \"Yes, my life is worth this sacrifice.\"

00:34:02.940 --> 00:34:05.243
It\'s worth the loss to myself, also,

00:34:05.243 --> 00:34:06.944
the loss to my own heart.

00:34:06.944 --> 00:34:09.280
As a mother, of not having mothered that child.

00:34:12.617 --> 00:34:15.887
(gentle flowing music)

00:34:17.588 --> 00:34:19.190
- I grew up in a family.

00:34:19.190 --> 00:34:21.492
I\'m the middle of five children.

00:34:21.492 --> 00:34:22.794
And my family\'s Mormon.

00:34:25.897 --> 00:34:27.932
And my father is a,

00:34:27.932 --> 00:34:32.937
my father is a Marine, Republican, Mormon lawyer.

00:34:36.507 --> 00:34:38.810
But I was raised in church where abortion

00:34:38.810 --> 00:34:42.213
was a horror and something that was not acceptable.

00:34:46.451 --> 00:34:48.419
I was 16.

00:34:48.419 --> 00:34:49.987
It was with my boyfriend.

00:34:51.155 --> 00:34:52.123
And the first time we had sex

00:34:52.123 --> 00:34:54.392
it wasn\'t completely consensual

00:34:54.392 --> 00:34:56.227
and I sort of had this detachment

00:34:56.227 --> 00:34:57.295
for the next couple weeks

00:34:57.295 --> 00:35:00.231
where we had sex a couple more times.

00:35:00.231 --> 00:35:01.999
And I was very passive about it

00:35:01.999 --> 00:35:05.970
and very like traumatized and upset.

00:35:05.970 --> 00:35:07.405
And then later that month,

00:35:09.373 --> 00:35:11.843
my breasts swole up and I just knew.

00:35:11.843 --> 00:35:13.111
I knew immediately.

00:35:15.313 --> 00:35:17.281
I was surrounded by teenage pregnancy

00:35:17.281 --> 00:35:19.050
and I was surrounded by poverty.

00:35:20.785 --> 00:35:23.488
And I\'m the daughter of a teenage mother

00:35:23.488 --> 00:35:25.356
who\'s the daughter of a teenage mother.

00:35:25.356 --> 00:35:27.692
And having happen and having that panic

00:35:27.692 --> 00:35:31.162
of picturing my life.

00:35:34.098 --> 00:35:36.100
I went to my boyfriend\'s house.

00:35:36.100 --> 00:35:38.369
He was already at that point

00:35:38.369 --> 00:35:40.538
had become very detached from the situation

00:35:40.538 --> 00:35:42.974
and was very intently like watching wrestling

00:35:42.974 --> 00:35:44.575
and playing video games and not

00:35:46.110 --> 00:35:48.880
really there, immediately, was detached

00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:50.081
from me as a person.

00:35:53.384 --> 00:35:55.453
I went with my boyfriend and my friend

00:35:55.453 --> 00:35:57.054
to Planned Parenthood.

00:35:57.054 --> 00:35:59.590
I went to a room for pre-abortion counseling,

00:35:59.590 --> 00:36:03.094
which was five quick terse questions.

00:36:03.995 --> 00:36:05.897
I really felt like I was gonna get a half hour

00:36:05.897 --> 00:36:08.266
and I would finally be able to like tell someone

00:36:08.266 --> 00:36:10.635
or talk to someone, I didn\'t get to.

00:36:10.635 --> 00:36:13.171
And then I went in for the procedure

00:36:13.171 --> 00:36:15.740
and the doctor seemed to look me in the eye

00:36:15.740 --> 00:36:20.178
and allow me to talk more than anyone had

00:36:20.178 --> 00:36:22.980
up to the that point and I felt immediately much better.

00:36:24.682 --> 00:36:27.985
My boyfriend, he broke up with me the next day,

00:36:27.985 --> 00:36:31.889
and I was just horrified and traumatized.

00:36:31.889 --> 00:36:34.292
And this is the only person that I felt like I could talk to

00:36:34.292 --> 00:36:37.028
in the world about it who had experienced it with me.

00:36:37.028 --> 00:36:40.264
(gentle flowing music)

00:36:41.566 --> 00:36:42.800
Two weeks after I had my procedure

00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:45.002
I came home from school and my mother

00:36:45.002 --> 00:36:48.306
was holding a letter in the kitchen.

00:36:48.306 --> 00:36:50.341
And she was just shaking.

00:36:51.709 --> 00:36:55.413
And she had this very blank expression on her face.

00:36:55.413 --> 00:36:58.449
And she said, \"Sit the fuck down.

00:36:58.449 --> 00:37:00.351
\"Your dad\'s on his way.\"

00:37:00.351 --> 00:37:02.987
And I was just like, \"If my dad\'s coming home from work,

00:37:02.987 --> 00:37:04.155
\"that\'s a problem.\"

00:37:06.691 --> 00:37:08.092
So I sat down and I was just,

00:37:08.092 --> 00:37:09.393
I was already crying and I was just like,

00:37:09.393 --> 00:37:10.928
\"What, what, what?\"

00:37:11.862 --> 00:37:14.365
And she sort of threw this letter in my lap

00:37:14.365 --> 00:37:16.734
and there was the silhouette of three men

00:37:16.734 --> 00:37:18.135
and it just said \"The Brotherhood\".

00:37:18.135 --> 00:37:20.238
That was the stationery in the corner

00:37:20.238 --> 00:37:24.442
and it said, \"Dear\" my parents names,

00:37:24.442 --> 00:37:25.876
both their full names.

00:37:25.876 --> 00:37:27.912
\"Your daughter Jennifer had an abortion

00:37:27.912 --> 00:37:30.314
\"on April 9th, 1997.

00:37:30.314 --> 00:37:33.884
\"Please let God guide your actions

00:37:33.884 --> 00:37:35.353
\"from this point forward.\"

00:37:35.353 --> 00:37:37.888
Signed, \"The Brotherhood\".

00:37:37.888 --> 00:37:40.157
(gently flowing music)

00:37:40.157 --> 00:37:43.227
And so my mother standing over me while I read this

00:37:43.227 --> 00:37:48.232
and she yells at me, \"Did you do this?\"

00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:50.434
And I said, \"Yes.\"

00:37:52.737 --> 00:37:54.572
And my dad came home about that time.

00:37:56.073 --> 00:38:00.111
And my father is sort of a stern person in our family,

00:38:00.111 --> 00:38:02.380
but he wrapped me up into a little ball

00:38:02.380 --> 00:38:04.915
and he just, I was just sobbing uncontrollably.

00:38:05.883 --> 00:38:07.585
He just held me and said, \"It\'s okay.

00:38:07.585 --> 00:38:09.053
\"It\'s okay, it\'s okay.\"

00:38:11.389 --> 00:38:14.091
Mostly because my mom at that point was attacking me.

00:38:14.091 --> 00:38:17.061
She was just screaming and yelling.

00:38:19.130 --> 00:38:22.700
In a very restrained way, she seemed very shaken

00:38:22.700 --> 00:38:25.002
and horrified and

00:38:26.470 --> 00:38:28.406
\"I can\'t believe you would do this.

00:38:30.274 --> 00:38:32.710
\"You killed your baby.\"

00:38:35.780 --> 00:38:38.382
(gentle flowing music)

00:38:38.382 --> 00:38:41.419
And at the time I\'d been going to the Bible,

00:38:41.419 --> 00:38:42.920
looking up these passages about

00:38:42.920 --> 00:38:45.356
life doesn\'t begin until the quickening.

00:38:46.590 --> 00:38:50.094
And trying to make it make sense to myself.

00:38:50.094 --> 00:38:53.130
Because it didn\'t feel I had aborted a baby.

00:38:53.130 --> 00:38:55.566
But it also didn\'t feel like

00:38:55.566 --> 00:38:57.335
I had done away with nothing.

00:39:00.838 --> 00:39:02.807
And I really wanted from her at that point

00:39:02.807 --> 00:39:05.810
just some sort of recognition.

00:39:08.245 --> 00:39:09.847
My dad was like, \"You should just leave.\"

00:39:09.847 --> 00:39:12.883
And I had never been allowed to leave my house

00:39:12.883 --> 00:39:14.852
without saying where I was going.

00:39:14.852 --> 00:39:17.588
And I was just all of a sudden

00:39:17.588 --> 00:39:21.726
they\'re not caring enough to know where I was going

00:39:21.726 --> 00:39:23.627
and letting me go in that condition,

00:39:23.627 --> 00:39:25.096
asking me to leave the house.

00:39:27.331 --> 00:39:29.800
It was the closest I ever came to suicide.

00:39:29.800 --> 00:39:32.103
I probably, I took a lot of pills.

00:39:32.103 --> 00:39:34.672
I couldn\'t imagine having my mother

00:39:34.672 --> 00:39:36.140
call me a murderer again.

00:39:37.608 --> 00:39:40.111
She didn\'t talk to me very much

00:39:40.111 --> 00:39:42.046
for probably about two or three months.

00:39:43.514 --> 00:39:46.517
I was very determined to get away

00:39:46.517 --> 00:39:48.953
because everything about that place

00:39:48.953 --> 00:39:50.821
was now marked and tainted by this.

00:39:52.656 --> 00:39:54.458
So I sort of pulled my life together

00:39:54.458 --> 00:39:57.261
and only applied for colleges very far away.

00:39:59.130 --> 00:40:00.765
I went to an all women\'s college.

00:40:01.732 --> 00:40:03.868
And it was probably within the first month

00:40:03.868 --> 00:40:05.636
that I was like,

00:40:05.636 --> 00:40:09.006
spilled this sobbing story to someone.

00:40:09.940 --> 00:40:11.542
I assumed telling someone would,

00:40:13.778 --> 00:40:15.813
that they would be as judgmental or as

00:40:17.848 --> 00:40:20.785
disappointed in me as I was in myself

00:40:22.453 --> 00:40:23.721
for getting pregnant.

00:40:24.855 --> 00:40:27.591
But it was, and it was just this amazing thing

00:40:27.591 --> 00:40:28.726
to have someone hug me and be like,

00:40:28.726 --> 00:40:30.561
\"I\'m so sorry you went through that.\"

00:40:31.562 --> 00:40:33.464
But I still didn\'t know how I felt about it.

00:40:33.464 --> 00:40:36.367
And I didn\'t know how I felt about it for a long time.

00:40:39.837 --> 00:40:42.373
And I know now that there are adult women in my life

00:40:42.373 --> 00:40:44.575
that had abortions, but if any of them

00:40:44.575 --> 00:40:46.177
had been open about it, if I could have gone

00:40:46.177 --> 00:40:49.313
to talk to one person who would have experienced it,

00:40:49.313 --> 00:40:51.515
I think it woulda changed the,

00:40:52.416 --> 00:40:57.254
I had years of really hard guilt to get over.

00:40:57.254 --> 00:41:01.192
Because no one I talked to would be open to me about that,

00:41:01.192 --> 00:41:04.128
talking about it would have been enough

00:41:04.128 --> 00:41:05.896
I think to really change it for me.

00:41:13.504 --> 00:41:15.239
- I used to feel like I wouldn\'t,

00:41:15.239 --> 00:41:17.041
if I ever was in the situation,

00:41:17.041 --> 00:41:19.143
like if I ever got pregnant,

00:41:19.143 --> 00:41:22.646
that I always told myself I would never get abortion.

00:41:22.646 --> 00:41:25.783
And, but when it actually happened,

00:41:25.783 --> 00:41:27.818
when I actually found out I was pregnant,

00:41:28.986 --> 00:41:32.022
I was scared and nervous.

00:41:32.022 --> 00:41:33.290
And I didn\'t know what I was gonna do

00:41:33.290 --> 00:41:35.392
\'cause I was kinda young still.

00:41:35.392 --> 00:41:39.296
(singing in foreign language)

00:41:39.296 --> 00:41:41.532
I was scared to tell my mom

00:41:41.532 --> 00:41:42.633
because I know she would just

00:41:42.633 --> 00:41:44.635
be really mad and disappointed.

00:41:46.036 --> 00:41:48.405
My mom was born in Mexico.

00:41:48.405 --> 00:41:50.107
(baby gurgling)

00:41:50.107 --> 00:41:51.575
My dad was born in Mexico.

00:41:51.575 --> 00:41:53.143
So like all their,

00:41:54.912 --> 00:41:56.647
all of their values and stuff,

00:41:56.647 --> 00:41:59.316
it kinda came with us here.

00:41:59.316 --> 00:42:03.120
(singing in foreign language)

00:42:10.227 --> 00:42:13.898
I called my boyfriend up to let him know.

00:42:13.898 --> 00:42:16.200
Basically he didn\'t want anything to do with it.

00:42:16.200 --> 00:42:17.801
That\'s what I was really surprised,

00:42:17.801 --> 00:42:19.904
because if then, if he was already

00:42:19.904 --> 00:42:21.405
showing me that he didn\'t care

00:42:21.405 --> 00:42:24.808
then when I just told him if I was to have the baby,

00:42:24.808 --> 00:42:27.578
it\'s like he didn\'t even wanna be around.

00:42:27.578 --> 00:42:28.846
And that would just be struggling.

00:42:28.846 --> 00:42:30.981
I don\'t think I could handle

00:42:30.981 --> 00:42:34.685
the responsibility right then and there,

00:42:34.685 --> 00:42:36.620
of bringing a kid into this world.

00:42:37.755 --> 00:42:40.558
When I told him that I was gonna get an abortion,

00:42:40.558 --> 00:42:44.895
I said, \"If you could help me pay for at least half of it,\"

00:42:44.895 --> 00:42:47.565
then he was lying that it wasn\'t his.

00:42:47.565 --> 00:42:49.233
So I was like, \"That\'s fine,\"

00:42:49.233 --> 00:42:50.901
\'cause I can do it by myself, so.

00:42:51.735 --> 00:42:55.806
When we got there, there was people outside protesting

00:42:55.806 --> 00:42:58.008
and just yelling stuff at me

00:42:58.008 --> 00:42:59.443
and my sister and my friend.

00:42:59.443 --> 00:43:01.178
Like, \"Don\'t do it, don\'t do it.

00:43:01.178 --> 00:43:03.981
\"Don\'t do that to that poor child.

00:43:03.981 --> 00:43:05.849
\"I\'ll adopt your baby.\"

00:43:10.988 --> 00:43:12.389
It ran through my mind,

00:43:12.389 --> 00:43:14.091
I didn\'t tell my sisters or nothing

00:43:14.091 --> 00:43:15.826
but I was just like, \"Oh my gosh,

00:43:15.826 --> 00:43:17.494
\"am I doing the right thing?\"

00:43:18.596 --> 00:43:21.131
You just get scared because you

00:43:21.131 --> 00:43:24.602
have somebody telling you not to do something,

00:43:24.602 --> 00:43:28.105
but it\'s your own body, you have to make up your own mind.

00:43:29.239 --> 00:43:31.275
After I walked into the building,

00:43:31.275 --> 00:43:34.044
it was like, it was okay after that.

00:43:35.279 --> 00:43:37.081
I never told my mom.

00:43:37.081 --> 00:43:39.950
I kinda wanted to tell her, but I was just scared

00:43:39.950 --> 00:43:42.686
because I didn\'t wanna be yelled at the whole time.

00:43:43.554 --> 00:43:45.589
I told some of my friends.

00:43:45.589 --> 00:43:46.690
I just wanted to let them know

00:43:46.690 --> 00:43:48.792
that stuff like that really happens.

00:43:48.792 --> 00:43:50.160
\'Cause most of the time you just go,

00:43:50.160 --> 00:43:52.630
\"Oh, that\'ll never happen to me.\"

00:43:52.630 --> 00:43:54.465
(gentle flowing music)

00:43:54.465 --> 00:43:56.133
The second time that I got pregnant,

00:43:56.133 --> 00:43:59.470
I just thought maybe I was more ready

00:43:59.470 --> 00:44:03.273
to take care of the responsibility than I was back then.

00:44:03.273 --> 00:44:05.976
♪ I will lean into you ♪

00:44:05.976 --> 00:44:10.314
♪ You can be the the wind ♪

00:44:10.314 --> 00:44:11.482
- I like having her around.

00:44:11.482 --> 00:44:14.284
She\'s a lotta work, but I mean, you know.

00:44:14.284 --> 00:44:17.921
It\'s the decision I made, so I\'m just gonna,

00:44:17.921 --> 00:44:19.356
can\'t do nothing but deal with it

00:44:19.356 --> 00:44:22.559
and I\'m the only person she has to take care of her, so.

00:44:22.559 --> 00:44:24.061
♪ Lean into me ♪

00:44:24.061 --> 00:44:28.766
- I work just cleaning a building, doing maintenance.

00:44:30.968 --> 00:44:32.636
I\'ll be the deck of my support,

00:44:32.636 --> 00:44:35.272
me and her for the rest of our lives.

00:44:35.272 --> 00:44:38.108
So, I wanna go back to school eventually.

00:44:38.108 --> 00:44:40.711
I just have to put it on pause for now.

00:44:40.711 --> 00:44:41.545
- [Woman] Sandy.

00:44:43.213 --> 00:44:45.949
- I think that both me and my mom,

00:44:45.949 --> 00:44:48.152
we really didn\'t have that bond.

00:44:48.152 --> 00:44:52.523
I couldn\'t talk to her about sex or babies,

00:44:52.523 --> 00:44:55.159
\'cause to her it was just like no, that\'s it.

00:44:55.159 --> 00:44:58.662
And that\'s the end of it for conversation.

00:44:58.662 --> 00:45:00.330
I\'m not gonna be this way with her.

00:45:00.330 --> 00:45:04.268
I want her to feel comfortable with me,

00:45:04.268 --> 00:45:06.403
to let me know what\'s going on in her life.

00:45:07.571 --> 00:45:09.707
And I\'m never gonna tell her,

00:45:09.707 --> 00:45:11.709
\"No, don\'t do that \'cause it\'s not right.\"

00:45:11.709 --> 00:45:14.912
It\'s her body, she\'s gonna make her own decisions.

00:45:22.086 --> 00:45:24.555
- I was a sophomore in college

00:45:24.555 --> 00:45:27.925
and I was in a relationship

00:45:27.925 --> 00:45:31.061
which was very isolating.

00:45:32.663 --> 00:45:35.632
He would try to pull me away from my friends

00:45:35.632 --> 00:45:38.202
and pull me away from my family

00:45:38.202 --> 00:45:40.938
and I became sexually abusive.

00:45:43.407 --> 00:45:46.343
(gentle flowing music)

00:45:46.343 --> 00:45:48.645
I grew up with a single mom

00:45:48.645 --> 00:45:50.681
and she\'s always been pro-choice.

00:45:52.549 --> 00:45:54.852
But I didn\'t tell my mother

00:45:54.852 --> 00:45:58.522
until I was having the abortion,

00:45:58.522 --> 00:46:00.090
not because I feel like she\'ll say,

00:46:00.090 --> 00:46:01.625
\"Oh, you\'re doing something wrong

00:46:01.625 --> 00:46:03.994
\"or you should feel guilty for it.\"

00:46:03.994 --> 00:46:05.963
but I don\'t wanna hear her say,

00:46:05.963 --> 00:46:08.966
\"Oh, you screwed up, oh, good job.

00:46:08.966 --> 00:46:10.734
\"Be more careful next time.\"

00:46:11.702 --> 00:46:14.638
I went to the doctor\'s office

00:46:14.638 --> 00:46:16.273
and I got this big shot.

00:46:16.273 --> 00:46:19.042
And then you go home and you,

00:46:20.577 --> 00:46:23.347
you insert four suppositories

00:46:23.347 --> 00:46:28.118
and it induces, I guess they\'re contractions.

00:46:28.118 --> 00:46:31.722
But it expels the mass of cells or whatever.

00:46:34.558 --> 00:46:36.093
I was just lying on my bed

00:46:36.093 --> 00:46:39.096
and then the cramping came on

00:46:39.096 --> 00:46:42.065
and it was so painful.

00:46:44.401 --> 00:46:46.970
I just felt so alone and I didn\'t know what to do.

00:46:48.172 --> 00:46:49.439
Then I called my mother.

00:46:50.741 --> 00:46:54.378
She left the dinner she was sitting at with a friend

00:46:54.378 --> 00:46:56.146
to come and help me.

00:46:57.047 --> 00:46:59.817
And she said, \"A\'yen, you need to know

00:46:59.817 --> 00:47:01.451
\"that you can always tell me this

00:47:02.786 --> 00:47:05.455
\"as soon as you know and I\'m gonna be there for you.\"

00:47:07.491 --> 00:47:09.026
(flowing upbeat music)

00:47:09.026 --> 00:47:10.727
I\'m one of the leaders of this

00:47:10.727 --> 00:47:12.729
big students for choice club.

00:47:12.729 --> 00:47:16.133
I didn\'t feel like I could just tell people

00:47:16.133 --> 00:47:17.935
and it seemed so ridiculous.

00:47:17.935 --> 00:47:20.170
People are willing to put up flyers

00:47:20.170 --> 00:47:23.473
and to to the march and come escorting with us

00:47:23.473 --> 00:47:25.342
and all those things, but they don\'t,

00:47:26.276 --> 00:47:29.813
the air of openness that I sort of expect

00:47:29.813 --> 00:47:31.582
isn\'t really there.

00:47:32.950 --> 00:47:36.186
I think it was two weeks later there was this speak-out.

00:47:37.588 --> 00:47:40.691
The speak-out was this amazing event

00:47:40.691 --> 00:47:42.459
and there were women who were telling all these stories

00:47:42.459 --> 00:47:45.062
about having abortions before it was legal,

00:47:45.062 --> 00:47:47.531
coat hanger abortions, and these

00:47:47.531 --> 00:47:52.536
incredibly traumatic experiences that they had gone through.

00:47:53.537 --> 00:47:55.672
It was definitely a really empowering,

00:47:55.672 --> 00:47:58.075
really empowering experience.

00:47:58.075 --> 00:48:01.078
And it was sort of an emotional break for me

00:48:01.078 --> 00:48:06.083
to feel like, \"Okay, I\'m finally bringing it out there.\"

00:48:06.917 --> 00:48:09.987
Where I\'d been sort of afraid.

00:48:09.987 --> 00:48:13.323
It\'s an intimidating thing to say to another person.

00:48:13.323 --> 00:48:16.827
But I can\'t say that it changed everything,

00:48:16.827 --> 00:48:19.529
because I still feel like there\'s a

00:48:19.529 --> 00:48:21.265
sorta wall of silence around it.

00:48:22.399 --> 00:48:24.301
♪ I find out you were ♪

00:48:24.301 --> 00:48:26.103
- And now that I\'ve had an abortion,

00:48:27.404 --> 00:48:29.373
I feel like it\'s incredibly important

00:48:29.373 --> 00:48:31.174
for me to be able to speak about it

00:48:31.174 --> 00:48:32.809
and for me to encourage the people around me

00:48:32.809 --> 00:48:35.112
to feel comfortable to speak about it.

00:48:44.588 --> 00:48:45.422
(gently flowing music)

00:48:45.422 --> 00:48:46.757
- My name is Sherlamede Korneg.

00:48:46.757 --> 00:48:48.659
I had an abortion in 1950.

00:48:48.659 --> 00:48:52.095
- My name is Sebastiana and I had an abortion in 2000.

00:48:52.095 --> 00:48:55.399
- My name is Ingrid Tischer and I had an abortion.

00:48:55.399 --> 00:48:57.935
- I had an abortion in 1973.

00:48:57.935 --> 00:49:01.004
- And I had an abortion in 1960.

00:49:01.004 --> 00:49:03.573
- I had an abortion in 1939.

00:49:03.573 --> 00:49:05.208
- I had an abortion.

00:49:05.208 --> 00:49:06.610
- And I had an abortion.

00:49:06.610 --> 00:49:07.678
- I had an abortion.

00:49:07.678 --> 00:49:09.947
- And I\'ve had three abortions.

00:49:09.947 --> 00:49:11.014
- I had an abortion.

00:49:11.014 --> 00:49:12.883
- And I had an abortion.

00:49:12.883 --> 00:49:14.051
- I had an abortion.

00:49:14.051 --> 00:49:15.519
- I\'ve had two abortions.

00:49:15.519 --> 00:49:16.787
- I had an abortion.

00:49:16.787 --> 00:49:18.155
- I had an abortion.

00:49:18.155 --> 00:49:19.489
- I had one abortion.

00:49:19.489 --> 00:49:21.124
- And I had an abortion.

00:49:21.124 --> 00:49:23.193
- I had two abortions.

00:49:23.193 --> 00:49:25.595
- I had an abortion in 1988.

00:49:25.595 --> 00:49:30.600
♪ On election day ♪

00:49:31.735 --> 00:49:36.740
♪ What is it about, Birmingham ♪

00:49:37.975 --> 00:49:41.645
♪ What is it about, Buffalo ♪

00:49:41.645 --> 00:49:45.515
- You know, the best counter to the anti-abortion movement

00:49:46.616 --> 00:49:49.052
is the truth, is just doing what we\'re doing now.

00:49:49.052 --> 00:49:52.956
Individual women and men telling the truth

00:49:52.956 --> 00:49:55.392
about what has happened to them.

00:49:56.626 --> 00:50:00.230
♪ Closed the curtains ♪

00:50:00.230 --> 00:50:01.865
♪ In this little booth ♪

00:50:01.865 --> 00:50:06.069
♪ Where the truth has no place to stand ♪

00:50:06.069 --> 00:50:11.074
♪ And I am feeling oh so powerless ♪

00:50:11.341 --> 00:50:12.776
♪ In this stupid booth ♪

00:50:12.776 --> 00:50:17.681
♪ With this useless little lever in my hand ♪

00:50:17.681 --> 00:50:19.383
♪ And outside ♪

00:50:19.383 --> 00:50:21.685
♪ My city is bracing ♪

00:50:21.685 --> 00:50:24.488
♪ For the next killing thing ♪

00:50:24.488 --> 00:50:26.256
♪ Standing by the bridge ♪

00:50:26.256 --> 00:50:29.059
♪ And praying for the next ♪

00:50:29.059 --> 00:50:32.729
♪ Doctor Martin Luther King ♪

00:50:44.441 --> 00:50:49.446
♪ It was just one shot ♪

00:50:50.380 --> 00:50:55.385
♪ Through the kitchen window ♪

00:50:56.186 --> 00:51:01.191
♪ It was just one or two miles from here ♪

00:51:01.558 --> 00:51:06.563
♪ If you fly like a crow ♪

00:51:08.665 --> 00:51:13.036
♪ A bullet came to visit a doctor ♪

00:51:13.036 --> 00:51:18.041
♪ In his one safe place ♪

00:51:20.343 --> 00:51:22.946
♪ A bullet ensuring the right to life ♪

00:51:22.946 --> 00:51:25.982
♪ Whizzed past his kid and his wife ♪

00:51:25.982 --> 00:51:28.819
♪ And knocked his ♪