If given the choice between this and living like a feral animal…whoo, that’s a toughie. Especially since it’s been 33 years since I gave birth.
All I know is that if I had a daughter or knew someone that wanted to keep their baby and asked me to help them somehow, or if they wanted to get an abortion and asked me to help them somehow, I’d do the same thing: I’d discuss it with them as objectively as possible and then as subjectively as possible to try and help them reach the decision that is best for them and their embryo/fetus. Not what’s best for me or for their family and friends, or for the government, or their church.
Addendum: It still freaks me out that my own dad took me to get my abortion. shakes head
It’s easy to lull yourself into the false belief that a reversion to life pre- Roe would simply mean that the reproductive freedom movement needs to redouble efforts to fund and transport persons needing abortions to more hospitable states. That would be awful, we think, but maybe not that catastrophically bad. But as Goldberg warned in 2019 , “ the past can prove inadequate to understanding the depredations of the present.” We are not in fact moving “backward” to life before Roe. We are more likely moving sideways into a fundamentalist religious regime in which life pre- Roe will come to look like a vastly less terrifying option than a world in which women are subject to revanchist religious claims—claims with no support whatsoever in the Constitution—about the lives they may carry, the unknown crimes they may commit, and the choices they are no longer permitted to make.
Still, we don’t know what happens till it happens and all the doom and gloom and sunshine and flowers about the future isn’t going to change that fact. (But I have to say I love that writer’s name - Dahlia Lithwick. I immediately pictured a detective, kind of a flapper-type, created by none other than Dame Agatha Christie, and portrayed by Jean Simmons.)
I’m very grateful that, to the best of my knowledge, my mother wasn’t persecuted for having four miscarriages in the 1950s. And I’d probably be wealthier than I am now if she’d known enough to sue the doctors who put her on the Pill in 1963 when she was pregnant - did they not do pregnancy tests when a woman was having heavy bleeding, they just thought it was a hormonal dysfunction without that?
But Mom was probably very depressed due to the hormone fluxes she experienced, and possibly, and didn’t want to cause any trouble. SIGH.
Also, I move that the word “abortion” not be used to describe bad movies and the like, as there are plenty of other adjectives available for that purpose.
FWIW, a history of miscarriages and then heavy bleeding means it’s highly likely that she was in the process of another miscarriage, so at least the doctor at the time probably didn’t cause a miscarriage that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
For her last miscarriage, the one in 1963, I do know that the fetus was old enough for her to tell its sex (I’ve blocked which one, tbh). She and the doctors thought she was just having heavy periods. In 1962, she’d had an oophorectomy (left side) because she had a “chocolate” ovary (now known as a form of endometriosis), so I think that explains the first four mcs (one w/her 1st husband in 1948 or '49, three w/my dad; then, my brother to term in 11/1957) were due to that. So her last miscarried child and myself were both conceived with eggs from her right-side ovary, I know that much. And from what I know of her seven sisters, one had a tilted uterus and miscarried twins & had one to term; one was infertile; and the other five had more than two kids each but I don’t know if they’d had miscarriages or if her mom did. As to my dad’s female relatives, that’s murky & nearly-unknown territory.
Breakthrough bleeding isn’t abnormal in the first trimester of pregnancy, depending on the heaviness and the length of time of the flow. Now and when I was younger, yeah - it was SP to have a woman take a pregnancy test when any plumbing issues are going on & the woman has a past history of miscarriage. But apparently, it wasn’t back then; I can’t remember her not telling me that they’d done a test & it came up positive and they gave her the Pill anyways. The gist of it was, she was bleeding too much, so they put her on the Pill.
Period (couldn’t resist the pun). Didn’t the trials on the women in PR indicate that oops, don’t take it if yer pregnant?
I think she had the same issue w/her pregnancy with me (she’d turned 38 in July 1964). And my dad had her working (desk job but still!) till her 8th month (and I was a 10.5 month baby). I had some bleeding in my 1st trimester, but I don’t remember it being a big issue. And of course, every woman’s body chemistry is similar but different.
There’s so much to unpack here… misogynistic attitudes toward working women, a typical mansplaining “expert”-in-his-own-mind giving unasked-for “advice”… but I’m also sharing because I love Emily’s beautiful art. I’m always fascinated by her skills at painting and storytelling.
Ramona Fradon and Lynda Barry would say, “Uhhhh…NO!”, I think.
Even my dad never once said I couldn’t be an artist because I was a girl.
Addendum: I’m like John Waters; I don’t want any assholes in my life, and that guy Arnold fits the description; I can’t even listen to her using his words, because I’ve heard similar so many times before and the fact this shit just keeps going on doesn’t help my IBS one bit.
Princess Basma bint Saud was detained in March 2019 as she prepared to fly to Switzerland for medical treatment. It is not known why she was detained, and neither she nor her daughter Suhoud were charged with any crime. Some have speculated it may have been related to her advocacy on humanitarian issues and constitutional reform.
Of course, this is a couple of decades after this one:
Addendum: I remember when the worst thing a mom could do would be to acknowledge that one was their child, all while wearing wire curlers covered with a brightly-colored scarf. Nothing more embarrassing than that.
)
