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33 4 Consequences of Unsafe Abortion Roberta was a very pretty girl, the younger of two daughters of a hard-working man who owned a modest car repair shop in a working-class neighborhood of a large city. Although her mother, a housewife, was almost completely illiterate, both of Roberta’s parents wanted a better life for their two daughters and were committed to providing them with the best possible education. When Roberta was fifteen years old, her eighteen-year-old sister became pregnant by her boyfriend, who was the same age. Her father was furious and rapidly arranged for the wedding before the pregnancy became physically evident. The parents of the boy were equally committed to keeping up appearances and were completely in favor of the marriage. Because Roberta and her sister shared a room, and the boy was an only child and had more space at his home than Roberta’s sister, the new couple decided to live with the boy’s family. Roberta’s sister left school and gave birth to the baby, but less than a year later—unable to tolerate her mother-in-law’s continuous recriminations and her husband’s indifference and verbal abuse—she returned to her parents’ home. Although her mother and father occasionally reminded her of her indiscretion, they also treated the baby and her with love and compassion. Still, her old life of school, friends, and occasional parties was gone forever. This was a lesson for Roberta, who promised herself that she would never make the same mistake as her sister. She had no idea, however, that she was about to fall in love. Ricardo was sweet and tender. He made her feel important, beautiful, and loved, and Roberta would do anything for him. Although she had promised herself that she would abstain from sex, one summer afternoon Roberta and Ricardo went hiking on a nearby mountain and stopped to rest 34 The Human Drama of Abortion in a beautiful, rather secluded spot. Their mutual caresses became increasingly intimate, and they ended up making love, both for the first time. Although Roberta did not have an orgasm, she loved the pleasure she was able to give Ricardo and the feeling of the most intimate union of their bodies and souls. In the weekends that followed, she could not stop herself from repeating the act over and over again. Roberta tried to avoid making love during her fertile period, but she wasn’t sure when it was and it was hard to curb their passion. Inevitably, Roberta became pregnant, but she knew that she could not repeat her sister’s experience. She knew that neither her parents nor her boyfriend’s parents would be able to tolerate the situation, and she did not want to give her parents, who had already suffered enough, another cause for worry. She decided not even to tell her boyfriend; instead she asked around until she found a woman who would perform an inexpensive abortion. The procedure was extremely painful. Roberta left the abortionist’s house bleeding heavily, and when she got home, she closed herself in her room, saying that she had a bad stomachache, and tried to avoid her mother’s sharp eye. But Roberta continued to bleed and had such severe abdominal pain that her sister finally noticed and went to their mother for help. When they got Roberta to the hospital, she was already very anemic. She had a perforated uterus that required emergency surgery. Despite the infection, the surgeon preserved Roberta’s uterus in consideration of her age, in the hope that she would recover. She remained in the intensive care unit for a few days, receiving several blood transfusions and continuous intravenous antibiotics. In a week, she was transferred to the abortion ward. There some very nice women volunteers talked to her about the dangers of abortion and the different methods of contraception. Roberta liked their company and their cheerful manner, but she paid little attention to what they were saying. She was nearly seventeen years old and had already decided that she would never, ever have sex again. Ricardo had disappeared with no explanation and Roberta vowed never to fall in love again. Her parents had been most understanding, and she did not want to disappoint them. As the reader may already have imagined, less than a year later, in spite of her best intentions, Roberta fell in love again, and the story repeated itself almost exactly. This time...

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