Behind Every Choice Is a Story

Chapter Ten: Rights v. access

142 • Personally political Chapter Ten Rights v. access A three-hour drive My mother, who had an abortion in 1976, assumed that abortion would remain safe and legal forever. She experienced a rude awakening when I came home from college for summer break in 1998 asking for her help as I faced an unplanned pregnancy . As she searched for an abortion provider, she realized the damage that abortion rights had suffered since her youth. While we traveled three hours to another state to access a provider , she apologized for her generation’s complacency concerning reproductive rights. I may have a daughter someday, and I never want to have that conversation with her. Not that I would be devastated if she found herself pregnant and considering abortion, just like her mother and grandmother had many years ago. I simply could not watch her struggle to find a provider in another state. I will not watch the complacency of my generation allow abortion rights to disappear completely. —Susan, age twenty-three Rights vs. access • 143 I hope this writer’s commitment continues, because the reproductive rights and health movement needs her passion and her advocacy. She understands what so many others who think we can’t go back to the bad old days don’t yet get: the bad old days are here. Rights without access are meaningless All right, Roe v. Wade hasn’t been overturned; abortion isn’t illegal . Griswold v. Connecticut, which legalized birth control and established the precedent of a right to privacy in reproductive decisions, stands. But our state and federal lawmakers, our courts, and our society’s lack of respect for women and children have ensured that many of us do not have the information, resources, or access to make those rights real. And rights without access are meaningless. If present trends continue , “Access Denied” may as well be stamped on the door of reproductive health centers. If you’re poor, or young, or are in the military, or live in rural America, you technically have the right to a legal abortion. But you’ll have to climb over barriers of distance, judicial review, transportation, money, waiting periods, mandated biased propaganda that encourages childbirth over abortion, and more to try to get one. The result might be a more expensive, more difficult, delayed abortion or one like Becky Bell’s, the Indiana teen whose death is a chilling reminder of life before Roe v. Wade. For military women, or dependents, it could mean an abortion in a foreign hospital in a foreign country because the medical facilities on U.S. bases can’t do abortions, even if you pay for it yourself. And what if you’re stationed in a country where, unlike the country you are putting your life on the line to serve, abortion is illegal? If your employer pays your medical bills, you may have to pay out of pocket for contraceptives like Jennifer Erickson used to have to do, before her successful lawsuit; like Elizabeth Dole might have to were she of childbearing age, while Bob gets his Viagra for free. If your pharmacist sees fit to judge your choices, your prescription for 144 • Personally political emergency contraception might not be filled. If the only hospital in your rural town just merged into a Catholic system, your tubal ligation , or other emergency medical needs may be a three-hour drive away. A lot of doctors will not prescribe ECP [emergency contraception pills], and they may not understand your situation and they don’t really want to. —Randi, age twenty-three At the age of seventeen, I was raped by my neighbor. My immediate feelings were of such numbness, and fear that I wasn’t thinking straight and I couldn’t even think of what to do. My friend encouraged me to go to Student Health for the morning -after pill and I did first thing Monday morning. Even though the doctor looked at me like an irresponsible college girl sleeping around and needing emergency contraception because I couldn’t yet speak about what had happened to me, having access to the pill saved my life. I don’t know what I would have done if I had become pregnant with my rapist’s baby. I was in such shock and fear that I don’t know what I would have done to myself if I had become pregnant. —Sunitra, age...