A friend of mine needed an abortion recently and I supported them throughout the experience.

I have supported a few people through this experience during my life, but I am fortunate that I have never had to have an abortion, or even a miscarriage. My friend who needed the ‘procedure’ shares my wonder and delight in pregnancy and babies, so it was a difficult choice and a wrenching experience.

But the abortion, or as it was referred to throughout, the ‘procedure’, was everything I would have dreamed for as a young woman. The path to the abortion was fast, free, and private. They offered counseling and confirmed that the abortion was the patient’s choice. It was kind, gentle and pain free. There were no placard waving protestors at the doorway, as there were in my day in Toronto. There was no delay in access, prolonging the nausea and anxiety while waiting for the procedure.  

In my youth, access to abortions was not easy. While the woman was waiting for doctors’ approval or finding a way to travel to other cities and provinces, weeks went by making the planned abortion progressively more painful and difficult. Was that done on purpose to give women a chance to re-think?  Possibly, and maybe some women changed their minds. But for those women who were confident that their difficult choice was the right one, the wait made the procedure even more torturous.

I never volunteered at the clinics, as some of my student friends did, and as I said, I have limited experience with abortions. But I do know that there are as many different reasons for an abortion as there are different types of women. The person I supported this time was young and just making the rent working fulltime at a low wage. And there was no lasting relationship with the carrier of the sperm, who was also not set up to look after a child.

This was a classic case of helping a mother out. But even so, in the back of my mind I was thinking of ways to support the person to have the baby. It could have been done, it wasn’t impossible, but it would have taken a huge compromise and a massive life change. The young person would have had to turn in their dreams of independence and career ambitions and put the baby first.

In the two other times I supported someone who needed to terminate a pregnancy, the women were older and much better placed to maintain a healthy pregnancy and care for a child. The first time was when I was in my mid twenties and I helped an older friend travel to the U.S. to a private abortion clinic. At first, I was unquestioning in my support, but when she revealed to me that she had purposely tried to get pregnant just to see if she could, I did quietly lose respect for her.  

In the other situation I supported a woman who wanted to have a late term abortion because was sick with anxiety, self medicating and unlikely to stay with the man who was the father. To be honest, I doubt she was putting any value on my advice, but I still feel bad about offering any opinion at all. I was too young to know how the birth of a baby can give joy, strength and direction to a woman’s life. And I certainly did not know that she would never be able to keep a pregnancy afterwards.

I have always assumed that all women felt as emotionally wrought by the concept of an abortion as I do, but I am seemingly wrong about that. We are all different and some women are unfazed by sentimental thoughts or religious qualms. After years of believing that no woman would ever voluntarily choose abortion as a form of contraception, I had my moral centre shaken by a conversation with an ultrasound technician.

While having an ultrasound on my abdomen, I took the opportunity to chat with the ultrasound technician. During the conversation I learned that much of her work was taken up with pre-abortion ultrasounds. Suddenly her job seemed like a nightmare to me, but it got worse; she told me that she had repeat customers. I was aghast. Hearing this report from someone who worked in the trenches was so alarming I have never forgotten my shock. How could I have believed something so firmly, but be so wrong? As I age, I am coming across more of these experiences! But this was my first unsettling recalculation.

I did have another opinion as a young woman that still holds true now that I am in my sixties. I believed that much of the emotional and moral pain surrounding an abortion would be reduced if the woman could have a termination as soon as possible. With an early D&C, a procedure that cleans out your womb, an abortion is essentially the same as a heavy period. That’s what I wanted for women. A fast and self-directed system with a minimum of anxiety and less chance of harm down to the uterus.  

My expectation that quick access to an abortion would reduce both spiritual and physical pain was proven true by my friend’s experience. She was relieved to deal with the traumatic procedure as quickly as possible, both to free herself from intense all-day nausea and to put a decisive end to the anxious ruminations about future possibilities and responsibilities.  

I was allowed to support my friend during the ultrasound, and I entered the quiet grey room with some trepidation. How many weeks made a recognizable fetus? I didn’t know. I sat where I could see the screen and said nothing to alarm the patient. I saw a dark circle with one tiny white speck in it. I wanted to ask, is that white speck, is that a spark of life? But, of course, I did not.  The technician took a lot of time, swirling around, circling around the dark circle, looking at it from every angle. But it was only ever a circle.  

I was incredibly relieved that there was no brain, no spine, no legs, no body. As I quietly watched the screen the black circle began to remind me of the eclipse that I had recently viewed, alone in the woods. The black circle reminded me of the sun, dark black, with a mane of fire flickering around the circumference. Two black holes: the eclipse, a black circle surrounded by fire, appearing angry and judgmental, in comparison with the black ball of life floating in the womb, quiet and peaceful, the potential of a whole life held in that small speck of white light.  

I am such a fan of pregnancy and babies that as soon as I read the word ‘pregnant’ in the text from my friend, my first instinct was to be excited. I felt a sudden desire to make a nest, to protect and nurture, and to put this developing baby’s life before all else. Nothing else mattered. The joy of a coming life superseded future judgment from society, personal artistic or practical aspirations, and even sensible questions about upcoming costs, housing or finances.

But that’s just me. I find real life a bit tedious and the magic of birth, infants and children does more than brighten the day, it gives life meaning. In my heart and psyche, I have trouble prioritizing anything other than the loving care of infants and children. It seems to me to be the highest vocation.  

I am offering no solutions to this conundrum or my contradictory feelings. Although I am in awe of the preciousness of life, I am also practical. We must acknowledge the precariousness of women’s lives in a man’s world, and we cannot trust any government to wield the ultimate power over women’s bodies. Women must have bodily autonomy and the freedom to choose when they have a baby.

We have worked hard to lessen the stress and anxiety around abortion, to offer help and counseling along the way and to make the intervention free and fast. I am impressed with our progress and I am happy to support women in their desire to control their lives.

But in stressing that there is no shame in getting an abortion, we may have thoughtlessly taught our young people to see abortion in the same way they might a tooth extraction. Can we back up a little?

Can we distinguish the difference between a dark circle of potential and a second trimester fetus? Where and when do we set the line?

In our desire to protect women from being dominated by their reproductive system, did we throw the baby out with the bathwater? Is the dehumanizing of the human fetus corollary damage in our pursuit of freedom?

I don’t have the answer.

But I do know that times are hard right now, stressful and financially insecure. I just hope that the young mother who was at the clinic with my friend, who had an 18-month-old child waiting for her after the termination, was not choosing to end her pregnancy because of the cost of her rent and her fear of not being about to afford groceries.