I have a strong aversion to the term “abortion clinic.” While, yes, places like Planned Parenthood do perform abortions it's been widely reported (and widely ignored by mainstream right-wing media sources) that most of what these kinds of clinics do for women is provide other services. I've spoken to a number of my more conservative friends and many of them have the same erroneous talking points. They act as though they know what goes on, but nary a one has ever stepped foot in a women's clinic of any kind. Save for some of the women I know that have children and have been to the gynocologist, which is sort of the same thing but not entirely. In any case, I listen to them and I feel like they've been terribly misled; they read something on Breitbart or The Blaze or saw something on Fox News about the evils of these so-called “abortion clinics” and they believe it without question, conversation, research or critical thought.
As an individual that has patronized Planned Parenthood and another non-affiliated women's clinic in the greater Seattle area, I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight to the best of my ability, because this anti-choice rhetoric is really pissing me off. It's like when anti-choicers call people that are pro-choice “pro-abortion.” It only serves to vilify people that think differently and to get folks all fired up on their “moral” crusades. I'm all on board with having an open conversation, but when the language becomes incendiary like that the walls go up and nothing gets accomplished.
So, gentle reader, won't you accompany me on my repro health journey??
When I got pregnant with my daughter I was seventeen. My mom's insurance did not cover pregnancy and promptly dropped me. This is how I landed in the offices of the local Planned Parenthood. I had a free pregnancy test done and when it came back positive the staff and I had a discussion about what I would do next. At no point did I feel pressured by them to have an abortion. Their job, and they were professional and courteous about it, was to help me get to the next step regardless of how I chose to proceed. I seriously considered having an abortion and decided it wasn't for me. You hear that, folks?? A liberal decided not to have an abortion. We do exist, and we're not nearly as rare as you've been lead to believe. But I digress. They put me in touch with DSHS and Washington Public Health so that I would have my prenatal care covered and would have social workers and advocates that would help me navigate the process of being pregnant. Because it is a process. It's not just BAM – you're pregnant. Here's your baby. There's a ton of paperwork, doctor visits, health decisions to me made. It's complicated and overwhelming, especially for someone young and inexperienced with these kinds of life choices. It was Planned Parenthood that got the ball rolling for me, as I have no doubt they would have had I chosen to terminate my pregnancy. When I hear the organization that helped me – and other organizations like it that have since – being lambasted and defamed it really makes me mad!! I read what some of this anti-choice crowd has to say and some of it is blatantly not true. They have no idea what they're talking about, and it's harmful to women who are vulnerable like I was: to be lied to. Granted I have never stepped foot into a Crisis Pregnancy Center, but by all documented accounts both visual and in print, they lie to women in order to further their “moral” agenda (because lying is so moral) and then have their friends (politicians, pundits, etc.) turn the tables around and say that PP is the place with the agenda. From my experience, nothing could be further from the truth.
Anyway, this is why I have such a beef with the term “abortion clinic.” I've been going to an “abortion clinic” regularly my entire adult life. They've hooked me up with repro health services like pap tests, breast exams, consultations, STD screens and birth control, either for free or inexpensive, since 1997 and for that I am eternally thankful. They're the ones that told me I needed to get my hiney to have a cancer screening and a cervical biopsy, which ultimately lead to my diagnosis of cervical and uterine tumors that would have become full-blown cancer if they remained untreated. This is what they do in addition to providing abortion care: they save people. They saved me, and I've had exactly zero abortions. And I am convinced that the reason I've had no abortions is because I had a quote-unquote abortion clinic that I could go to when I needed things like straight-forward information and birth control. Birth control: the thing that keeps women from needing abortions.
But, y'know. This is all anecdotal evidence. Very few on the right seems to give a shit about women like me, anyway, whether we have abortions or not. I just wish that more people would get down off their “moral” high horses long enough to listen to women like me who have been there and actually know what we're talking about. I've been called irresponsible, a slut and a libtard by strangers for speaking up about this, and I don't accept that. I try not to go around on the internet calling regular folks names for having a different opinion than mine (even though I do think Rush Limbaugh is a giant asshole). It's just that so many of the people that I've encountered, whose posts and comments I've read, ignore the experience of real people and jump straight to inaccurate conclusions they've drawn from propaganda. So many of them are the same people that can't believe that Chelsea Clinton is having a baby because all “irresponsible, slutty libtards” hate babies and all child-bearing women and think that all people should have abortions because they're so much fun. Not that there aren't liberals that do the same thing, but there's so much shouting going on that I think we've lost a great deal of perspective. The party of “personal responsibility” and “small government” would like to make sure that you do what they would do in a given situation. In any case, millions of abortions have been provided since Roe vs. Wade was established, and I have a difficult time believing that 100% of them were performed on liberals.
The language we hear is the language we use. It becomes the voice in our minds when we think, and this term just does not fly with me. It's bogus and I'd like to call it out for limiting how we think.
Anyway, maybe I've carried on enough about the subject for one afternoon. I just want to clarify. If you're ever in Seattle and in need of repro health services, I know a wicked cool clinic. They do abortions, but they do all kinds of other stuff, too. If they have an agenda, it's helping women out. That's an agenda I can get behind.
