Amanda C. Russell is a writer and content strategist.
I’ve always been pro-choice but said I would never personally get an abortion.
Until I did.
In October 2021, after having my tubes tied for three-and-a-half years, I went to the emergency room in pain. I had been having this incredible pain for a few days now and thought I had a cyst.
I found out I was almost eight weeks pregnant. It was ectopic, meaning that the fetus was in my fallopian tube.
Not only would I lose this baby, but it was very likely that this experience could kill me if we didn’t act quickly. I had all of 10 minutes to decide my next steps.
After having my tubes tied for so long, pregnancy was never even on my mind. But suddenly, here I was, dealing with the physical pain, plus the shock of hearing that I was pregnant, the joy of the idea of having a fourth child, the anxiety of being in a hospital in the middle of a pandemic and now I had to make the decision to have emergency surgery.
The decision was “easy.” If I wanted to survive, I had to have an abortion.
But this decision was anything but easy. Suddenly, after years of saying that I would never personally have an abortion, I was being wheeled into the operating room.
I know in my heart that it was the “right” decision. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t approved that surgery.
But I struggle every day, knowing that we lost a baby. I am a dedicated mom to my three kids. I love our fourth baby just as much. But I also know that our baby would not have survived my pregnancy. I would not have survived this pregnancy.
Then, I see people online, people I know, talking about how abortion is murder. I want to be very clear here. If I hadn’t had that surgery? I. Would. Have. Died.
There’s no way around that fact. My three kids wouldn’t have a mom. My husband wouldn’t have a wife. I wouldn’t be here.
I’ve seen people say that my story is different, somehow more understandable. Of course, anyone would have made the decision I made, right?
But that’s not true.
After I announced my loss, I saw online posts about how ectopic pregnancies should be reimplanted. I was being made to feel as if I should have tried harder to save my baby. Not only is this medically impossible, but it’s also extremely dangerous for the mother.
But it didn’t stop people from telling me that that’s what I should have done instead. I was dealing with an indescribable loss, and here were people I barely knew, judging me and calling me horrible names.
Now, there are laws being passed that would have made my loss even harder to process. Until you’re in the situation I was in, you’ll never know how broken I felt afterward. That unfair judgment? It was just salt in the wound.
On top of this feeling, there was a feeling of shame that came for me but not my husband. He was very much involved in the reason why I was pregnant in the first place. And he was very much involved in the decision for me to get an abortion. In fact, he didn’t even think twice when the doctor came in and explained what was happening. He wanted to save his wife, and this was the only way to do it.
Do you know what people say about my husband regarding this decision? No one calls him a murderer. No one makes him feel bad about this decision. The stigma toward abortion is always focused on the woman, even though both of us were involved in every step of this process.
My point in telling my personal story is not to draw sympathy. Rather, I tell this story so that other women who have experienced this know they aren’t alone. Because Lord knows, while this event was unfolding and in the days and weeks after, I felt so incredibly alone.
I also tell my story so that people can understand how dangerous these blanket anti-abortion laws are. There are real people with families and lives behind these cruel laws. People who are just trying to do the best they can with a less-than-favorable situation.
These laws are not about unborn children. And if you support it, you aren’t pro-life. You can’t be. You’re supporting a law that would have killed me.
You can’t be pro-life when you support a law that would have taken mine.
