Abortion

Standards of Care

Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:45 -0400

The reason Black women were used to develop the field of gynecology was because they were no more than property. They weren’t seen as people; they were just seen as things. The controlling of Black women’s bodies started with chattel slavery, but it continues today.

Love and Other Pandemics

jhnelson427@gmail.com — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400

The thing about the apocalypse is that nobody said it would be so beautiful. Spring is letting down her hair. The air is warm, sweet, and clear. Moss drapes over a storm drain, parting for the rush of early-morning runoff. A heavy quiet has descended since we took to our homes, save for the shrieking hawks circling the shuttered strip-mall parking lot next door to my mother’s house outside of Philadelphia.

Penumbra

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 12:00:00 -0400

If Roe was created in the liminal space of the penumbra, Dobbs is the total eclipse that makes all go dark.

Mind the Gap

mcdermon@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 12:00:00 -0400

The lion’s share of Gen Z organizing on the Left is being done by young women, because they care passionately about the issues. I think there’s less of that drive among young men. Instead there’s a sense of rootlessness. We’ll have to see whether that actually translates into conservative voting behavior or support for certain policies.

Falling Action in Hoboken

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0500

There is something hard in me, a seedlike malignancy. I can’t say how it got there or when, but I can’t remember the last time I felt pure love or sadness or joy. It’s always a mix of things, some confused and muted in-between.

Anniversaries

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:00:00 -0500

Of a fifty-year marriage, of an immigrant’s journey, of a terrorist attack

Changing Your Mind

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 05:00:00 -0500

About a career, about college, about living in America

Invasion Of Privacy

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 04:00:00 -0400

Three of the nine justices have publicly articulated their position that the Constitution does not contain a right to privacy — at least, when it comes to matters involving contraception. . . . And that’s just the three we know about.

Tools

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 04:00:00 -0400

A father’s lesson, a son’s apology, a husband’s surprise

Made To Be Broken

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 04:00:00 -0400

The way Americans interact with each other now has made it clear that the Constitution was perhaps never deserving of all the praise it’s gotten.

Culled

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 05:05:00 -0500

It was too quiet: no bellowing of elk, no call of owls. As I opened the front door, I could smell the beef stew I’d left simmering on the stove, but there was no music, and our dog Neva did not greet me.

Disclosure And Consent

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 05:00:00 -0500

I understand that though it was not my choice to listen to the Jackson 5 during the procedure, I will now think of their seminal hits every time I smell isopropyl alcohol in my vicinity.

Nice Girls

Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 -0400

I used to feel like an imposter because of my breasts, because even before I got pregnant they were pretty spectacular, and it’s made me wonder if I’ve ever actually earned anything, or if all the jobs and awards and opportunities I’ve gotten, really, have just been handed to me because of fat deposits that would be disgusting if they were placed a few inches lower, on my belly.

Breaking The Law

Mon, 01 May 2017 00:00:00 -0400

An illegal abortion, a brother’s drug habit, Cold War secrets

It’s Her Choice

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 01:00:00 -0500

If one in three women has had an abortion, you can’t really talk about it as some rare practice indulged in only by particularly evil women. . . . What do you do with that one-third of women? . . . Put them in prison?

Abortion

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 00:00:00 -0500

It’s the final moment — the tugging — / that’s the worst. A sucking deep within the pelvis, / where the body contracts as if / to cling to that tiny growth.

The Back Door

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:53:00 -0400

Catching fireflies, caring for a newborn calf, hearing a slamming door for the first time

The High Heart

Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:40:00 -0500

Keith had had a plenty rough day, most of it spent with his girlfriend, Bonnie, in an abortion clinic just outside of Pittsburgh. You could see how frayed he was: skinny as hell and that big head of electrocuted hair, smoking one cigarette after another, the blue veins in his forehead like hot wires about to rupture.

Jane

Thu, 01 Apr 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Once, while passing notes during a chemistry lecture, Jane and I decided we would each write on a piece of paper what articles of clothing we had not taken off on our last date. When we unfolded each other’s notes, we had both written the same thing: socks.

Clinic

Mon, 01 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500

I thought the place looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. I put down my plate of eggs, grabbed the TV remote, and turned up the sound. It was an abortion-clinic bombing: one bomb to lure the law, a second bomb to blow them up.

Infant Ward

Mon, 01 Nov 1999 00:00:00 -0500

This child is not my own, but still the words of possession slip from me: “My baby girl. My sweet baby.” Although I’ve never seen her before, I think I know what she needs: the lights at her hospital bedside dimmed, her loose arms girdled securely against her chest. She has no name except “Girl” and a family surname typed on the identification card at the foot of her crib.

Feminism Then And Now

Mon, 01 Jun 1998 01:00:00 -0400

The definition is much broader now that feminist ideas have spread throughout the culture. I would say that anybody who wants to call herself a feminist is a feminist. In addition, there are “applied feminists” — to borrow the writer Carolyn Heilbrun’s wonderful term — meaning someone who may not call herself a feminist but who lives like one. In the early days, there was a lot of debate about who was a real feminist. At the beginning of any movement, definitions seem to matter more. In the late sixties, there was a sense that we were just a handful of people. As the movement spread, we were very worried about being co-opted. So whether or not a newcomer was a “true” feminist seemed to matter, especially if that person was representing feminism in the media; there was a lot of mistrust of the media. We didn’t want to give up on our larger ideals and settle for something less.

Secrets

Fri, 01 May 1998 00:00:00 -0400

I have been in many women’s groups: walking groups, writing groups, ritual groups, clothing-exchange groups, exercise groups, even a long-ago Tupperware group. So it wasn’t odd to hear Sarah talk, at a meeting of my oldest women’s group, about an entirely different group of women with whom she met. These women rode horses into the deepest part of the woods, and upon arrival, each told a secret.

Between Living And Dying

Sun, 01 Dec 1996 00:00:00 -0500

We’re being told that medicine is supposed to get rid of disabled people — either by curing us or killing us. This idea is deeply rooted in industrial culture. I think there will be tremendous social pressure to “choose” suicide in the future.

Might Have Been

Fri, 01 Oct 1993 00:05:00 -0400

“Mom, did you ever have an abortion?” Annabel helped herself to more lasagna, meticulously skirting the carrots that Kit had sneaked into the filling. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Storms

Wed, 01 Sep 1993 00:00:00 -0400

A classmate remembered, a card playing grandmother, a Hurricane Andrew survivor

When The Bough Breaks

Fri, 01 May 1992 00:15:00 -0400

When we finally reach the street, it’s like moving into the current of a mighty river. We pass the White House, the Treasury, the Justice Department, all the cornerstones of empire that remind us this is Washington, where decisions are made that affect everyone, the way one careless moment, one broken promise — one broken condom — can affect your whole life.

Abortion

Sun, 01 Sep 1991 00:00:00 -0400

Secret codes, an underground network of doctors, complications

The Necessity To Speak

Fri, 01 Feb 1991 00:01:00 -0500

I see them every day, the wounded women in the supermarket or in the bookstore, the children beaten to a whimper until all life has grayed in them. I’ve learned to recognize Fear’s signature scrawled across their faces, the way one learns to recognize a man who walks with a “prison shuffle.”

Journey To Juarez

Sun, 01 Jul 1990 00:15:00 -0400

Mary Ann does not see the doctor until she’s on the operating table, knees bent, her feet strapped into stirrups. . . . The doctor does not speak to her, never glances at her face. A girl, twelve or thirteen years old, stands to one side, squeezing Mary Ann’s hand. The girl’s hands are small and quite strong. Mary Ann squeezes back.