A Friend Stopped By | 07/13/2009 12:00 am
How My Decision About a Late-Term Abortion Affected My Marriage, by Alice Eve Cohen
The author of the searing new memoir What I Thought I Knew speaks about the most important decision she ever made.
Alice Eve Cohen
Janet Charles Photography
Janet Charles Photography
Editor’s Note: Alice Eve Cohen is the author of What I Thought I Knew, just published by Viking. A solo theater artist and playwright, she is the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a teacher at the New School in New York City.
Ten years ago, Michael and I had an emotional turning point that nearly jeopardized our marriage. I was 44, he was 34, and we were engaged. I was facing the terrifying possibility of a late-term abortion, with one week to decide.
When I was 30, I was diagnosed as infertile. My doctor told me that I could never get pregnant naturally, and strongly cautioned me not to attempt pregnancy with fertility treatment, as I would never be able to carry a baby past six months. So at age 44, when I started to feel sick, my various doctors attributed my ailments to early menopause and other conditions related to aging. Six months, numerous X-rays, CAT scans, prescription hormones and a slew of doctors later, I was raced to an emergency CAT scan for a large abdominal tumor — which turned out not to be a tumor at all. I was six months pregnant.
| I desperately didn't want to have this baby, and I hated myself for not wanting it. |
I’d had no prenatal care, the fetus had been subjected to six months of tests and treatments, which were known to cause birth defects and other injuries, and I had every reason to believe that the baby would suffer further debilitating injury from premature birth. I wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but at 24 weeks, said my doctor, it was too late for an abortion in New York State.
I desperately didn’t want to have this baby, and I hated myself for not wanting it. I had been unhappy before, but I had never thought about killing myself. Now I began to think of suicide as my way out: the only way to end the pregnancy, and the best solution to protect the unborn baby from a life of pain.
Michael came with me to see an abortion specialist. "Since you’re contemplating suicide, you could have an abortion in Kansas, where, if the mother’s life is in danger, an abortion is legal up until the 28th week," he told us. "Seven days from today." At my request, he scheduled an abortion in Wichita for the following Tuesday. "Think about it for the next few days before you decide," he said. Then he turned to Michael. "What do you think about all this?"
"Me? Oh, Jesus … a lot of different things," Michael answered. "I’ve seen Alice in the throes of this terrible unhappiness, and I don’t recognize her. I’ve been politically in favor of choice, but uncommitted on the personal side — it’s been an abstraction. But now that this is suddenly so real, all I can think is that there’s a baby. Our baby. My baby. And I can’t stand the thought of this baby being aborted. So If Alice has an abortion, I won’t go to Wichita with her. And I might not be here when she gets back. I’ll have my own unbearable sorrow about losing this baby, about endorsing this decision. But I don’t want Alice to kill herself. So she should do what she needs to do."
I spent the week wrestling with this impossible decision. On the day before I was scheduled to fly to Wichita, Michael begged me not to have the abortion. "I’ve already decided to have the baby," I said. Michael thanked me and burst into tears.
For the past ten years, this turning point moment in our relationship — Michael acknowledging my right to choose, but telling me he might leave me if I had the abortion — has remained a largely unspoken but crucial shared memory, equal parts rift and bridge between us.
Read more about: A Friend Stopped By, Abortion, Alice Eve Cohen, Books, Family, Health, Infertility, Late-Term Abortion, Pregnancy, What I Thought I Knew
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367 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
This is a decidedly one-sided argument, and one that has yet to be satisfactorily addressed imho.
A man has no legal right to control a woman’s body, so the woman has final word on whether or not to bear a child or to abort. Even if the abortion is against his express wishes. Even if he would be willing to take on sole custody and responsibility for the child once it has been born.
On the other hand, if she decides not to abort - despite his opposition to the idea of bringing a child into the world at that time - she can theoretically force his (at least financial) involvement.
In other words, what you call his "right and responsibility" is - on some cases, at least - in actuality forced parenthood based solely on the woman’s wishes/desires.
At least people who (like me) are pro-choice must see the uneven playing field in this situation.
correct.
while i would agree it is uneven, it is completely fair in terms of bodily autonomy.
unfortunately for men, our biology dictates that females, not males, carry the child. and in our society, our bodies are our own and no one else could tell us what to do with them. thus, in order to be fair, we all control our own bodies regardless of the wishes of any outside party.
if men could carry babies, the situation would be reversed and women would be the ones who would be forced into parenting if the male chose to give birth. i still would think that it is fair, seeing as how the argument depends on bodily autonomy.
here’s my advice to men who don’t want children: talk to the women you have sex with. really talk things through with them before you jump in the sack. she could be the mother of your children.
as a woman, i wish there was a female version of the vasectomy. i have no desire for pregnancy or young children, and birth control gets tiresome and expensive. that was a great perk being with another female - there was absolutely no risk of any babies. ;)
hey sweetheart, a vasectomy is an in-office procedure that is done in the doctors office in 20 minutes and you heal in a few weeks. you walk right out afterwards.
a tubal is VERY invasive which I cannot undergo, extremely dangerous to me due to my medical complications, insanely expensive, and no doctor will do it to me because i haven’t had children.
i know an 18 year old boy who went to his doctor, said he didnt want kids, and he got his vasectomy within the month. i have been asking for years and every doctor just smirks knowingly and says "i dont do that to women unless they have several children. you’ll want them later".
*pats you on the head* you’re paying attention!
Since YOU are the one who always tells people to read, may I suggest looking into that tubal ligation again. It is not very invasive it is done with the laser and a camera. 3 very small cuts. Its even far less invasive than gall bladder surgery that is done with a laser as well.
come now, if you really wanted it done I’m sure you could find an abortionist who would do it for you in a minute.
So sweetie, are you paying attention??
only to your emotional ranting. why are you obsessed with posting unproductive comments to me? did i offend you with my opinion?
are you aware that not everyone has the physical health to undergo invasive surgeries?
are you also aware that even with insurance, many people cannot afford the procedure and many insurance plans refuse to cover it or help meet the costs?
if not, again, i suggest you read or speak to other human beings rather than assuming everyone is rich, healthy, and able to undergo invasive surgeries.
first of all, there are two types of procedures that accomplish the goal, and the one you are describing is called laparoscopy in which the doctor inflates the belly with gas, punctures the abdominal wall, and then either zaps the fallopian tubes with current or puts clips/bands on em. some women have died from the inflation procedure. "Laparoscopy has serious complications such as perforation of the bowel leading to massive infection of the abdominal cavity, complications from anesthesia, improper clearance of the windpipe during the operation, even pulmonary embolism."
in addition, huge amounts of women experience lifelong complications and health risks due to the VERY INVASIVE procedure:
http://www.ccli.org/nfp/contraception/tubal.php
it is INCREDIBLY INVASIVE and dangerous to many women, which is reflected in the high rates of complications in women who have the procedure done. there is also a high rate of women needing hysterecomies after the tubal because of the horrible complications.
Apart from these immediate complications of surgery, post-tubal problems are so frequent they are now called "post tubal ligation syndrome." A review of the literature on post-tubal ligation problems by Drs. Joel Hargrove and Guy Abraham revealed an incidence of long-term complications in as many as 22 to 37% of sterilized women.
MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY TO ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND A SITUATION INSTEAD OF USING SIMPLE TALKING POINTS THAT CAN BE EASILY DESTROYED BY SIMPLE LOGIC AND KNOWLEDGE.
Tubal ligations are a dime a dozen and the incidence of complications is so vanishingly rare that it is statistically insignificant. If fear of these complications is the only thing stopping you, I would advise talking to an Ob/Gyn and getting the real story rather than relying on some hysterical nonsense from an anonymous web site or doctors whose evidence is anecdotal and not based on a long term study backed by an accredited university and peer-reviewed.
If for some reason anaesthesia is an issue for you, there are a bunch of different options for that as well. The same with most other physical issues. If you really want the procedure, then there are ways that it can happen. Even if money is an issue, there are clinics and doctors that can help you for free.
The simple fact is that these days, pregnancy is 100% optional. Always use birth control, use it correctly and it works. I was on the Pill for 28 years and look, no babies! Just what I was aiming for! If you can’t or don’t want to get your tubes tied, then your partner or significant other can have a vasectomy. No worries.
If your excuse for an unwanted pregnancy is "birth control is too much trouble", "it just happened", or "he likes it better bareback", then you get no sympathy from me or from most other people.
messy, i agree with you on almost everything you’ve said in all your posts i’ve read so far, but i have to respectfully disagree with you on a few of your points.
as for my personal reasons of being unable to undergo certain types of surgeries, i’m sure you’ll understand if i’d rather not reveal all the details of my medical history. in a nutshell, i am at risk for having ectopic pregnancies in the first place. and with any kind of tubal surgery or blockage like essure, it increases the risk for those kinds of pregnancies. with my history, tubal options increase my risk of ectopic pregnancy significantly - more than other women and more than i am comfortable with.
also, your assertion that if you want the procedure done, there are ways it can happen, is a very entitled statement. i’m sorry messy, but there are some women who can’t obtain the procedure either due to medical issues, money issues, or who feel outside pressure to not get fixed, or mixtures of those.
money doesn’t fall out of the sky. i am also aware of the free sterilization programs all over the country - but they have limits, restrictions, and aren’t everywhere. not everyone can afford to go out of state to have a surgery - i’m sorry, but it’s a sad fact for a lot of people in poverty, even in america.
i am very glad you took the pill and you never got pregnant, that is fantastic and it is the experience of the majority of women who use the pill or other hormonal contraception. but there is a failure rate - small though it is, it isn’t 100% fool proof and there are ladies who have become pregnant even with perfect use.
interactions between every and all drugs haven’t been studied yet. every day more announcements and discoveries come out with new drugs saying they have found that taking this-and-this drug with another causes complications or renders them ineffective. some women are taking other important meds that they can’t mix with BC.
while it may seem like it’s easy, there are a good amount of women who aren’t candidates for hormonal or surgical birth control. i have no number or statistic, but i know that there are a lot of ladies who have medical histories we dont know the details about, who can’t undergo anesthesia, who can’t handle hormonal birth control, who are taking important meds (most seizure meds for example) and can’t use BC other than condoms… there’s a lot of healthy women who CAN, and i am not denying that for most women, pregnancy is 99.9% avoidable.
but the fact remains that the only 100% sure-proof way to not get pregnant is abstinence. every birth control option carries a failure rate, no matter how small. and there are many circumstances that can prevent a woman from a certain kind of protection.
i am not asking for, nor was i ever looking for sympathy. but if i were you, i’d soften my opinion on women who accidentally become pregnant. i’m not standing up for stupid people who just have sex and don’t protect themselves at all, but just pointing out that you don’t know someone’s history or their circumstances.
thank you, but i’ve read about essure - it is way too new (only 4-5 years? long-term problems haven’t even been studied!) and the complications that many women complain about already are horrendous and scary, and doctors talk to these women who complain about pain as if they are in the 15th century - "it’s all in your head, it couldn’t possibly be from the essure, maybe it’s a UTI infection".
it just sounds like a smaller, more expensive IUD to me.
the micro-inserts are implanted in your fallopian tubes and can move, become lodged somewhere dangerous, burrow into the tissue and cause infections, they can migrate and end up protruding into your uterus, ect. many women report continuous bleeding, having pain upon sex, having pain sitting, standing, bending over, ect, having excrutiating menstrual cramps and heavy flows…
in clinical studies, approximately 1 out of every 7 women were not able to have the microinserts placed in both fallopian tubes during the first placement procedure and have to have it re-done one or more times. if it moves or becomes dislodged, another placement procedure would be needed. if a complication arises, in many cases the only way to treat the female is to have a full hysterectomy.
in some cases, women have died having this done because they absorbed too much fluid they use to expand the uterus. even with proper placement and confirmation of proper placement, the metal coils are coming out of place months to a few years after placement. there are no long-term studies because they haven’t been around that long - women are ignored and told by the docs that there is absolutely no way the problem is from the essure metal coils even though many experience horrible pains they never had before the procedure, or experience continuous heavy bleeding after insertion. the coils cause perforations in the abdomen and can actually get lost and lodged in other organs… that causes intense nausea and vomiting, infections, a need to have a hysterectomy… too many to name.
and yes, i know there are risks with any surgery - i’m just griping about how none of the ones for women are as safe as the vasectomy.
He said he couldn’t tell me enough how much he wished women would be more honest with themselves if they didn’t want to have children.
wow, that must be incredible - every doctor i’ve ever seen always smirked at me and basically implied that i didn’t know what i wanted, and they wouldn’t do the procedure to me.
but i’m sure if i had WANTED kids they would have been the first people to pump me full of fertility drugs and give me a number to an invitro specialist.
dont let that doctor go!