A friend of mine that I went to high school with, and reconnected with a few years ago, has five beautiful children. Now, she never really talks politics on Facebook, but after seeing what our new president did this week with his executive action on abortion, and more broadly, women's health, she wanted to share her personal story. I'm sure it was hard to think back on what happened, never mind write about it, but I thought it was very honorable for her to share publicly, in hopes it could help even just one person to understand the incredible importance of women's health care. After reading her story, I wanted to share for the same reason, because as one of the most decent human beings to ever serve as president once said: "One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world."
With her kind permission, I now share with you ...
"I've seen a lot of back and forth on this, and honestly needed to take time to reflect and research my own feelings on the matter as well. If I'm missing something, please, inform me. It's easy to say "it's an Executive Order that gets signed and trashed regularly depending on which party sits in that chair and why should we pay for global abortions anyway?" But, at least to my understanding, it's not that simple and is, in fact, a lot scarier to not only impoverished women worldwide, but in many cases, to the families they leave behind due to a lack of the basic and fundamental services we've come to take for granted here. This isn't just about restricting abortions, it's a *further expansion* of a previous law that on top of cutting funding to any organization who mentions the word "abortion", will restrict access to countless other medical procedures, vaccinations, education and medication. In other words, it is cutting off life-saving measures to our sisters (and brothers) across the world who need it the most. Those who will literally die without it. It doesn't slow abortions, it hastens death. This is not a debatable fact.
People seem to easily forget how dangerous it was, not even that long ago, to have a child, to bring life into our world, so I'll put it in modern-day terms. In 2010, not long after a very fast delivery, I was moved to my room with my newborn Quinn. Just as my mom entered with my then-toddler sons, I got the sense that something was wrong and thank fucking God, I not only acted on it, but I was in a world-class hospital as well. I was bleeding out. Quickly. Numb still from an epidural that only kicked in after birth, I couldn't feel all the blood draining from my body but I knew something was wrong so I pressed the button for a nurse (how lucky was I to have a button?!). They came in, pulled back the sheets and after that I've never seen a medical team work with such speed and efficiency. They called codes loudly into speakers as they simultaneously cleared the room of my clearly-petrified mother, husband and children as I continued to hemorrhage at a rate that my mother later admitted she wasn't sure I'd survive. But I did. Because I live here. And when I delivered Beckett extremely fast again years later, the team knew my history and to expect the worst so although all I wanted was to go to bed, and I kept telling them so, they instead kept me on the delivery table and they were right, because the very second it started again, they were right there. This time they stopped it almost as soon as it started because they were prepared.
This is long, but passionate feelings tend to do that so my apologies. But one more reminder came not during childbirth with Annie, but after. An injury I'd sustained from years of extended nursing finally got so bad that one night, while I had two of my babies in the bathtub, I suffered a massive Grand Mal seizure and as a result stopped breathing altogether. Thanks to every angel I have up there, my husband had literally just gotten home, early that night even because he knew how bad I felt, and he was able to perform CPR until the ambulance arrived and took over. Once again, the marvels of modern medicine that we are simply lucky enough to be born into. Luck in my place of birth, paramount above all else, means I'm still here.
I may be a fucking warrior when I need to be, but I wouldn't be here without fellow warriors who didn't know me but saved my life on three different occasions now. Sure, these women live across the world, but look them in the face, look their widowed husbands in the face, or their orphaned children, and tell them they don't deserve access to healthcare that would've otherwise, easily, kept them alive. It's not a surprise because it's been done before (to lesser degrees) but it is a sad day because the outcomes have already been well-documented by his predecessors. It's not a "what if" - women, and even men, *will die*. And they'll die by the thousands. Week one, not even down yet. There are some organizations listed in this article where donations can be made directly, for anyone who feels so inclined."
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