Thread by @JannekeParrish

Three weeks ago, I had a miscarriage. I was six weeks pregnant. I live in Texas, a state that has effectively banned abortions.

A thread about what it is to cease to be pregnant in a state where abortions are banned:

I went to the doctor because I had a lot of pain in my lower back and pelvis, and had been nauseous for weeks. A blood test confirmed I was pregnant – until that point, I didn’t know.

Getting pregnant is one of my worst fears. I have nightmares about being pregnant, about being forced to have something grow inside me, and having to tear myself apart to bring it into the world.

The doctor brought me in to do an ultrasound, and confirmed that I had been pregnant, and wasn’t any longer. I’d miscarried, and that was where the pain and blood was coming from.

The doctor asked me about pregnancy, going into consolation mode. They asked me if I’d been trying to get pregnant, if I’d been pregnant before. I told them I had been pregnant, once before.

“How many kids?” they asked
“None,” I answered.
“Miscarriage?” they asked.
“Abortion,” I answered.
And the conversation shifted dramatically.

I’d had an abortion when I was 19. Upon hearing that, this doctor in Texas rattled through a list of drugs, asking if I’d taken any of them in the last six weeks. They asked about my activities, what I’d been doing, if I’d intentionally injured myself.

Intentionally or not, it felt like I’d become a suspect in the death of something I didn’t know existed.

Eventually, it stopped. They were satisfied that I hadn’t known I was pregnant and induced an illegal abortion in Texas. I left, though not without the fear that because I’d gone for medical help, I’d now be reported, per Texas law.

Because if I’d known I was pregnant, I wouldn’t have gone. Miscarriages are already being prosecuted in the US. 1200 people have been arrested since 2005 for not carrying a pregnancy to term. rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/1…

At least one person in Texas has already been prosecuted for a miscarriage since Texas passed #SB8 (though charges have been dropped): reuters.com/world/us/prose…

10 – 15% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. 40% of fertile people will experience a miscarriage at some point. Miscarriages are incredibly common. …pregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

When we criminalise abortion – as Texas has done, and as half the US is now poised to do – we implicitly criminalise miscarriages too. Any pregnancy that doesn’t end in a live birth becomes suspect. What did they do to cause this? How did they kill their baby?

People stop going to get help when there is a risk they will go to jail for it. That is how people die. When you criminalise abortion, you criminalise every person able to get pregnant, and you put everything about them under scrutiny. They stop being human, and just become uteri

Texas is a harbinger. This is where half of the states in the US are going. This experience, this interrogation, repeated over and over, as the blame for a pregnancy ending falls on the person who may not have even known they were pregnant.

I think about if I answered the doctor’s questions correctly, if I convinced them I didn’t cause it intentionally, if my past decision was enough to condemn me in the eyes of the state of Texas.

There have been hundreds of others who weren’t so lucky. With #RoeVWade being overturned, there will be thousands more. People who did nothing wrong, but who the law wants to find at fault for not being the perfect “vessel.”

Healthcare is a human right. Privacy is a human right. Abortion is health care and privacy, and it is a human right. No person’s life should ever be sacrificed for a pregnancy.