by Missouri State Rep. Stacey Newman – August 13, 2017
The real world is all around us if we would just see it.
A Board for Love Notes to Each Other, donated by LadyPartsJusticeLeague.com last month.
As I continue my journey shadowing Dr. Colleen McNicholas in an Oklahoma City abortion clinic, I’m face to face with real-life women while real-life hatred rages in Virginia. Clinic staff and I try to share every bit of news from Charlottesville, the best we can between procedures, huddled briefly in hallways on our phones.
My journey is challenging everything I thought I knew – from my working class upbringing through my life decisions to becoming a mother and now as a legislator who deals with real-life policy consequences.
I’m with real women of every age, race, nationality, faith, income level, family unit and political view. Real women trying to hang on to their personal hopes and dreams from childhood.
Real women reduced to their core in a sterile room with bare feet in examining table stirrups and a flimsy paper drape over their legs. Real women putting on their most brave face making that ultimate choice to trust in themselves & everything they know.
Friday between 8:45am and 7pm, 21 patients had abortion procedures, Saturday – 18 procedures by 2:25pm. I was with most of them, from their initial counseling to the doctor consultation in the examining room all the way through their surgical procedure until they were released to the recovery room. All kinds of women with all kinds of reasons – a very wanted pregnancy gone horribly wrong, a serious genetic issue, mothers who could not chance another life threatening pregnancy, contraceptive failures, personal drug issues and much more. A woman who needed a Mandarin translator, most who had young children at home, many who had suffered miscarriages and one concerned about potential boyfriend abuse.
I saw each of their faces, their hands, their feet. Our eyes met as each woman consented to allow me to be in the rooms with them. We instantly connected through our sisterhood as I witnessed their attempts to be stoic during numbing injections, the shock of uncomfortable vaginal sensations and the raw vulnerability of the experience.
Each woman was sure of her decision.
I wanted badly to hug each one as hard as I could.
“In the course three minutes, the path of a woman’s life is totally changed”, said a clinic nurse staffer after a long day.
Hopes and dreams and possibilities of a future they want for themselves. A chance to put back on their shoes and sandals and go in the direction they alone choose. A chance to write their story their way.
One woman wrote on her clinic evaluation form, “Thank you for still seeing me as a person”.
This is the real world.