Self-Managed Abortion

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here is a fairly detailed article about self-managed abortion.  It frames this largely as a future issue, but in reality, it happens whenever a woman needs an abortion but can't get one (due to restrictive laws, high cost, distance, etc.).  That's a problem, and it's only getting worse.

Comments

[roseofthemountains]

I hope it doesn't get much worse thant it already has...but deep down I know that's...almost over-optemistic.

I just... I'm this close to taking me and my collective out of this damn place. Our little clans is becojing too much for this country, and fast. (Little clan refers to me+the other two physical bodies in the house, not including the child, who would obvs come with.)

-Fallon~

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I can't blame you-all for wanting to leave, especially if you could get somewhere civilized instead.

[technoshaman]

Unless you're prepared to be some kind of combatant? if you _can_ leave? Do it.

I don't have a choice; my kids have to stay here because Reasons, none of which are pleasant... so I'mma stay and fight. (and holy jeezus mother goose, am I in a MOOD this morning... not exactly ragey, but at the same time ready to suit up and go bust some heads. New music from three redheads - two witches and someone else who's Aware - will do that... )

(oh, and by "some kind of combatant" I don't mean you have to be on the front lines; I'm a logistics guy and general Cleric... there are plenty of things to do in this war, from medic to ammo runner to cook to mucking out stables... AND if for safety or lack of cope or whatever other reason you can't or Really Don't Wanna stay?

Well, part of what we do is help people Get Out.)

[librarygeek]

Thank you for this. Looks like I was RIGHT, damnit, 17 and 18 years ago, that knowing that I had already had fetal deaths by 8 weeks, I could have been prescribed the Misoprostol to have the already dead tissue expelled before going to anesthesia required dilation and evacuation.

But my doctors and hospital had had physical threats if they "performed easy abortions" and said they couldn't prescribe it for me, even though it was the medically recommended first choice in this case. Forced birthers are NOT pro-lifers for anyone already breathing...

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

They just want to hurt women. That's a big reason why America's perinatal death rate is on par with places in Africa, not civilized nations; women can't get good health care here. And doctors want to keep their jobs and stay alive, so they'd rather hurt patients -- or occasionally kill people -- than follow "first, do no harm." It's not like anyone's going to punish them for it.

[mdlbear]

Please consider cross-posting this to underground_rail

[technoshaman]

Seconded.

[librarygeek]

I hadn't thought of looking for groups yet, thank you. F! the necessity... 😒

Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Thanks for the tip.

Re: Done!

[mdlbear]

Welcome! Thanks for the signal boost; I'm working on a new post this afternoon.

Website at https://undergroundrail.org/ up as of about a minute ago. Almost entirely empty at the moment. Should be pointing at the community shortly.

Re: Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Feel free to copy the content of my posts there, whatever you find useful. See also my memorable How To posts. I put more in a comment under the community post that asked if the group was still active, too. I recommend loading your site with nuts and bolts details of:

* History of underground railroads, their strengths and weaknesses, differences across themes, etc.

* How cell structure works in leaderless movements and how to develop one.

* Dangerous laws and how to fight them. Sometimes the master's tools can dismantle the master's house.

* Emotional first aid. Rarely taught, but probably needed by most or all underground passengers.

* Physical first aid including pregnancy-related emergencies. Include links where people can buy relevant kits, lists of first aid kits to assemble for different levels of skill, places that offer classes, free online text and video instructions, and hardcopy references.

* Alternative methods of health care for those who cannot access conventional ones, in as much detail as feasible.

* Consider linking to resources about decision-making processes, people who want to be parents and offer to pay medical/legal/support expenses for adoption, or places offering similar support for single new parents; if you can find ones that aren't traps. About a third of abortions are driven primarily by financial concerns and the person would actually prefer something else.

* Don't forget that some men and nonbinary people can get pregnant too, and they can have a whole bunch of different complications that make reproductive care more fraught. A separate page for them would be very helpful.

* Consider a supply of comfort reading for people who may be stuck waiting in miserable situations.

* If you have the programming skill, put an escape-and-scuttle button at the top of the page, like abuse help pages do. That way if the reader is interrupted, they can hit the button to go to a different neutral-topic website while the routine erases their tracks, so nobody will know what they were reading.

You don't have to be super to be a hero.

Re: Done!

[elf]

To add to the list of "what to put on the website":

* Basic reproductive health care info aimed at 10-15 year olds who have gotten nothing in school. Links to sites with more comprehensive info.

* Basic *other* educational info, like "map of the US with state names" (probably highlighting states where abortions are more legal), because, again, public education is pathetic these days. A 13-year-old in Alabama may have literally no idea how far away the nearest legal no-extra-hassles abortion clinic is. (For most people in the south, it's Illinois.)

* Basic "how laws work" info, because etc.

* Reminders that high school grades, attendance, etc. do not matter in the later job world, and that even missing a semester of college is only a temporary setback.

* Think really hard about whether or not to have a chatroom, forum, or other interactive communication setting. I'd advise against it unless there are 24/7 moderators. (There'll be pressure to set up a Discord. It'd need moderators.)

* I love the idea of comfort reading material, and would add also music & videos.

* Stories of pregnancy and abortion, from as wide a range of voices as is possible.

* "How to recognize an abusive relationship"

* Spiritual perspectives from several religions. Prayers. I want to say, "a digital shrine," but I don't know if that's possible without being tacky. But maybe a contact page that sends a note to volunteer ministers.

Re: Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>* Basic "how laws work" info, because etc.<<

If so, include observations that what the law says and what it does may be worlds apart. How laws work in America depends primarily on things like sex, color, and how much money you have -- not what it says on paper.

>>* Think really hard about whether or not to have a chatroom, forum, or other interactive communication setting. I'd advise against it unless there are 24/7 moderators. (There'll be pressure to set up a Discord. It'd need moderators.)<<

Forum options include linking to other sites with a forum on the topic, or creating a separate forum on a site devoted to that. That spreads out the risk.

[catalenamara]

I will NEVER forget a friend who passed away a number of years ago. She was in her 80s. She had worked as a nurse in a hospital septic ward in the 1950s and her stories of the women who died from back street and wire coat-hanger abortions were horrific. I've been warning people for literally years we've been heading in this direction and had many people blow me off because they felt I was being alarmist.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Much the same here.

In my grandmother's and mother's generations, most women knew someone who had died for lack of decent care: either a pregnancy that shouldn't have continued for medical reasons and killed them, or an attempted abortion gone wrong. Men rarely heard about it unless it was in their immediate family and couldn't be hidden from them; they didn't grapevine it like women did.

It never stopped, because there were always some who couldn't afford an abortion or were forcibly prevented from seeing a doctor for one. But it had become rare, for a while. The more the laws whittled away women's right to health care, however, the more common it became for women to take it into their own hands as they have done throughout history. It's just now getting to a point where more people are noticing. Me, I never stopped watching, because I knew what the bastards were up to.

This is, plain and simple, a decision to murder women. The people in favor of it should recall that it could be their mother, sister, wife, daughter, etc. who winds up bleeding to death of preventable causes. Which is exactly what's happened in Ireland and why they're getting some serious flack from other European countries.

[pronker]

Fascinating. My Gran received an abortion about 1933 in the Small Midwestern Town she was born in and she was between marriages at the time - I wonder if she needed to seek out someone or if her MD performed it? She had a ghastly experience a few years later when her appendix burst unexpectedly; she had no complaints about her hospital care or the abortion.

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

When care is driven underground, the quality varies drastically. There's no recourse for bad care without putting oneself at risk of punishment, so the quality tends to run lower. But it can be high or low in any field.

American health care is generally shitty now, and a lot of that is because there's so little accountability and free choice. It's no surprise that trust in doctors has plummeted over the last several decades.

Re: Well ...

[pronker]

One thing noticeable in Spouse's 100 percent coverage from the VA is that he's offered choices that scare him; for instance, castration is a well-known treatment for cancer of his sort and a health practitioner consulted with him for about 1/2 hour before Spouse declined. Another decision involved what sort of rad treatment to take for his third bout with the disease. I feel honestly that he's involved in his care and in the case of castration, there couldn't be any other way to deal with the sitch. This all served to make him more fearful of any sort of treatment.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Choice doesn't matter much when all the options are bad. That appears throughout the health care system. If there's no diversity among providers, it's useless. Very often, you have a choice of who hurts you, or how you'd prefer to be hurt, but not a choice to avoid being hurt. If people then say that it's "your choice" and you don't like it you should "do something else" then that's crushing.