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July 2005

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Speak Out: I Had An Abortion

By Eleanor j. Bader
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A bortion is the most commonly performed surgery in the United States—43 percent of women will terminate an unwanted pregnancy before age 45—yet how often do you discuss what it is actually like to have one with a friend or family member? While most of us will detail a recent dental visit or trip to the chiropractor, the 1.3 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are largely silent about the procedure. In fact, abortion is so stigmatized that many people treat it as unmentionable, a secret so vile that it can never be revealed. 

Filmmaker Gillian Aldrich and producer Jennifer Baumgardner— creators of Speak Out: I Had An Abortion , a 60-minute documentary in which ten women talk about their abortions—hope to change this. 

“Our intention was to make a film that would be an antidote to the warring factions, pro-choice and anti-choice,” Aldrich told a New York City audience in mid-May. “Our hope is to break through with personal stories because the real stories of women are rarely heard in the political firestorm. Stories don’t have sides, they are just there.” 

The diverse women who share their experiences in Speak Out span a wide gamut, from octogenarian Florence Rice, who had an illegal abortion in 1938, to A’Yen Tran, who had a medical (aka chemical) one in 2003. Some speak of rape, others of contraceptive failure, but all share a fervent belief that abortion is life affirming. 

While homing in on the nuances of pre-and-post Roe v. Wade practices, the film takes pains to avoid rhetoric or heavy-handed narration. Instead, each woman presents a heartfelt rendering of her situation. 

Florence Rice, for one, had a baby at 16. When she became pregnant again at 20, she knew that she did not want another child. “I didn’t even know that abortion was illegal,” she says. Rice went to see a woman she’d heard about through friends and recalls paying a fee, having the surgery, and leaving the premises. “I felt lucky to be able to get the money and have the abortion,” she says. “I have no regrets.” 

Gloria Steinem, the most well- known participant in the film, also speaks about illegal abortion. “It was 1957 and I was living in London, working as a waitress. I had no money and no friends and was trying to figure out what to do,” she recalls. “There was no way I could give birth to someone and also give birth to myself. At the time, to get an abortion in England you needed two doctors to write a letter stating that it was necessary. I could not make myself feel guilty for a moment. It was the first time I took responsibility for my life. You know, when you are desperate, it’s easy to make the decision to abort. Ambivalence seems to be a function of legality.” 

Robin Ringleka-Kottke is a case in point. A devoutly Catholic teenager, she picketed abortion clinics in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Then, shortly after finishing high school, she became pregnant. “I let my boyfriend know that I would not consider having an abortion and called a program for women who were going to put children up for adoption,” she says. Initially the program welcomed her with open arms. That changed when the agency heard that the baby’s father was black. “They said they could not help me since there was no demand for biracial babies. It was a huge blow.” 

By this point, Ringleka-Kottke was frantic and spoke to her mother about her situation. Reluctantly, she decided that abortion was the best alternative and made an appointment at a local clinic. “We got there and crazy protesting was going on. There was this man—he looked like a lunatic—yelling and raving. We had to enter the clinic through a back door.” After the surgery, Ringleka-Kottke remembers feeling immensely relieved. Nonetheless, the anti-abortion messages she’d been bombarded with in school began to haunt her. “I did not talk about the abortion for five or six years,” she admits. During this time she worried that others would judge her harshly were they to discover what she had done. Finally, she broke her silence. “It let the shame out,” she says.

Like Ringleka-Kottke, Jenny Egan was raised to believe that abortion was murder. “I am the daughter of a teenaged mother who is the daughter of a teenaged mother,” Egan says. A Mormon, two weeks after ending her pregnancy she came home to find her mom sitting at the kitchen table with a letter, signed, The Brotherhood, in her hands: “Your daughter had an abortion. Please let God guide your actions from this day forward.” After reading the missive, her parents sent their then 16-year-old daughter from their home; a suicide attempt followed. Although Egan later pulled her life together and got enough financial aid to attend college, she laments the fact that for years she had no one with whom to discuss either the abortion or its aftermath. 

Other film participants include Loretta Ross, who at 14 bore a child after being raped by a 27-year-old cousin; Annie Finch, a 44-year-old mother of two who says she felt “pangs of regret and sadness” over her abortion despite knowing that it was the right thing to do; and Sally Aldrich, filmmaker Gillian Aldrich’s mother. Aldrich tells of being subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury following an illegal abortion in 1964. “The jury members tried to intimidate me. I felt like I had a scarlet ‘A’ on my chest,” she says. “But I said that this man, this doctor, was a great hero to me and many others. I left feeling indignant at the lack of justice for women.” 

Gillian Aldrich and Jennifer Baumgardner are themselves indignant and hope Speak Out: I Had An Abortion will prompt viewers to express their opinions to those who are chipping away at abortion access and working to reverse Roe v. Wade. The film has already had an impact. According to Baumgardner, clinics are incorporating the film into pre-and-post abortion counseling, something she and Aldrich did not anticipate. Family members and partners are also being encouraged to watch it while waiting for their loved ones to leave the operating room. 

Moving, intense, and refreshingly honest, the film is a terrific educational tool. Still, changing abortion from something many are unable to talk about into something that can be addressed by anyone, anywhere, will take a lot more than a documentary film, no matter how powerful. That said, Speak Out: I Had An Abortion is a potent step in the right direction.

Eleanor Bader is a freelance writer and co-author of Targets of Hatred.  
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