What You Need to Know For the Post-Roe World

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What You Need to Know For the Post-Roe WorldGetty
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Getty

Maybe you saw it online. Maybe you heard it on NPR. Maybe your girlfriend told you as you lay in bed together scrolling through your phones, her fielding frantic texts from her group chat or checking in on her mom, you reading legal analyses, both of you fluorescent with rage and despairing at the news: According to a leaked initial draft of its majority opinion, the Supreme Court planned to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision upholding our constitutional right to abortion. Legal access to safe, common, and often lifesaving medical care was disappearing before your eyes.

But no matter how you learned of this, and no matter how consumed you were with righteous anger and concern that night, I’m willing to bet you did not wake up the morning after, or the morning after that, or every morning since, full of fear. I don’t mean that you don’t care, because I know you do.

It’s just that most cisgender men in my life don’t seem to know much about the actual mechanics of abortion, or how it affects them. Until now, a pregnant person’s relative access to safe, legal abortion has often provided a luxury to the men around her: the luxury of not having to worry about it or to know who had one or when. Seventy-three million people worldwide get an abortion every year—a club whose membership has always included people you know and love and date and work with, and there are as many reasons for those abortions as there are members. Mine was that I needed an abortion to avoid the high-risk pregnancy and birth that might have robbed my existing child of a healthy, living mom. I knew it from the moment the plus sign appeared on the pregnancy test.

This article appeared in the SUMMER 2022 issue of Esquire
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But there are others. Maybe the embryo couldn’t survive, or the person carrying it couldn’t. Maybe she couldn’t afford a baby. Maybe the pregnancy was the result of a sexual assault. Maybe she didn’t want to be a mother. Maybe she was, like me, already a mother. Maybe you were the one who impregnated her. Maybe you’d broken up and weren’t speaking. Maybe she didn’t want you to know about it because it was only your third date. Maybe you’d go on to fall in love and would spend one terrifying night in May scrolling through the news side by side in your bed.

No matter their reasons, if they were lucky enough to have access to a routine first-trimester abortion in an America where Roe v. Wade was the law of the land—and Republicans hadn’t yet passed the federal abortion ban they promise is coming—it probably looked something like mine: When I arrived at the clinic for my appointment, and after I had consented in detail to my abortion, I was shown to a small procedure room. I stepped out of my maternity jeans—still the only pants that fit me less than a year postpartum—and my underwear and hopped up onto the crinkling paper. They let me keep my sweater on. I was allowed to ask any questions I wanted, to see or keep the pregnancy tissue if I wished. I was sedated, given anti-anxiety medication, and offered multiple hands—my nurse’s, my husband’s—to hold. When I was ready, my provider reached inside my body with the medical instruments necessary to dilate my cervix, to evacuate the contents of my uterus. To make me un-pregnant. There was some pain, and some blood, and lots of intense emotions. And then I went home and made dinner.

national rallies for abortion rights held across the us
Abortion-rights supporters in NYC on May 14, 2022.Robert Nickelsberg - Getty Images

In a world where abortions are illegal, they will no longer happen like mine; they will usually be “self-managed.” In other words, they will happen, much of the time, at home. On people’s couches, while sitting at their desks, in apartment bathrooms shared with roommates. If there are hands for the pregnant person to hold, they may be yours, so I’m now going to tell you what you’re in for. A self-managed medication abortion involves a combination of pills: misoprostol and mifepristone. Luckily, taking them is very safe, safer than taking Viagra, antibiotics, or Tylenol, as long as you actually have access to them. As of this writing, a physician will prescribe abortion pills online in many states, at AidAccess.org and JustThePill.com. They come with detailed instructions and medical guidance.
It’s even possible to be prescribed abortion pills before someone is pregnant, to have on hand, just in case, right there next to the Advil and the vitamins.

She’ll take the mifepristone first, then the misoprostol, and soon she’ll start to feel cramps. When the tissue leaves her uterus, it might look like a normal period, or there might be blood clots the size of a lemon. Most of it will probably land in the toilet. She might need your physical and emotional support—a heating pad, a home-cooked meal, some favorite movies, a day resting in bed. The process might take a while. It might not.

There’s more you’re going to have to do in our new world. First—and you’ve already started this one just by reading this far—understand that you’ve benefited from abortion, and be able to talk about that. One in four U. S. women (and uncounted numbers of trans and gender-nonconforming Americans) has had an abortion. Maybe your life—like my husband’s, or my son’s—is made easier, better, or even possible in the first place by a loved one’s abortion.

Second: Put your money and your body where your mouth is. You’ve likely already been urged to donate to your local abortion funds–a recurring monthly donation, in any amount, if you can swing it. Throw cash at organizations that help people travel to safe states and find care. You can find a nationwide list on Apiaryps.org, another website to write on a post-it somewhere. When someone in your life needs an abortion–something which will happen more, not less–be ready to help them seek out resources. Know some by name, like the All-Options Talkline at (888)-493-0092 and INeedAnA.

Then reach reach out to a local clinic to see if they could use an escort. Help keep patients safe from the harassment and abuse that often become violence as they enter and exit their medical appointments.

Next up: Remember who’s most at risk. While most illegal abortions will be medically safe, they will nonetheless carry enormous danger for the people and communities already most targeted by law enforcement. After all, they’ll be illegal. Think first about the Black and Indigenous people and other people of color, the poor and undocumented people, and the trans people whose bodies are, as you read this, being surveilled, policed, and handcuffed in hospital rooms. Give to the ReproLegalFund, and save the number of the ReproLegalHelpline in your phone. Seriously, do it now. It’s (844) 868-2812. Then pass it along to everyone you know.

Speaking of illegal: Look into encrypted chat apps like Signal. Don’t leave a paper trail to incriminate your girlfriend or your Uber driver. Depending on where you live, it may soon no longer be safe to email or text about abortion off these platforms.

But for now—and while we’re keeping it general and hypothetical; no medical or legal advice here!—here’s one text that will always be safe to send: a message to those of us who love and trust you and whose bodies are about to become illegal. Tell us you’re learning about abortion. Tell us you get it. Tell us that you won’t abandon us.

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