Let it Flow

When the news first broke, I was unable to react right away. I remember standing at my station in the middle of the crowded bank. It was the middle of the afternoon in the summer in the hectic downtown area of Bar Harbor, Maine. Every single one of us tellers was busy with no end in sight. As I was handing a customer their receipt, I saw my phone light up out of the corner of my eye. With a quick glance, I saw the only phrase I needed to know what had happened: Roe v. Wade. My heart sank immediately, my stomach dropped and I felt my lungs tighten, but I was quickly forced to move on and put my customer service smile back on and keep helping people. That was my job, and I had to wait until the end of my shift if not longer, to process something being felt by women across the nation. The Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

When the case of Roe v. Wade was first filed as a class action lawsuit against the state of Texas for its ban on abortions in 1969, Norma McCorvey, who anonymized herself for the case as Jane Roe, was pregnant with her third child after giving both of her previous children up for adoption and relinquishing custody of them. McCorvey had been looking to have an abortion during her third pregnancy. After pursuing her legal options was put in contact with feminist lawyers Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who had been anxiously awaiting a case such as Norma’s to challenge the state of Texas on their abortion ban. However, by the time the case had reached its ruling in Texas agreeing with Roe that the abortion ban was unconstitutional, time had run out and Norma gave birth to her third child and subsequently gave the child up for adoption. 

About four years later, the case of Roe v. Wade hit the floors of the United States Supreme Court. In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled in favor of Roe and declared that the right to make one’s own reproductive choices, including abortion and birth control, was federally protected by the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. This granted an individual the right from government involvement in their life, liberties, or property without due process and equal protection of the law. This included the right to safe and accessible abortion and contraceptive care. After this ruling, for the first time in our country, women and people with uteruses were finally able to take control of their own reproductive lives and carve out their own futures, enabling millions of women to pursue opportunities other than motherhood. This was huge.

Almost immediately after Roe v. Wade was enacted it faced many opposers, and slowly through various feats of lawsuits and court decisions, Roe was slowly deteriorating under the pressure. Abortion care became less accessible for many women, especially women of color and those with low incomes. After numerous changes in presidents and court justices, a vastly conservative majority arose in 2021, with many individuals with religious and personal pro-life biases. They revisited the case of Roe v. Wade and ruled to overturn the previous ruling from 1973, affirming that abortion is not federally protected by the Constitution and passing down the decisions for how to handle abortions to the states.

The Guttmacher Institute, a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, reports that six months after the new ruling last year, 24 states have banned or are in the process of banning abortion in some capacity, with a projected two more potentially joining the list by the end of this year, almost all of them justified their rulings with the claim that life begins at conception and the sanctity of life according to their religious affiliations. As much as we are supposed to believe our governments are separate from our churches, we are wrong. 

What’s even scarier is that this new ruling doesn’t simply impact abortions, but could limit or prevent women from receiving proper treatments for miscarriages or any other life-threatening incidents involving a fetus because the treatment involves some of the drugs and methods used during abortions. According to researchers Amanda Jean Stevenson, Leslie Root, and Jane Menken at the University of Colorado Boulder, if there was a total nationwide ban on abortion care, the rate of maternal deaths would increase by 24%. In addition to the restrictions on abortion, several legislators are now looking into limiting or banning access to emergency contraception like Plan B and birth control devices with the sole purpose of preventing pregnancy such as IUDs. My question for these legislators is: How far will you go in taking our choices for yourselves? With their beliefs being rooted in the sanctity of life and God’s Will for women to have children, will they believe that every item of birth control or contraception goes against God’s Will, even if it could mean life and death for many women and people with uteruses?

For me, these hypotheticals drove me mad. I am a twenty-year-old woman who has been medically dependent on birth control for around seven years now. When I was first beginning my period at age twelve, in sixth grade, I bled nonstop for weeks at a time. And it wasn’t just a normal flow; it was heavy and uncomfortable. I bled for nearly 28 days in a row and only a two-day break in between cycles. At the age of thirteen, I was diagnosed with severe anemia. I remember sitting in my classes at my tiny little elementary school with only ten other kids in the class, falling asleep or passing out at my desk due to exhaustion. I was always tired, but not just sleepy, I was drained. I could sleep anywhere from eight to thirteen hours a night and still be tired the next day. I had to avoid long periods of direct sunlight because I would get so exhausted. I was on my school’s basketball team and during practices and games I was required to let my coaches know when I needed a break because the entire gym would start to spin and spiral out of control and I would have to sit down before I collapsed. I felt like I couldn’t catch a break or regain any of the strength that I was rapidly losing. 

Due to these frequently occurring incidents, my mom took me to see a pediatric hematologist, who told me my period was to blame for my anemia and was subsequently mandated from ever experiencing my menstrual cycle at its full capacity. I was put on birth control patches at age 13, followed by pills until I reached high school. They also informed me that I would be needing iron infusions once a week for three weeks and then monthly for several months. 

Despite these intense trips to the hospital, I was making little to no improvements in raising my iron levels, and the doctors told my mother it was possible that I could experience cardiac arrest if I pushed myself too hard with such low levels. Being fed up with my stagnant iron levels but no new strategies from my doctors, my mom had me referred to Boston Children’s Hospital. There, they examined my chart and told me they were amazed I was doing as well as I was with such low levels, and that my previous doctors had been giving me barely enough iron to survive, and ordered I be given a dosage of iron ten times as strong as all of the treatments I had received prior combined. It only took me two infusion trips to Boston for my iron levels to recover, and I received my first Nexplanon birth control arm implant when I was fifteen. 

About two years ago, my first Nexplanon had reached its three-year maturity and was beginning to expire. As a result, I got my period again, and it hit me hard. After just two cycles I was anemic again, and I was sent back to the hospital for another iron infusion to get my levels back to normal before I began my second cycle with a Nexplanon. Getting my second Nexplanon was an exhausting experience, as I was contemplating how long I would remain dependent on birth control to keep me alive with no clear end in sight, and no alternative solution to my problem. I couldn’t escape the question: if I were ever forced to go off of my birth control, would I die from my anemia?

When I was finally able to sit down after a long week at the bank and think about the new Roe v. Wade ruling, I felt like I was losing my mind to grief. My rational mind knew that this decision would not directly impact me or my rights to my birth control. Despite this reality, my mind wandered to the negative space and pondered: could this decision lead to more decisions, which could lead to my demise? If they ever decide that the life of a hypothetical fetus I could potentially give birth to outweighs my need to avoid menstruation, how long will it take for me to die? My anxiety and depression were running me ragged, sending me towards a pit of despair and fear for a hypothetical future. But how hypothetical? I still don’t know. 

I rattled with this sadness for a couple of weeks, shedding the occasional tear at the mention of the ruling, when random political TikToks would appear on my feed, or listening to songs that reminded me of my femininity or the beauty of life. I was a mess. But one day as I was sitting on a leather sofa at my best friend's house, processing together all that we were feeling and the impending doom that seemed so close, she mentioned a protest that was happening a few towns away. We quickly threw together a plan and were determined to make signs and go scream our lungs out.

What I didn’t expect were the sheer numbers of people at the protest, and most specifically their stories and calls to action. Women, queer individuals, the young and the old, were all together with signs and fists in the air. After a long while standing on the sidewalk with the hot June sun beating down on me, listening to the stories of others, all united in their messages of grief and anger, and passion, I felt inspired. I whispered to my friend, “I think I want to say something.” 

She looked at me with a gentle smile and said, “I was waiting for you to say that.” I grinned back at her as she finished, “Do it.” 

After the last speaker was landing their final remarks and the crowd applauded, I made my way to the middle of the circle we had created and approached the person with the megaphone and declared I had a story. 

I shared with them the same story I shared with you, one of medical trials and tribulations, of frustration and defeat, dependency on something I may lose, of the grief and fear and anxiety I was feeling all day, every day. And in purging my story to the crowd, hearing folks come up to me afterward and share similar feelings, frustrations, and stories of their own, I finally felt like we stood a chance. That there were enough of us who were angry. Enough of us who are frustrated. Enough of us grieving a future we may not get to share. If we could all continue or start sharing and spreading our stories, getting these pains off our chests. If enough people could see, hear, feel our pain, maybe they may grow an inch of compassion for us. But the only way we can do that is if everyone with a story shares it. Let it flow out of you, get out all of your frustrations and anger out with your words, go to a protest, scream into a megaphone, or simply scream. Whatever you can do to make your voice heard, do it, let it flow.