{"id":209119,"date":"2019-08-28T10:45:48","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T15:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=209119"},"modified":"2019-08-28T00:10:32","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T05:10:32","slug":"abortion-doulas-forced-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-doulas-forced-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"‘She started screaming’: Abortion ‘doulas’ describe woman’s traumatic forced abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Abortion doulas are volunteers to who try to comfort women during their abortions<\/a>. In their book The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People<\/em>, pro-abortion activists Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell told the story of one woman\u2019s extremely painful and traumatic abortion.<\/p>\n

The woman, identified as Ren, was having her abortion with a doula named Kale. From the beginning, Ren was emotionally distraught. According to the book:<\/p>\n

First, she screamed with all of the air in her lungs as her IV was put in, saying that it was incredibly painful. Kale realized that it\u2019s not that it wasn\u2019t painful to her \u2013 some people really don\u2019t like needles \u2013 but that her feelings of anxiety about the abortion may have made the pain feel even more frightening. She was resigned to the decision in that she was showing up for the procedure. Otherwise, she didn\u2019t really have a \u201cchoice\u201d as such. She was putting one foot in front of the other.<\/em><\/p>\n

The authors suggest that Ren did not really want to have an abortion, but was pressured into it by her life circumstances. This, they suggest, is part of the reason why she reacted the way she did. Ren\u2019s experience got worse:<\/p>\n

Ren was uncomfortable throughout the procedure, but when the doctor was more than halfway done, she panicked, yelling that it hurt too much, that she couldn\u2019t keep going. She pressed her feet into the footrests on the exam table and catapulted back. She started screaming, \u201cI changed my mind!\u201d and thrashed around. This was incredibly dangerous. Kale\u2019s mind raced \u2013\u00a0What should I do? She\u2019s not consenting to this procedure. I have to tell the doctor to stop\u00a0\u2013 until he realized,\u00a0they can\u2019t stop. The abortion is almost completed, and if she keeps moving, she\u2019s going to hurt herself.<\/em><\/p>\n

He cringed at the thought that if there had been an antichoicer [pro-lifer] in the room they would have had a field day. But the reality was, there was nothing else to do. Now this had to happen. She had had most of the abortion. The most important thing was to make sure that her uterus wasn\u2019t going to get punctured.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sadly, at this point it was probably true that there was no way to save Ren\u2019s baby, and her uterus had to be emptied to prevent infection. Nevertheless, it was callous of the abortionist to simply keep going. Ren could have been transferred to a hospital, which might have lessened her trauma.<\/p>\n

READ: \u2018You\u2019re not alone\u2019: Woman forced to abort encourages other victims to heal<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kale reportedly told Ren, “You have to do this… I\u2019m so sorry this hurts, but you\u2019re going to finish… Because you have to. You\u2019re not the first person who has done this, and you won\u2019t be the last. Lots of people have done it before you and you can do it, too.”<\/p>\n