'Nobody wants an abortion':
Gordon, Mary Beth
CHRONICLE OF LIFE & DEATH-I 'Nobody wants an abortion' MARY BETH GORDON STATISTICIANS consider my friend, Maureen, a typical candidate for abortion. She is between 18 and 29 years old and was...
...I do not mention the incident when Maureen returns...
...I'm with her," I say...
...Maureen often dreams of tornadoes when she's unhappy...
...The hands on the clock quietly approach noon...
...I am examining scuff marks on the tile floor when the teenager's mother emerges from the coffeeshop...
...Maureen signs the document...
...Her slumped shoulders and glazed eyes dissolve my buoyant smile...
...The girl has stopped walking and stands, squarely facing her escort...
...Last week she was going to Oregon where the welfare payments are high and the air clean...
...She is here at the urging of friends who have convinced her that there is no other choice...
...Maureen nods and the woman directs us to a second floor clinic...
...We sit at the end of a long row of metal folding chairs with at least twenty-five other mostly silent women...
...I wonder if he thinks I'm the one here for an abortion...
...A black woman in a pale pink lab coat questions us from behind a chipped metal desk...
...I follow the gravel drive to a squat, brown brick building...
...She and her daughter have waited with us in other lines...
...I take it, grateful for the activity...
...Maureen sits motionless in the car...
...I had a tornado dream last night," she says after sitting quietly for a while...
...I would tell him," Maureen said many times, "but he's living with another woman...
...She hands Maureen a folded bundle and tells her to dress quickly...
...Maureen is summoned to another room for more paper signing...
...I stare at the bulge pushing through the top two buttons of Maureen's skirt...
...In 1982, an estimated two million American women entered clinics and hospitals for abortions...
...You must have cash," she cautions Maureen...
...I fantasize telling him that I came to support my friend...
...Let's go," she says...
...Leave your personal belongings with your friend...
...I know that Maureen doesn't want an abortion...
...We drive to the hospital on the tar-speckled pavement past gray, dusty storefronts pushed close to the sidewalk...
...He spits in the bucket as we pass...
...I want to comfort her but I don't know what to say...
...I eat lunch and smoke another pack of cigarettes before Maureen reappears...
...She didn't want to be alone...
...Maureen is not speaking today...
...More drowsy women in hospital gowns pass us as they wander toward the rest area...
...Her normally glib tongue lies flaccid in her mouth...
...These women are responding normally to medication," our guide addresses Maureen...
...The nurse squints her eyes in a scowl but says nothing...
...I understand her silence...
...Sometimes, there just isn't any other reasonable choice...
...Every day she suggests a new plan to ward off this inevitable moment...
...But Maureen never went to Oregon or any place...
...I light my first cigarette of the day...
...I have seen them in other hallways...
...The minute hand is glued to a number on the clock on the wall...
...A young woman in white leads us down another hallway...
...Maureen hands $300 to the woman in a starched white uniform who guards the clinic door...
...Another female employee stands before us...
...You can't get an abortion without it...
...I don't think anyone ever really wants an abortion," she confides...
...This information, however, is indifferent, almost casual...
...Just in case," she whispers...
...She shows me the folded hundred dollar bill hidden in the torn lining of her billfold...
...Maureen takes her purse from my hands...
...I look at the thick, black curls framing her eyes and wonder if it will hurt very much...
...At one end of the hall, a group of comatose women recline on tables or slump in chairs...
...Abortion...
...she asks too loudly...
...She offers me a cigarette...
...Maureen does not comment...
...Someone even gave her a going-away party smiling friends patting her hands as they whispered abortion among themselves...
...she asks me...
...Her clutched hands protect her small stomach...
...The mother kept saying to anyone who would listen,' 'I don't believe in abortion but my daughter is only fifteen, so what can I do...
...Whenever the nurse enters the room to summon a patient, everyone rises with relief and moves ahead to the next chair...
...Pipes hang unconcealed overhead and a stooped-shouldered janitor slowly mops the green linoleum floor...
...Maureen gives me her purse...
...Maureen sits in the teenager's empty chair...
...I am relieved to see a familiar face...
...I'm ready," she says...
...Meet me in room 204 in five minutes," she says...
...We retrace our steps down the corridor...
...Maureen's decision to abort was not...
...Not many left happy...
...No job, no money, no man what else can she do...
...I think this lady will collect the extra fee...
...Sign this," she again commands Maureen...
...The light yellow and green concrete walls remind me more of a school than a hospital...
...She is already squeamish, and I know that the least negative comment might send her running to the car...
...conversation by asking Maureen to watch for the hospital sign...
...She assents without comment, dull eyes scanning the wrong side of the road...
...You'll be able to rest here comfortably after the procedure...
...I follow my friend into a tiny, airless room...
...I finally see it myself dark blue with gold block lettering and a white arrow pointing left...
...A frightened teenager passes me and whimpers into a seersucker hospital gown wadded in her hands.' 'I want to see my mother,'' she tells the nurse who pushes her brusquely down the hall...
...I make a ritual of pulling the keys from the ignition and carefully placing them in the correct compartment of my purse...
...It is her will that carries her rigid body to the hospital reception desk...
...Maureen offers her chair to a pale, expressionless woman who forgets to smile...
...We're late," I say...
...I wait, chairless, in the hall...
...It gives the doctor permission to use whatever surgical procedure he decides is necessary...
...Each of us cross and recross our legs and arms and gaze intently at selected spots on the wall...
...The nurse impatiently squeezes the girl's arm and leads her captive around a corner to an unknown destination...
...Steve, Maureen's husband, departed before the pregnancy was known...
...We sit at a card table...
...She is between 18 and 29 years old and was recently confronted with an unwanted pregnancy...
...Through the glass commissary window near my post I watch the girl's mother drink coffee...
...I make MARY BETH GORDON is a free-lance journalist who writes for local and national publications...
...Sign this," instructs a nurse as she shoves a legal-sized piece of paper in front of Maureen...
...What's your name...
...Hugging her, I assure Maureen that I will be there when it is done...
...I want my mother...
...You will have to pay an additional $100 if you are more than three-months pregnant," she says...
...It seems we have spent the whole morning pressed between close walls...
...A nurse calls Maureen's name...
Vol. 110 • October 1983 • No. 18
