Photo collage by Tommy Washbush
abortion art
Rain and Pat live in Madison but don’t know each other. Yet they share significant history. Both were young women when abortion was illegal in the United States and both suffered because of it. Like many others who lived through those times, they are devastated by the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and are motivated to help women seeking legal abortion outside of Wisconsin. Here are their stories.
Pat
Pat, 73, grew up outside of Middleton and says her early years were the very best of her life. She spent her time indulging in childish whims — making playhouses in the woods, reading, and tooling around in her rowboat.
“I felt free and happy outdoors, and I was nuts about rowing,” Pat says. “I could row forever, even as a little kid.”
Pat and her family attended Luther Memorial Church in Madison. Her family was religious, she says, but not “heavy-duty religious.” Rather, going to church served as an opportunity for her family to bond. Each Sunday, they threw a roast in the oven, went to church, and came back to eat a family dinner.
In 1962, when she was just 12, she was raped and became pregnant.
Pat’s pregnancy was treated as a secret by her family. She says they worried about the social ramifications of an unmarried, pregnant 12-year-old, shamed her for being pregnant, and did not allow her to leave the house. In the last few months of the pregnancy, she was sent to live with another family through the Lutheran Social Services system.
The baby weighed seven pounds, a massive weight for Pat’s small body. The physical strain caused perineal tears and she had to get 56 stitches. The baby was immediately put up for adoption.
For many years, Pat wondered about her child.
“His birthday was a holy day in my calendar,” Pat says. “It was always a day for reflection and for sadness and always wondering, ‘Is he all right? What kind of life has he had?’”
When her child was 39 years old, Pat found him through an online list for birth parents seeking their children. Pat and her son have since maintained a relationship, though she says it has had its ups and downs.
“It’s a real horror story that wouldn’t have been necessary with Roe,” Pat says.
News last spring of a 10-year-old girl from Ohio who had to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion conjured up many emotions for Pat. Her heart broke for the girl, but for herself as well, wishing that she, too, had had support for an abortion.
“And in that I was envious,” Pat says. “I didn’t have support from anyone. When it was over, it was supposedly over and I was supposed to get back to routine.”
But things at home continued to be hostile. Pat thought the only way out of her parents’ home would be to get pregnant again because she knew her mother would force her to marry the baby’s father. So at 16, she became pregnant again.
Her new home, however, was no better. Pat’s husband was both physically and sexually abusive.
“I really had no idea how to have or how to get into an appropriate relationship,” Pat says.
During her five-year marriage, Pat had a second trimester miscarriage. Her doctors told her the baby’s heart had stopped beating and that she would have to wait until her body naturally discharged the tissue. They told her that there was nothing else they could do.
Eventually, Pat started to bleed and was rushed to the hospital. Before she could be treated, though, she had to sign a paper that said she believed it to be a “natural abortion” or miscarriage. This absolved anyone who treated her of responsibility for fetal harm. Had the doctors not intervened, Pat would likely have become septic and died.
The type of procedure Pat had is called a dilation and curettage. D&C procedures account for 95 percent of surgical abortions in the second trimester in the United States. During the procedure, the cervix is dilated to create room for the doctor to remove the fetus and placenta using forceps and a suction device. The procedure lasts around 10-30 minutes.
Because this procedure is commonly associated with abortions, medical providers are often reluctant to perform D&Cs on women experiencing miscarriages in states where abortion is illegal for fear of jail time. Pro-choice advocates have warned that the overturning of Roe means that medical professionals will once again be more averse to treating pregnancy-related issues.
Wisconsin’s 1849 criminal abortion statute classifies the provision of an abortion in almost all cases as a Class H felony, punishable by up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Convicted physicians might also lose their medical licenses.
This leaves many medical providers in a legal predicament, posing serious health risks to their patients. A study of two hospitals in Dallas showed that when the Texas abortion ban took effect in September 2021, women had to wait an average of nine days for their cases to be deemed life threatening enough to justify abortion. While they waited, many of these women suffered health complications like hemorrhaging and sepsis. One of these women had to have a hysterectomy as a result.
The difficulty Pat had receiving care once her fetus had died left emotional and physical scars.
“First of all, to walk around with a dead baby inside you, and for that not to have been able to have been taken care of right away, I was just sad all the time,” Pat says. “Again, another horrifying situation that was totally unnecessary.”
Rain
Rain was 19 years old when she became pregnant. An art student in Detroit at the time, she says she never questioned whether she was going to continue the pregnancy. She simply was not ready to be a mother.
“It’s not a requirement for women to have children [or to] get married,” says Rain.
A friend gave Rain the name and number of a doctor who performed abortions as well as contact information for a doctor for a follow-up appointment.
Rain’s friend instructed her to pay the doctor $100 in cash, which felt like a million dollars to an art student like Rain. In today’s money, that equals just over $800. Rain had to ask her brother for a loan; he remains the only member of Rain’s family who knows about the abortion.
Rain arrived alone at the doctor’s office in an office building after hours. The lights were off and she waited for what seemed like hours. She remembers that a man eventually came to get her, but not much after that.
“I remember being in the room and I remember the process, and I think I remember getting up and dressing,” she recalls. “But I don’t even know how I got home or how I got there.”
A few months after the appointment, Rain went to see another doctor for her follow-up appointment. She went in for a standard gynecological appointment and told the doctor about her abortion. The doctor, she says, did not comment on her abortion. He just gave her a clean bill of health and she went on birth control after that.
Rain, who moved to Madison in 1996, has never been shy about saying she had an abortion, or that it was illegal. She also never felt guilty about it.
“I don’t think that any woman should ever feel bad about controlling her own body. Nobody gets to say what happens with your body.”
After her abortion, Rain became more vocal in her fight for women’s rights. She feels that if her abortion hadn’t happened that early in her life, she might not have been as strong a feminist as she is today.
“I wouldn’t have that experience of being told by the greater society that I couldn’t control my own body, that I had to have a baby,” Rain says. “I think it’s a question of agency.”
When Roe was decided, Rain felt a short-lived excitement thinking that women had secured the right to reproductive health and freedom. Now, looking back, she feels silly to have trusted the government.
“How did I ever believe that they would let us have it?” Rain says. “How did I ever believe that the patriarchy would ever let women have rights of their own, to control their own bodies, to control their own lives, to have a job that pays well, to be able to drive, to marry who you want. I’m never trusting them again ever.”
Though disappointing to Rain, Pat and countless others, the Supreme Court’s decision has revitalized the activism of the past. Recently, Rain has been primarily donating money to organizations. And says she would drive anyone out of state to get an abortion if they needed help with transportation.
“What’s happening now is all of us gray heads are just gonna be back in action, and the younger women will have a lot of support from us,” Rain says. “We may not be marching in the streets, but we will be with you.”
