WomenvoicesWhole Woman's Health v. HellerstedtAbortion

5 Women Share What Their Lives Are Like After Having An Abortion

A powerful photo series aims to break down the stigma around abortion.
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By 

Senior Reporter, HuffPost

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"If it's something that you feel ok talking about, I think that vocalization is important. I think it can help remove the stigma that's attached to having an abortion."
REUTERS/Allison Joyce

"There's so much loud, heated discussion about abortion in America, but very few voices from women who have had abortions are added to the debate," photographer Allison Joyce recently told The Huffington Post.

Joyce decided to change that with her photo series "Abortion, After The Decision," which features portraits of five women from around the United States sharing their abortion stories.

Though "Abortion, After The Decision" was published in 2013, it's still relevant in light of the recent Supreme Court case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the outcome of which has the potential to shut down almost every abortion clinic in Texas. 

"I thought it was important to hear women talk about the reasons why they decided to end their pregnancy and how they felt about their decision," Joyce told HuffPost. 

One in three women in the U.S. will have an abortion in her lifetime, but unfortunately the decision to have the procedure is still stigmatized. "That means statistically we all know someone who has had to make that decision," Joyce said. "It could be your mother, sister, friend, teacher, neighbor." 

By sharing their abortion stories, women can help break down this stigma. "I think it's important to humanize the issue and to go beyond the partisan debate, the statistics and headlines," Joyce said. "By talking openly and understanding how and why women arrive at the decision to terminate their pregnancy it can remove a lot of the stigma."

Scroll below to read their abortion stories. 

Lisa
Allison Joyce/Reuters
Lisa, a 27-year-old restaurant manager, posed for a portrait in her home in Massachusetts on October 11, 2012. Lisa said she was 24 when she became pregnant and had an abortion.

"No regrets. You never think about how you're going to feel when you do it. And when I did it, it was pretty straight-forward... The decision to do it wasn't hard and afterwards it hasn't been hard in that area. I mean, I've had struggles... And I thought I would maybe think about what it would be like if I went through with the pregnancy and having a child and I don't think about it. I don't try to think about it. I don't try not to, I just -- I don't."

Read the rest of Lisa's story here.
Jennifer
Allison Joyce/Reuters
Jennifer, a 23-year-old nurse, posed for a portrait in her home in New York on January 5, 2013. Jennifer was 17 when she became pregnant and had an abortion.

"I was against abortion. I really was -- I was against it. My mom has gone through so many troubles with pregnancies that I wouldn't want to do that... But at the same time, at the time I only had one parent there. My father was incarcerated, so I knew he'd be super duper disappointed in me. And then my mom was just like, 'You know if you get pregnant you're out of here because you're grown.' After that, I made my decision in about two months. After the procedure, I was crying. As soon as I woke up from the bed, I was crying. Crying, crying. And a woman next to me asked me how old I was, and I said 17. She said 'You did the right thing girl. You did the right thing because you're too young. You have your whole life ahead of you.'"

Read the rest of Jennifer's story here.
Aiyana
Allison Joyce/Reuters
Aiyana, a 22-year-old artist, posed for a portrait in her home in New York on September 21, 2012. Aiyana said she was 20 years old when she became pregnant and had an abortion.

"It definitely has been really rewarding in some ways at least I know I can give friends or acquaintances of mine somebody to talk to, who can give them advice or give them resources that they might not otherwise be aware of... Obviously it's something private. But if it's something that you feel ok talking about, I think that vocalization is important. I think it can help remove the stigma that's attached to having an abortion."

Read the rest of Aiyana's story here.
Lisa
Allison Joyce/Reuters
Lisa, a 45-year-old writer, posed for a portrait in her home in Massachusetts on October 13, 2012. Lisa said she became pregnant and had two abortions when she was in her 30s.

"I regret the choices that I made with regard to the men I was with... that's time that I can't get back. But, I do not regret the decision to terminate those pregnancies. That was the right decision for each one of those pregnancies that was tied to each one of those men."

Read the rest of Lisa's story here.
Leigh
Allison Joyce/Reuters
Leigh, a 26-year-old bartender, posed for a portrait in her home in Pennsylvania on September 24, 2012. Leigh said she was 21 years old when she became pregnant and had an abortion.

"I didn't take it lightly. It took every inch of strength inside of me to be able to do it, but I knew it was the right decision to make. I know it was the right decision to make. I've never doubted that. I don't regret it but I don't think I could ever stomach being able to do it again. I think I was just about to turn 22... I would have had a 4 and a half year-old right now."

Read more about Leigh's story here.

Head over to Joyce's website to see more of her work. 

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Before You Go

Myths About Abortion That Need To Be Busted
MYTH: Abortion is dangerous.(01 of08)
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REALITY: Over 99.75 percent of abortions do not cause major medical problems.Less than one-quarter of 1 percent of abortions performed in the United States lead to major health complications, according to a 2014 study from the University of California, San Francisco, that tracked 55,000 women for six weeks after their abortions. The researchers note that this makes an abortion statistically about as risky as a colonoscopy.If that fact seems surprising, consider how American pop culture misrepresents the risks of abortion: Nine percent of film and television characters who have abortions die as a direct result of the procedure, according to another 2014 study from UCSF. (credit:Getty Images)
2. MYTH: Medical abortions -- those performed using pills -- are still fringe.(02 of08)
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REALITY: About one in five abortions are medical abortions.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 19 percent of abortions in 2011 were medical abortions and that 28.5 percent of those took place in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The Guttmacher Institute also found that medical abortions increased substantially from 2008 to 2011, meaning more women have ended their pregnancies with this alternative to surgery.

3. MYTH: Women who get abortions will regret it, and are more likely to suffer mental health issues.(03 of08)
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REALITY: Most women will not regret their decision, and are no more likely to experience mental health problems than women who carry an unplanned pregnancy to term.While many women experience mixed emotions after an abortion, 95 percent of women who have abortions ultimately feel they have made the right decision, according to an August 2013 study from UCSF. "Experiencing negative emotions postabortion is different from believing that abortion was not the right decision," the researchers explained. Furthermore, while unplanned pregnancies often cause emotional stress, there is no evidence to suggest that women who choose to terminate their pregnancies will be more likely to suffer from mental health issues, according to a 2008 report from the American Psychological Association that investigated all relevant medical studies published since 1989.The APA found that past studies claiming abortion causes depression and other mental health problems consistently failed to account for other risk factors, particularly a woman's medical history. The APA accounted for these factors and found that, among women who have an unplanned pregnancy, those who have abortions are no more likely to experience mental health problems than those who carry the pregnancy to term.
4. MYTH: Fetuses experience pain during abortions.(04 of08)
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REALITY: Fetuses cannot feel pain until at least the 24th week of pregnancy. Experts ranging from Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agree with that timeline. In fact, research from UCSF found that fetuses can't perceive pain before 29 or 30 weeks of development.Then why have so many states banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy? Perhaps misrepresentation of research is partly to blame: Many of the researchers most frequently cited by pro-life politicians told The New York Times that their research does not prove anything about fetal pain.
5. MYTH: The majority of Americans don't think abortion should be legal.(05 of08)
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REALITY: Most Americans support a woman's right to choose.According to a Gallup poll from 2014, 78 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. (Fifty percent said "some circumstances," while 28 percent said all.) What's more, in 2012, Gallup found that 61 percent of Americans think abortions that take place during the first trimester of pregnancy should be legal. (Nine out of 10 abortions in the U.S. do take place during that time period, according to Guttmacher.) (credit:Getty )
7. MYTH: Most American women have easy access to abortions.(06 of08)
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REALITY: Women face a growing number of barriers to accessing abortions.More than 57 percent of American women live in states that are hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That represents a marked increase from 2000, when 31 percent of American women lived in such states. In 2011, 89 percent of counties in America had no abortion clinics. This is no accident: Across the U.S., lawmakers have enacted 231 new abortion restrictions over the past four years, according to a Guttmacher analysis from January 2015. As a result, many women have to travel great distances to reach an abortion clinic, where they may face 24-hour wait periods. These barriers particularly affect women living in rural areas and low-income women, who often can't afford to take time off work and pay for gas and a hotel room. Other laws force women to go through potentially distressing procedures, such as viewing their own ultrasound photos, in order to move forward with an abortion.
9. MYTH: Women would never have abortions if they knew what it was like to have a child.(07 of08)
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REALITY: Most women who have abortions are already mothers.Sixty-one percent of women who had abortions in 2008 were mothers, and 34 percent had two or more children, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That number only increased after the 2009 financial downturn. The National Abortion Federation told Slate that between 2008 and 2011, 72 percent of women seeking abortions were already mothers. A study from Guttmacher found that mothers typically have abortions to protect the children they already have; they simply cannot afford to raise another child. (credit:Getty Images)
10. MYTH: It is dangerous to perform abortions in clinics that do not meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical clinics. (08 of08)
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REALITY: Requiring abortion clinics to meet these standards does little to improve patient safety and forces many to shut down.Currently, 22 states require abortion clinics to meet a set of restrictive and often arbitrary standards, dictating that they be close to hospitals and that their hallways and closets meet certain measurements. Clinics often need to undergo expensive renovations in order to comply, and leading doctors' groups say the laws do little to improve patient safety.What's more, 11 states now require that doctors at abortion clinics obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, but many hospitals flat-out refuse to grant these privileges. As a result, hospitals essentially have the power to shut down nearby clinics. (credit:Getty Images)
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