Kinja reply list

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franklymydearidontgiveadamnJia Tolentino
6/15/16 11:37am
You should change the headline - even if just for this woman's sake - yes, she had an abortion but she did so for a very specific reason and it's click bait to leave the headline as is. I was horrified by the title and then immediately realized it was misleading.
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  Jia Tolentinofranklymydearidontgiveadamn
  6/15/16 11:50am
  fuck off
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  hellbetty666franklymydearidontgiveadamn
  6/15/16 11:51am
  How exactly is it misleading?
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Jia TolentinoJia Tolentino
6/15/16 11:58am
Here’s a link to Dr. Hern’s clinic for anyone interested in offering support directly to the people who work there, and here’s the National Network of Abortion Funds. The George Tiller Memorial Fund specifically goes to late abortions.
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  thetallblonde loves twinjaJia Tolentino
  6/15/16 12:17pm
  jia, want to thank you for writing this. i am not a mom, have never been pregnant, but was moved to tears by your words and the way you spoke with elizabeth. this story is so important,and i’m glad you were the one writing this. thank you.
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  Betty SlocombeJia Tolentino
  6/15/16 12:25pm
  Thank you, I was going to ask for a link to donate. His clinic deserves a new roof.
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Sunshine is my Spirit AnimalJia Tolentino
6/15/16 12:08pm
god fucking damn it, the pull-out method. As a public health worker, I just have to cringe.
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  EmRySunshine is my Spirit Animal
  6/15/16 12:12pm
  The Nurse Practitioner at the Planned Parenthood I went to when I first started having sex told me it was the most effective way to prevent pregnancy, when done correctly. (The problem is that it is not always done correctly.)
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  One Armed KiethSunshine is my Spirit Animal
  6/15/16 12:24pm
  *bangs head against desk repeatedly* why
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weebleswobbleJia Tolentino
6/15/16 12:09pm
Another thing I want to say is that yes, I had this very particular, horrible situation—but if I had had an abortion at 20 weeks just because I didn’t feel ready, that should be okay, too. Like it or not, all of our rights are intertwined. Maybe there’s some woman who has had four abortions and maybe that feels really wrong to you. But my rights are wrapped up with hers, so I have to fight like fuck for her to have as many as she wants—not just for her sake, but for mine, too. If I ever have a daughter, the way things are currently going, she’s going to be fucked if she ever goes through this.

I just want to highlight this passage for anyone who skims or just jumps to the comments. Because truer words.
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  JenisaurusRexweebleswobble
  6/15/16 12:21pm
  YES.
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  Ma Vafaculoweebleswobble
  6/15/16 12:36pm
  THIS. When I was younger, still living at home with my conservative parents, I took a political science class at the local college. We had weekly debates, and for the reproductive rights debate, I took the anti-abortion side, because that’s what I believed. The professor asked if I thought abortion was murder and should be outlawed if a woman had been raped or if she’d die if she carried the baby to term. I said no, of course not. She said, and I’ll never forget it, “You can’t call it murder sometimes but not others. It either is or it isn’t. And since you seem to think it’s OK in some circumstances, you should reconsider your stance.” I did. Though I’m an unabashed liberal now, more than two decades later, that conversation changed everything for me. I’m pro-choice for everybody, even the terribly irresponsible, and nothing could ever change my mind.
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BusPassTrollop curls up and diesJia Tolentino
6/15/16 11:42am
How selfless and incredible of this woman to share such a painful, heartbreaking yet insightful story. So much love going out to her.
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  EmRyBusPassTrollop curls up and dies
  6/15/16 12:16pm
  Seriously. I cannot even imagine having to go through all of this. To do this again, if I had personally been through it . . . I don’t know if I could. Even talking about it is an incredible thing. But it is something people need to hear.
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  mathildadiehlBusPassTrollop curls up and dies
  6/15/16 12:32pm
  I know it’s so hard and painful to do, but I wish more people would talk about their miscarriages and other fertility issues. I was completely shocked when I realized how common it is, and I think it would help a lot with the feelings of failure that so many women have when they have trouble conceiving or carrying.
  
  I was really encouraged by how supportive her husband was though. They say that facing major problems either drives couples apart or closer together, and it sounds like they’re getting closer. I truly hope they’re able to have children; it seems like they’re the sort to be wonderful parents. I can imagine that it’s incredibly scary to think about trying again, though.
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notenoughcoffeeintheworldJia Tolentino
6/15/16 11:50am
I’m not a crier. I rarely cry. But I cried now. What a brave woman. What a scary country we live in. I just dearly hope it doesn't get any scarier than it already is for anyone who is not a cishet white man.
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  deerlady83notenoughcoffeeintheworld
  6/15/16 12:07pm
  I’m crying, too.
  
  Right now, I’m also dealing with the my aunt’s process into death. So I'm extra sensitive today. I'm hoping that today is going to be the last day but she's already so far gone.
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  Marzipan in your Pie Platenotenoughcoffeeintheworld
  6/15/16 12:10pm
  I’m ugly-crying at work. I had to close my door. This story is heart-breaking in itself, but the fact that closed-minded mean little people make it so much harder is infuriating.
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CarlySparklesJia Tolentino
6/15/16 11:51am
is there any way to donate to the clinic that performed it? even if it’s just going to fix the leaky roof, they deserve as much help as they can get for offering their services to women in situations like this.
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  Jia TolentinoCarlySparkles
  6/15/16 11:55am
  Yeah, posting some links as a standalone comment right now — thank you for the reminder.
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  hellbetty666CarlySparkles
  6/15/16 11:56am
  Yeah, that would be really good to know. I would certainly donate.
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Eve WhiteJia Tolentino
6/15/16 11:46am
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

I want to clarify something so that other women (and men) don’t end up in a similar situation, where something so deeply personal gets shared to people you did not choose to include.

HIPAA is a privacy rule between medical professionals (doctors, nurses, insurance agents, etc) and patients. It in no way applies to people in the real world. So if you confide in your boss, colleague, or friend that you’re sick and they tell the world, they are an asshole and may have violated a company rule, but it is not a HIPAA violation and you have no legal standing. There is no expectation of privacy in those situations other than kind of assuming that based on human decency people will keep things to themselves.

It is so so important that we understand where confidentiality extends as a way of protecting our rights to tell our own stories.

We don’t talk often enough about the experience you went through (both late term abortions in general and the fact that many abortions are due to complications with the fetus — and how restricted that access is). I appreciate your helping to bring attention to it.
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  Major Lazer Power BlazerEve White
  6/15/16 11:56am
  thank you. i was coming here to ask about this.
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  RabbitRabbitEve White
  6/15/16 1:43pm
  Yup, thank you. He may well have violated some kind of internal policy at their workplace (or maybe not), but that is not a HIPAA violation. It is deeply shitty.
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crucifictorious916Jia Tolentino
6/15/16 11:47am
My heart broke into one thousand pieces for this woman. my god. MY GOD. I CANNOT.

I wish her all the beautiful things on earth. I wish her peace. She is so strong.

And anyone who hasn’t watched After Tiller should. God bless Dr. Hern and the remaining people who help women get through this terrible, horrible, awful awful thing. And fuck people who judge. And fuck our misogynistic society that forces women in unspeakable grief to get on airplanes and pay $25,000 to give their child a merciful death. BASICALLY FUCK EVERYTHING.
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  Imogeniecrucifictorious916
  6/15/16 1:08pm
  My mind bends a little bit that women end up deliverng a baby they do not want because it is less logistically and financially fraught than an abortion.
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  Ken Yadiggitcrucifictorious916
  6/15/16 1:41pm
  Right? All I could think after this is “I want to buy this lady a drink and a vacation to somewhere warm with blue,blue water and maybe one of those canopy princess beds and like, a 4-wheeler if she wants. ANYTHING SHE WANTS.”
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deerlady83Jia Tolentino
6/15/16 12:05pm
I’m so sorry for everything that woman and her husband went through. I feel terrible she can’t share her what happened because so many people would judge her. She had an impossibly hard situation with so many things that went wrong for her. You don’t always get a good pregency or a healthy baby. When that happens we need to have options for women that include abortion. Women should be able to still have access to abortion even if there are no medical issues.

That Doctor deserves so much for all he does for women. He helped them through one of the most experiences in their life.
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  Dinosaurs and Nachos, girlfriend!deerlady83
  6/15/16 1:03pm
  I think you actually just pointed out the flaw in so many people’s thinking when it comes to opposing abortion access for women.
  
  You don’t always get a good pregnancy or a healthy baby.
  
  This is simply reality but it is scary and heartbreaking and so many people do not want to face it. So instead of admitting that this can happen (and actually isn’t all that rare, considering) people want to believe that late-term abortions are because irresponsible sluts just want to be able to party or some bullshit.
  
  That’s an easier thing to think about than the fact that healthy pregnancies are more rare than they should be and that they don’t always happen just because we do everything “right.” So people have to separate themselves from that fear that an unhealthy pregnancy can happen to them. Look I’m even doing it now by saying “unhealthy pregnancy.” Nobody wants to think about their child dying. So they think about other people doing terrible things instead. The more people talk about what can and does go wrong, the more I think we will be able to face these tragedies without getting angry for all the wrong reasons.
  
  Get angry that we don’t have enough funding for research to prevent every single tragedy like these. Get angry that we don’t have a social safety net that allows people to make decisions about carrying children with special needs without considerations of cost or quality of life issues. Get angry that some women can’t afford prenatal care that would prevent or mitigate some of these tragedies. Get angry that there may be environmental factors caused by humans that affect pregnancies but that our government serves the companies who create these disasters more than the people who are affected by them.
  
  Get angry at so many things. But do not get angry at women for making the best decisions that they can in some of the worst situations imaginable. (And of course I don’t mean “you” as in you deerlady. I mean all of us.)
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  deerlady83Dinosaurs and Nachos, girlfriend!
  6/15/16 1:22pm
  I agree and know you don't mean me. Studying enough biology and you learn how it can go wrong in frightening ways. People need to understand that and realize these women are doing the best that they can.
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