A dear friend called me out of the blue a few years ago. As a born and bred millennial, I know that a phone call without advance warning means something serious. On this phone call, she told me she was pregnant and asked me if I thought she should have an abortion.
At the time, I was working as a nurse for Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida (PPSENFL) helping to provide dignified abortion access to patients. I started blabbing about the safety of abortions. I got on my soapbox about how the movies get it all wrong — the majority of patients are incredibly confident in their decisions and that most abortions are either induced at home after consultation with a physician or take just a few minutes in a simple procedure.
I mentioned the hundreds of abortions I had assisted on and that not one had required care that wasn’t easily managed in clinic. I even threw in the trite statement that pregnancy is far riskier than abortion. I rambled that abortion will not affect fertility in the future nor the health of future pregnancies, nor will it increase risks of getting cancer — all these being frequent enough questions I had gotten from patients.
