Women deserve to know abortion is not the only option

Bottles of the drug misoprostol sit on a table at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Misoprostol is used for a number of purposes, including as the second step in a medication abortion. The abortion pill mifepristone is the primary drug used for medication abortion, by blocking a hormone needed for pregnancy to continue. Misoprostol is then used to cause cramping that empties the womb. | (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)

I can still feel it today — the cold and discomfort that I and many other women encountered standing in that bleak Planned Parenthood room, fidgeting in the unnerving silence. I was unexpectedly pregnant and waiting to start the chemical abortion pill regimen. Little did I know the incredible experience that was about to unfold in my life.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was afraid. Just weeks prior, I suffered a traumatizing miscarriage that left me with intense emotional pain. Fresh from that wound and terrified to tell my mother, my longtime boyfriend, Jacarri, and I agreed that I would have an abortion this time.