Tucson, Arizona
CNN
—
Her feet dangle off the exam table, anxiously swinging back and forth. The doctor will arrive soon for the ultrasound.
The woman will see the first image of the baby growing inside of her – one she will never hold.
The ultrasound doesn’t take long, and the image is unmistakable.
“You can see the head and the little nose,” says the woman, pointing at the ultrasound picture. She asks the doctor if she can keep the image. “I want the picture because although I am deciding and taking this option, I still wanted to see my little baby,” she says.
That option is an abortion.
She will have the termination at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Tucson, Arizona, where she was just examined. First, there is a state-mandated 24-hour wait.
As she sits, ultrasound picture in her hand, she chooses to tell her story to CNN.
“I want to make peace with this,” she says, grieving for the child who will never be born.
Her decision has nothing to do with politics. But caught up in all the emotions roiling through her is her reaction to the national political debate about reproductive rights and who should decide what is best.
“I am very angry. Very,” she emphasizes. “All I see is a group of people – men, mostly – making a decision for all of us women when they have not one idea what it is like to be in our shoes.”
She spoke to CNN just days before a Pima County judge ruled Friday that a ban from 1901, before Arizona was even a state, should be allowed to come into force. The 121-year-old law, which allows abortion only to save the life of the mother, is one of the measures coming back into effect since this summer’s Dobbs decision by the US Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade.
The woman, whose identity CNN is withholding for her privacy and her safety, says she may not show you her face, but she wants you to hear her story.
“If we speak up more, maybe our voices will be heard. Just maybe.”
The woman in the clinic is 23 and lives with her partner and their two young sons.
Her first pregnancy was physically challenging, from dehydration to extreme abdominal pain.
But she says the second…
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