ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 24, 1997 TAG: 9703240114
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY THE ROANOKE TIMES
As Virginia legislators debated parental notification earlier this year, one young woman made a painful decision - then had to deal with its aftermath.
The 17-year-old Southwest Virginia girl regularly took birth control pills, but around Christmas she became ill and was prescribed antibiotics, which weaken the pill's effectiveness. During the vulnerable time, she and her boyfriend used condoms and tried to be careful.
They weren't careful enough.
In mid-January, she discovered she was pregnant. Her thoughts began seesawing between having a baby and having an abortion.
As she carried on her personal debate, Virginia politicians wrangled over and passed a bill that in July will mean girls like her will need their parents' approval to get an abortion.
If the parents won't go along with a teen's decision, she can ask the courts to help.
In 1995 - the last year for which statistics have been compiled - 4,083 girls under the age of 18 had babies in Virginia; more than half that many, 2,251, had abortions. In the community where this girl resides, the number of abortions for girls under age 18 was three - the number of live births, 11.
The decisions about whether to have an abortion are made in a variety of ways. In many, the parents are informed. In others, the girls act independently.
This is the story of one girl's experience - and how it has affected her and her family. They are not being named to protect their privacy.
The girl is a senior in high school. Her family is close-knit and describes itself as middle-class. Her father makes about $50,000 a year; her mother volunteers. Family members said they can talk about things. When the girl decided to become sexually active, her parents bought her birth control pills.
When they learned about the pregnancy, though, they got angry.
They screamed.
They cursed.
"In the first 30 minutes, I told her I would drag her" to get an abortion, the mother recalls.
Then they calmed down.
Their reaction was frightening, the teen-ager said. She was about three weeks pregnant then and had decided she would have the baby.
Her parents and her boyfriend disagreed with her.
Eventually, the young woman agreed with them: she said she would like to have her own life stable before she became a mother. Her boyfriend would be leaving after graduation, and she also had college plans.
Mother and daughter talked with staff at the three main places that perform abortions in the Roanoke Valley: Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge Clinic; the Roanoke Medical Center for Women, a clinic; and Physicians to Women, a private group medical practice.
The young woman was concerned about the price, the medication she would be given and what counseling would be available before and after the abortion.
The private practice was dismissed quickly; the staff wasn't receptive to questions, the girl said.
Planned Parenthood's clinic offered the best counseling, even agreeing to counsel her boyfriend, but the young woman decided to have the abortion at the Roanoke Medical Center for Women because it allows its patients a pain medication, Versed (midazolan).
Versed leaves a woman awake and alert, but she doesn't remember what happened. That was something that later bothered the young woman.
The drug also costs more than medications routinely used. With Versed, the price of the abortion went from $270 to $350.
On her initial visit to the medical center, the young woman filled out papers and had a sonogram so that the staff could make certain her pregnancy was normal - in the uterus and not in the Fallopian tubes. The sonogram also assured the medical center that the young woman was not more than three months pregnant, the limit at which the center can do abortions.
She was less than two months pregnant.
She was shown the room where the abortion would be done, shown which equipment would be used and told about possible side effects from the abortion and medication.
The abortion procedure she scheduled is called a vacuum aspiration. An instrument that acts like a vacuum cleaner sucks out the lining of the uterus, and the fertilized egg attached to it.
When the young woman signed a statement that the abortion was her decision, she was surprised that her emotional state was not discussed.
"Because I had been wishy-washy, I wanted someone to suggest that I take more time to think about it."
She left the clinic with an appointment and another decision to make: Whom to bring with her the day she had the abortion. Only one person could accompany her.
She wavered between her mother and her boyfriend before settling on the boyfriend.
"If I have to suffer and go through with the whole thing," she said, "he can sit in the waiting room and feel antsy."
Her thinking wasn't as harsh as it sounded. Her boyfriend had told her he was concerned about how she might feel toward him after the abortion. He didn't want her to resent him.
`It wasn't my first choice'
She and her boyfriend arrived at the clinic at 9:15 on a wet, cold Wednesday.
They were 45 minutes late because they got lost. They didn't even notice the anti-abortion picketers who are a fixture across the street from the facility.
They were checked in by the security guard, and she went to have a blood sample taken. They then sat in the waiting room with about 50 other people, most of them women. The young woman noticed some were wearing wedding rings.
"I couldn't believe how many people were there. I couldn't believe how many people were in the position of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy," she said.
Some 25,000 Virginia women will get abortions this year, most at places like the Roanoke clinics, which serve all of Southwest Virginia. The clinics also see some underage girls from nearby states, such as North Carolina and Tennessee, which already have parental notification laws.
The other women waiting this day were all ages, but the teen-ager guessed she was one of the youngest.
She also thought she was the most nervous and the most scared.
"The rest of the girls in there seemed to be handling things better than I," she said. "I was doing my best to stay composed.
"I was very upset when I went in. It was my choice, but it wasn't my first choice. Even when I felt like this was probably the right decision, I didn't feel that 100 percent."
When it came time for her procedure, a nurse had to stick her a couple of times to give her medicine, and the young woman started crying.
"I just let it out. I was bawling pretty bad. I was pretty upset. People tried to talk with me."
In a recovery room later, though, she chatted with the other women. One was 38 and married. Another was a college student who was there alone; the student said her boyfriend was out-of-state and she saw him only a couple of times a month.
The teen-ager's boyfriend got through the clinic visit just fine, she said. On the way home, though, they argued.
"I was very medicated and very verbal, and we argued ... about the sky, the weather and whether we should stop at Wendy's or Hardee's ... about everything."
`I'm embarrassed'
Two days after the abortion, the young woman was doing fine physically. She had moderate cramping, but she felt well enough to return to school. But she was worried about her mental state; she was afraid she might have a delayed reaction to the abortion.
"I feel a little uncomfortable with having the twilight drug because I don't remember. I would like to know how I would have reacted had I not had that drug. Would I have been so upset I would have gotten up and walked out? The drug kind of put my feelings on hold."
She had not discussed her physical and emotional feelings with her mother or her boyfriend. She said she was telling the reporter more than she had said to anyone.
"I am feeling ... I don't know ... a little ... what would be a good word? Disturbed, I guess."
During her recovery, she watched television and read, and some of the advertising she saw upset her.
"Things in the paper draw my attention ... home pregnancy tests, diaper commercials, birth announcements. ... It's a little harder for me than I had expected.
"Some people who are close to me, who were in on my decision-making ... some people do believe that I didn't truly feel this was the right decision."
Among the people she told about her pregnancy was a friend who opposed abortion. She also sought advice from friends who had no problem with it.
She told only a few people she was pregnant, but word got around. While she was recovering at home, she learned that some of her classmates were snickering at the lunch table about her pregnancy. It didn't surprise her, she said. But it hurt.
"My boyfriend is embarrassed because I was pregnant. I'm embarrassed that I had an abortion. I have all this other stuff to deal with, and now I have gossip to go along with it."
Although she and her boyfriend have seen each other and talked a lot on the phone, they have not discussed the abortion. Neither have she and her mother.
"I know I'm avoiding the topic."
She still worried about having a delayed reaction.
`I could go without sex forever'
A week later, the young woman was back to a regular routine as an involved top student.
She felt better than she had in two months - she had had morning sickness while pregnant.
"I'm surprising myself. It's really concerning me. I'm not really having much thought about the abortion. I hope I haven't gone into denial.
"I haven't been depressed or upset about it.
"But I am a worrier and always think my feelings are abnormal."
When she returned to school, a girlfriend asked how she was, and she told the girlfriend a little about the clinic experience. A couple of days after that, when the friend again asked how she was feeling, she said "fine" and nothing more.
"I don't feel a need to discuss it with anybody.
"It was directly my decision in the end ... regardless of what anyone felt. I'm really the only one dealing with me. My boyfriend, no matter how supportive or kind he is, or was, he's not very concerned."
She wasn't certain how the relationship between her and her boyfriend would develop. They had not been intimate since the abortion.
"I kind of feel like I could go without sex forever now, because I don't ever want to be in this situation again. But I really miss the closeness with him."
She still was bothered that her parents and boyfriend weren't asking how she was doing. Her mother asked her a couple of days after the abortion if she needed to talk, but the teen-ager didn't want to then. Her boyfriend told her he hadn't brought the subject up because he was afraid it would upset her.
Her father hugged her and told her he loved her when she came home after having the abortion, but he hadn't said anything about it since.
The mother believed she had been sensitive to her daughter, but said she wanted to give her some privacy, too.
"I just would love to put this on the shelf and have everyone be normal and go on and never have to deal with it again. I'm fortunate that this household is a busy household," the mother said.
`I asked for forgiveness'
Although the family does not currently have a home church, they have been churchgoers in the past. The young woman even consulted the wife of a minister when she thought she was going to go through with the pregnancy.
"I wanted someone automatically on my side. I never called her when I decided I was going to have an abortion. I guess I'm not so strange after all. I am having some difficulty dealing with this ... the whole God issue. I think I am avoiding her because she's a direct line to religion ... to biblical law.
At her mother's encouragement, the entire family went to church and the young woman took communion.
"I do feel like I sinned by having an abortion. It's so hard to say out loud, because I am pro-choice. I will always vote pro-choice, but it's so difficult and there's so much attached to it."
She has decided that God must have a plan that caused her pregnancy to happen. Even though she had an abortion, she still believes there is a plan.
She also felt better after going to church.
"I did pray. I asked for forgiveness. I did ask God to take it off me and let this all be relieved.
"I wish I could tell you whether or not I regret this choice. I'm not sure yet. It will take a couple of years to decide whether I did the right thing or not."
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