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This Is My Abortion [dot com] isn’t What You Think and Here’s an Interview with Jane

Yesterday I stumbled across ThisIsMyAbortion.com. I was waiting to see one of the graphic fetal images that protesters like to wave around on signs but instead I saw these images.

It’s not particularly dramatic and won’t tug on anyone’s heart strings. I was (still am) fascinated by the site and immediately asked Jane for an interview. Some of it can be seen at iVillage iVote and the rest of the interview you can read here. I wish I knew who Jane was. I’d want to be her friend.

JG: This morning I was on Reddit and saw ThisIsMyAbortion.com. I expected to see something very graphic, perhaps a site run by the anti abortion people, but instead I saw a beaker with some blood and fluid in it. This was your abortion, right? When was this?

Jane: This was my abortion. I had my abortion in 2011.

JG: Was it difficult for you to obtain the abortion?

Jane: It was fortunately not difficult for me to obtain the actual abortion itself. The clinic where I had my procedure has since been shut down. The only way a woman could have an abortion now would be to travel to the nearest city, over an hour away.

JG: What would you have done if you weren’t allowed an abortion?

Jane: This is a really tough question. Honestly, I would have done everything in my power to obtain a safe abortion. I would have contacted organizations such as Women on Waves or Women on Web and sought them out to have the procedure done in the safest manner possible to my body. If this pursuit turned up with no results, I would have given my child up for adoption.

JG: Some states have passed laws requiring women to see images of their fetus and they’re requiring counseling for women who are about to have an abortion. Would you be willing to volunteer your images for these women? It seems that your experience is quite real and certainly worth sharing.

Jane: Absolutely. If I had the money, I would print them up myself and donate them to organizations such as Planned Parenthood, medical clinics, and to be given to decision-makers who are facing legislation on women’s health. It is hard to find a fair, well balanced knowledge base on abortion. I’m just offering another perspective to the common dead fetus imagery and rhetoric. Everyone has their story and has a right to it. This one is mine. We learn from sharing with one another. It is my hope that ThisIsMyAbortion.com can contribute to educating women and men alike. I believe that an informed individual can make the most sound decision for their life and body.

JG: There was never a time in my life that I thought that abortions would be made illegal or unsafe, not until a few years ago. Now I’m downright panicked about it. I look my daughter and I look at her friends and I hope none of them ever need an abortion but realistically I know that one of them probably will. It terrifies me to think that it might not be safe or legal for them. Do you worry that that we’re about to roll back the clock and make it dangerous to be a woman again?

Jane: I, like you, am tremendously worried about the direction we’re moving in this country. It seems we are already rolling the clock back. It’s easy to forget that in most places in the world it already is dangerous to be a woman. Women’s bodies are still being used as weapons in war. It is absolute lunacy to me that we still have to dig in the trenches as women to fight for the right to choose and to not only be and feel safe, but to be protected by our larger community. We must continue to demand rights for ourselves and for the future generations of men and women alike.

JG: Thank you for making this statement.

86 thoughts on “This Is My Abortion [dot com] isn’t What You Think and Here’s an Interview with Jane”

  1. Before I had children of my own I was adamantly Pro-Life. After having children of my own I am adamantly Pro-Choice. Being a mother is hard and not everyone is cut out for the job. I respect women’s choice to choose what is best for them. They know if they can handle the job or not. I would rather see those women terminate the pregnancy than be an inadequate mother to a helpless child. 

    1. If they were going to be inadequate they could easily give the child to an appreciative adoptive family too.. just saying…

      1. Why isnt the child helpless until after he’s born?

        We should pay attention to the new life thats been started, he or she is also helpless if not more helpless. A video done of an abortion shows the babies mouth widening in fear as the vacuum began sucking his or her life away, almost as if they were screaming!.. and then died among the next 15 or so minutes. An abortion doesnt stop you from being a mother, it makes you the mother of a dead baby. I made the right choice!

        1. This bitch instagramed her abortion, a woman who can do that.. is so pathetic. Shes denying herself her own feelings of wanting that baby to be okay… shes obviously coping with that suppression by taking pictures and pretending she doesnt give a fuck. Thats your baby in that picture you instagramed and hes dead in a jar. What is the fucking world coming to!!?!

          1. You’ve trolled long enough.

            She’s not a bitch, she’s smart lady with a camera and the choice to decide if she’s interested in motherhood or not. That does not make her a bitch.
            Calling someone a bitch because they made a different choice than you did? Bless your heart.

            1. Someone’s a bitch because her life is different than yours? How very caring about her life you are. If you were truly “pro-life”, and not just anti-choice and everyone-must-live-how-I-want-them-to-because-I-think-I’m-awesome, then you would treasure this woman’s life as much as anyone’s. But you don’t. You have an imaginary attachment to a pregnancy that 1) wasn’t yours and 2) had nothing to do with you that makes you crazy enough to discount an actual living, breathing person. This is the great fallacy of all anti-choicers: you have an imaginary attachment to pregnancies that have nothing at all to do with you, and feel free to try and make others live *your* life. Sorry, but you need to mind your own damn business. Don’t like abortions? THEN DON’T GET ONE. Unless you yourself are going to take in and raise each every single unwanted pregnancy, shut it. And also stop with the whole “there’s childless couples who want them!” bullshit. If childless couples want kids, then there are plenty in the system who need them. Take care of the one’s who are actually alive before worrying about those that aren’t.

      2. Clearly you are a bad mother and do not love your children. You were pro-life because you wanted to control other women’s bodies. Now you are pro-choice because you regret having your children. I say you are unfit to be a mother.

    2. This is the side needed to be seen. I hate that anyone pro-choice is instantly labeled. Thanks for finding this site and great interview!

    3. Thank you for telling your story. I am pro-choice (not pro-abortion, as many try to label us). Even when used every time, correctly, birth control sometimes fails. (And then there’s rape, and coerced sex.) Pregnancy is hard – I had an “easy” pregnancy, and it was STILL hard. Childbirth is even harder. Raising a child – or giving one up for adoption – sounds much easier from the outside.

      The person best suited to make the call on whether to do any of these things, is the woman who has to live with the decision. Only she is inside her skin and knows what’s best in HER circumstances with HER body.

    4. My abortion was this: take a pill at the clinic. Take two more pills the next day at home. Endure some cramps and a heavy period. Feel a tremendous and overwhelming relief and then get in the car with my Mom and flee for safety across several states. This side must always be told. No one is ever pro death and too many are anti-choice. Until they have walked a mile in EACH pair of those shoes, I suggest they shut it. My mother and I have both agreed if the Republicans so much as try to over turn Row we’ll be there in DC to march. 

      1. And why are you sharing this? Do you have no shame? Do you really think when an employer googles your name they will really want to see you rambling about your abortion? Do you have any more details to share with us such as your past yeast infections, diarrhea, gas, vaginal discharge etc? We’d all be interested to hear all the details. You are gross and trashy.

        1. Oh Sallie Anne… if only you knew. Her employer certainly does know all about her yeast infections, bleeding asshole and a few others things.
          She’s the opposite of trashy, but thank you for your concern.

    5. And to you the poor baby in that jar of blood and tissue is nothing important?  I’m thankful to God that the baby is important to Him.

        1. He/she is extremely tiny.  And after being mangled up by the abortion process, you’re not going to see “A Baby” but it is. (Like microscopic things sure are there.)  It makes me angry enough to post how I ‘feel’.  I’m sure you’ll have a salty thing to say back to me. Violence on both sides is wrong, I feel.  A gentle acknowledgement that a little life was there makes me sad.  We live in a cold world.  There is one things that angers and saddens me: women dying over trying to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy.

            1. Why are you talking about IP addresses as if they can be strewn around and immediately accessed? My lawyer and I had a conversation about this back a few years ago (3 to be exact) and he said a person could get up to 10 years in prison for messing around with someone elses identity via an IP address. You are not supposed to have somebody elses IP address unless you are a cop? Or do you work with law enforcement? I suggest you be careful what you speak about and advertise.

            2. If you attempt to use or abuse anyones IP address, they can discus it with their hosting company and action can be taken – making threats of usage of another persons IP address is a very serious offense and worth getting the police involved. Keep testing people..

    6. Several decades ago (yes, I’m that old), I was the media rep for the CA Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL). That was the time when the anti-choicers were tossing fetuses on the desks of lawmakers.  CARAL or maybe NARAL had what I considered an equally devastating picture, one I’ve never forgotten.  A nude woman was lying face down, knees up, like a pithed frog, in a pool of her own blood.  She was dead.  I wanted to use that photo to counter the tossed fetuses.  I was voted down–“not seemly”….”too gory”…”we must not stoop to their level.”  

      Look where all that not-stooping as gotten us: there is a reason why ‘fight fire with fire’ is an actual practice in firefighting.   

          1. Her name is Gerri Santoro. She left behind 2 daughters who speak often of their mother’s legacy and what they lost as a result of her desperation to end an unwanted pregnancy. It’s up to them, I think, to decide if that image, all things considered, “goes viral.” Gerri Santoro was a person, not an object lesson.

            1. AlleyneEvans,
              Thank you for that information.  Gerri Santoro has haunted me for years.  She has always been a person to me, which is why I find the photo so stunning.

    7. KevinMD had an interesting piece on abortion the other day.  This is the link.

      http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/01/granting-rights-fetus-cost-mother.html
       
      The primary point was that nonviable cells don’t have more rights than a woman.  Until the fetus is born, it’s not a person.  Twenty years ago, I never would have thought we’d still be debating contraception and abortion.  I thought we were done and could move on to more productive discussion topics.  But no.

      1. Your right… not a person.  Kill Kill Kill

        A cactus has more rights in Arizona than a cluster of cells in a womans gut.  LOL… 

    8.  Just because you cannot see a face and limbs in the jar, does not mean that a life was not ended.  If I was sucked into a jar by a vacuum powerful enough to overcome me and end my life, my remains would look just like the ones in the photo.  The only difference is that the jar would be much larger.  Abortions that occur in later stages of pregnancy would look very different.  People are killed in terrible ways all the time and their remains are often unidentifiable. It does not diminish the life that was ended. 

        1.  Actually, science is on the pro-life side, Jessica.  Thanks to advances in sonogram technology.  Today, the first baby photo that parents show is that of their unborn child.  That is why the pro choice side is losing the argument.  Pro choice leaders have even come out to say that they can no longer pretend that there is not a baby involved.  They are trying to change their message branding now.  I am not sure that showing young women the grisly remains is going to help sell the message.

        2. Actually, you are wrong. Science has proven that it is not a cluster of cells. That is what scientists thought back in the 1970s, but not so much now.

          1. show me science Sarah.

            I have zero patience for your bullshit. If you take that cluster of cells outside the body it’s nothing. There’s no life. If you take a fetus at 36 weeks you get a baby, at 30 weeks you hope it’ll survive at 20 it probably won’t and after just a few days what you have is called a zygote.
            If you think that a few cells has more value than your daughter I fear for her safety.

      1. A life was ended, yes, and its devastating people everywhere even with the lack of face and limbs. Its human juice… her little girls or boys! Maybe it was taken down when a woman shared a picture of her dismembered baby in the jar, or should I say baby soup.. chunky. This whole idea is so corrupt. Further along, this would have seriously been a crime for people to see…

        1. The debate over what is or isn’t a person, a baby, life, a fish or a clump of cells could go on for ages. May we agree to disagree, please. Then we can go on to the larger issue: what happens to all these babies born to mothers who can’t get abortions? What are the statistics of the relationship between child abuse and unwanted pregnancies?

          There’s a gape in the logic between the ideas, often promulgated by the same people, that all life in the womb is precious *and* welfare mothers are the scourge of the system. It’s all well and good to spout love and mercy when the baby is in utero, but blithely ignore its needs for food and shelter once it actually becomes a viable human being.

          1.  What happens to all these babies?  Some of them become president of the United States.  :)  These unwanted babies are very much wanted by childless couples.  I never understood the logic of a woman who says that they would rather end the life of the child than give it up for adoption.

            It is a straw man argument to say that pro-life people abandon people after they are born.  Pro-life people believe in the dignity of all life from conception to natural death, including death row prisoners.  We oppose wars that are fought without a just cause. 

            1. Kudos to you, Shiela, for invoking the straw man fallacy.  However, you’re misapplying it when you accuse me of using it.  The point I was making is that often the same people who are vehemently anti-choice are the same ones who are vehemently anti-social welfare programs.  That is fact–and facts are what the pro-choice side has always preferred to use to put forth their points.  If you want to go all Aristotelian logic on us, then dip into what he says about the differences between arguments based on reason and those based on emotion.  The latter, which is what the anti-choice people prefer to use, are effective because they appeal to the vagaries of human emotions; they are, however, intellectually dishonest.  

              I consider myself pro-life, just as you do.  I just don’t reify a neonate above a viable human.

              1.  I’m confused.  Isn’t a neonate a newborn?  Also, the pro-life movement is based on faith supported by science.  And, we throw in compassion for all living things.  So, we are not just basing it on weak human emotion.  The pro-choice side’s argument is all about how the woman feels. 

              2. Kudos to you, too for making the most entirely broad generalizations ever. Wrongfully so, if you ask me. Both pro-choice and pro-life people use facts to put forth their arguments. Those making choices majorly based on emotion would be the scared women in the abortion clinics…those who are pro-choice. That same fear will drive a woman without the legal, safe means to end a pregnancy to have an illegal, dangerous puncture to her cervix. Its graphic, but also the reason clinics exist: safety. Pro-life individuals use emotion only when trying to neutralize the fear in women bound to make irrational decisions, especially at a time when their hormones are at fluctuating and extremely different than ever before because they’re being used to grow life.. life that has been started. The general argument anti-choice people makes, though, is entirely based in physical reason: new life does in fact start the moment your son or daughter has a heart to beat. Intellectually dishonest are the people who don’t believe in something simply because its intangible. 

              3. Right now there are 107,000 kids in the foster system who are free for adoption, but do not have permanent homes. (See http://www.adoptuskids.org to see a lot of them, listed state by state, with pictures and bios.) 107,000.

                For one reason or another, all those childless couples who desperately want to become parents just aren’t interested in those kids. I could lay out some fairly obvious reasons why (age, disability, race) but the fact is, 107,000 is not a small number, and frankly, until those kids have families, every time an anti-choicer says that all children are “very much wanted” they prove themselves a liar.

                It’s also imperative to remember that adoption is an alternative to parenting not to pregnancy. For a person who is not in a physical, psychological or financial place to continue a pregnancy suggesting adoption is as empty as suggesting a new career in the forestry services. It’s not a solution to their problem.

            2.  sorry but you are wrong.  I personally adopted two children and am reaching out to some other “welfare moms” in my life.   Most of the  people I know who believe that life is a gift and precious have done the same.

          1. Ugh, enough with the schmaltz.

            They’re all girls until whenever… they have gills and tails and they cannot survive outside the body.
            However….

            There are women with heartbeats and brains and families and jobs who would like to take care of themselves and your ridiculous antics are so cruel that there isn’t a religion in the world that thinks you’re still a good person.
            Try science, it’s really respectful of people who are actually alive.

        2.  As they say, “Abortion stops a beating heart.” Funny – it is the only medical procedure whose stated and explicit goal is the death of a human being – every single other procedure the doctor expects to have just as many lives at the end as in the beginning.

      1. Can we please file this under why social media is important? Thank you Jessica for reaching out to this brave woman. Giving the importance of reproductive freedom a voice.

        In my lifetime, I have gone from thanking my mother and grandmothers for all they fought for to give me, the freedom and safety that comes with reproductive choice/ to now apologizing to them as we return to square one. Afraid for my future children. Afraid that soon the stories of pharmacists unwilling to fill RX’s for the Pill will come this far west.

        Also, can we see an end to the “pro-abortion” stuff? The term was created by the pro-life movement. It is heartless and senseless and isn’t a movement, simply a scare tactic and a diversion.

        1.  i would like to re-frame a bit more.  We have pro-choice and anti-choice. 

          Pro-choice says that every child should be wanted and born into a safe and loving environment – the choice to have a child or not have a child is a sacred and personal choice.  Pro-choice people support women who choose to have children and keep them.  Pro-choice people support those who have children and give them into loving, adopted families. And, Pro-choice people support women who make the decision not to carry a child to term.

          The other end is anti-choice.  They are not pro-life. They don’t believe every child should be born into a safe and loving environment and should be wanted by the parent(s). They think that every chance fertilization – whether through force, lack of education, or mischance – MUST be carried to term… after which very few show care about the quality of life the child (or its parents and/or siblings) will endure. They are not pro-life… they think that children should be used as a punishment for women who are “sluts” or “loose” or “cheap” – and damn the child right along with the woman.  They don’t offer to pay for all the women’s and infants’ and children’s medical, living, and educational expenses. i don’t see the anti-choice people standing out in front of clinics with their homes and checkbooks open, offering each woman a safe place to live, food, work, education, and a guaranteed safe place for her child.  No, they work with shame, degradation, and abuse – not loving care for children.

          This isn’t about pro-choice v. pro-life.  This is about making women (and children) chattel – objects of abuse and ridicule and shame in order to support a power-over system that ignores reality for a misogynistic fantasy.

          This is about supporting women in all their choices (pro-choice) and those who care for nothing but forced breeding and think women should be nothing but brood mares (anti-choice). 

      2. Jessica:
        Thank you so much for this. If women don’t talk about their abortions, we will lose our right to them. If I had had one, I would write about it because it’s important that people know how many women in their lives have needed abortions. I haven’t, so all I can do is support those women brave enough to share their stories. Gracias!

      3. The danger for these women in your life is the one of putting themselves in situations where they are involved in relationships that are harmful to them .
        Women who hold out for marriage have relationships based on something more secure then casual sex.
        Contraception only cheapens relationships.  

        1. That’s your opinion. Some people have different opinions, including the opinion that having lots of sex is fun and healthy and that it makes them happy, and that they don’t necessarily want to risk having a baby every time they have sex. 

          Contraception does not “cheapen relationships.” What contraception does, most often, is lead to more wanted children. Children whose parents cherish and value them, instead of viewing them as a burden. 

        2. Are you saying that pregnancy is ONLY the result of promiscuity? Not rape? Not molestation? Not incest? A woman only ends up at the abortion clinic because of casual sex?

        3.  So married women don’t need to plan their pregnancies? Married women don’t use contraceptives? Married women never have unplanned pregnancies? Married women never have abortions?

          Simple logic confounds everything you’re attempting (and failing) to put forth as an argument.

          1.  Amadi, you’re so off base on your attempt to critique jleon’s post, it’s hard to know where to start… Your first question: no, he didn’t say that. Second one? Nope – didn’t say that. 3rd… Nope. 4th… Nope.  You’re putting words in his mouth and then criticizing the illogic of the bizarre notions you are pretending he has… And then you call this “simple logic”. What a fascinating drug induced stupor you must live in…

      4. OK LADIES, AN ABORTED 6 WEEKS EMBRYO IS OBVIOUSLY GOING TO LOOK DIFFERENT THAN THE PICTURES THE PROTESTERS USE BECAUSE THE PICTURES SHOW AN OLDER FETUS LIKE A 10 WEEK FETUS, 12 WEEK AND SO ON. IF YOU WOULD HAVE HAD AN ABORTION LATER THAN 6WEEKS THEN THE ABORTION PICS U POSTED WOULD HAVE LOOKED MORE LIKE THE PROTESTERS PICTURES. WE CANT JUST SIMPLY SAY “OH THIS IS HOW ABORTION LOOKS” NOT BAD. IT DEPENDS ON THE FETUS STAGE. I MEAN, AN ABORTION @ 10 WEEKS, 12 WEEKS WOULD HAVE NOT LOOKED LIKE THE THIS AT ALL, I AM SURE WE WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE THE ARMS AND LEGS.

          1.  what’s the problem? truth too hard for you? She’s here because she had something to say – one more reason than you have.

      5. If Hollywood starlets were adopting abandoned kids from NY or Florida instead of China and Africa, the kids would have a chance. Unfortunately, that’s not our reality. An orphaned child will most likely be left in the system. Who pays for that?

        1. Children in China and Africa are not real children worthy of a life, are they? The number of children who starve to death in the world is……???? Yes, adoption of American-made children would solve everything, wouldn’t it?

      6. Tell you what… Sent the contents of that container to a crime lab and say that it was found at a crime scene… Ask them what it belongs to… I’m willing to bet they won’t say “a blob of inhuman tissue” or “a potential life”. Human DNA, that’s what they’ll find. That’s human soup you’re looking at.  And you people are praising her?!

        1.  I will bet that you have never been in a situation you
          could not handle. I will bet that your level of compassion
          is limited to what is in that jar. I will bet that you feel
          this is a crime. I will bet that you have never been
          pregnant.
          Yes?
          Oh … and what gender might you be?

            1.  Jessica – your reasoning’s a little difficult to follow… Are you saying that because toothbrushes have human DNA on them that an abortion is the removal of something other than human life? The toothbrush belonging to “Jane” would have her DNA on it. The jar above would have some of hers but a lot of somebody else’s. Whose?

            2.  Sigh. I’ll try again but I expect you’ll delete this as well. If you’re not interested in the truth, continue muddling along with your head in the sand. Nobody’s gonna force you to drink.
              That disclaimer now out of the way…
              The DNA on “Jane’s” toothbrush belongs to her. That container above contains her DNA *and somebody else’s*… the question is: Whose DNA is it?

          1.  So… If a mother of four children cannot support them any more because the deadbeat dad walks out… why can’t she just shoot them?  Who are you to impose your beliefs on her? Illegal? Sure – that’s why it’s so unsafe – she might even get hurt doing it in a back alley. We should have clinics where we can legally get rid of the small children we can no longer afford. Don’t dare suggest she adopt them out – that would be too scarring for her…

      7. Someone has shut down the “ThisIsMyAbortion.com” website.
        And people past and present have died for our right to free
        speech?

      8. Jessica – you and I know the truth, anyway. You’re too cowardly to carry on a true debate. You persistently resort to emotional barbs and deliberately ignore the truth. What is it that scares you so much? Ignorance is one thing but willful ignorance is damning, but certainly your right.

      9. This is disgusting! Pro-choice? Huh I didn’t see any of these innocent babies that were killed having any so called choices! May God have mercy on your lost souls:(

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