The Wonder Chronicle: 17
Image: Robert E. Rutledge
This is part of a running series. Read the previous Wonder Chronicle: On Winning
Read also: Abortion is Wonderful
My uterus has always been as anarchist as my heart: always seeking freedom, like a sunflower bends towards the sun.
Thank you, my two abortions!
Outrageous. Audacious. Yes, indeed! This is what freedom looks like!
I recognise no power over my uterus (or heart), choosing instead my own power over my own body by sharing the joy of abortion.
And it’s not just those of us having abortions who feel joy and relief.
A study with feminist groups in Argentina, Chile and Ecuador found that those supporting people to access abortion care witness, and themselves feel, a range of positive emotions.
Abortion is not rare.
One in four pregnancies ends in abortion.
I recognise no power over my uterus (or heart), choosing instead my own power over my own body by sharing the joy of abortion.
My anarchist uterus and heart refuse to appease the right wing, anti-abortion agenda by sharing abortion stories only of people who have suffered through illness, rape, or incest in order to "justify" an abortion.
My abortions freed me to live the life that I wanted.
The day after my first abortion, I felt relief.
The day after my second abortion, I felt relief.
Decades after my two abortions, I feel relief.
When the only abortion narratives we hear are ones prefaced with pain, pain becomes a prerequisite for autonomy over our own bodies.
When we make no space for abortion narratives like mine–I was not raped nor was I sick nor did I already have children, I simply did not want to be pregnant, that’s it!--we also signal that pregnancy is a punishment one must accept for having a sex drive.
That thought haunted me after my first abortion. It took years of fighting guilt and shame around sex to undo the harm of that kind of thinking.
I fucked the guilt out of my system and understood that neither pregnancy nor abortion were punishments for my pleasure. I deserved pleasure and I did not want to get pregnant, ever.
“Stay out of my vagina, unless I want you in there,” became my mantra to conservatives and the right wing around the world.
My abortions served as an addendum: stay the fuck out of my uterus and what it could’ve, should’ve, and didn’t do.
“The happiness of a woman who has an abortion is an indescribable sensation, how she passes it to you,” Sofia, an abortion accompanier in Chile.
Sex is wonderful. I fought long enough for the right to say and embody that.
I am glad I had my abortions. They gave me the freedom to live the life I have chosen.
“We have learned that for many people, their abortions are the turning point they need to dare to realize their dreams,” says Fondo Maria, which helps people access safe abortion in Mexico.
I share my abortion stories not to fight for “safe, legal, and rare” abortion–that is not anarchist enough–but for free, safe, and on demand abortion for any pregnant person who wants it.
“The happiness of a woman who has an abortion is an indescribable sensation, how she passes it to you,” Sofia, an abortion accompanier in Chile.
Seize control! Enjoy relief! Spread joy!
My goal: that you are found by wonder.
My wish: that you intensely live.
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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. She is editing an anthology on menopause called Bloody Hell! And Other Stories: Adventures in Menopause from Across the Personal and Political Spectrum. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
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