Straight From The Mouths Of Mississippi: An Intimate Conversation On Abortion
V.J. shares her struggles with finding a pro-choice health provider:
It is not just the closing of Mississippi’s last and only abortion clinic that compromises so many folks across the state, but also the bigotry that is rampant in the healthcare system here. Nurses and doctors, who’s degrees are not contingent on their political beliefs are somehow letting it affect the care they give to patients. These are the providers with anti-abortion propaganda lining the walls of their clinic under the guise of pro-life, only to turn around and provide substandard care that could quite literally be fatal.
Despite these various hurdles, V.J. shares with me that she is still determined to find a doctor that can support her reproductive needs, even if it means leaving the state. I can’t stop thinking about her final words to me and we wrapped up the conversation:
“Access to abortion really saved my life because if I didn’t have it, I literally would’ve tried to find others ways to make sure I got an abortion whether it was safely or unsafely.”
This was an eerie reminder of what might be the future of Mississippi and this country. Restrictive laws and closing down clinics won’t stop people from terminating their pregnancies, and it certainly isn’t prolife. But what it pro-life and pro-freedom is every child-bearing person’s right to choose.
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