Why the Freedom to Choose Matters to Me

And why I will vote to protect your freedom to choose even if I disagree with your choice

This is a deeply personal essay on a hotly debated topic, and I would ask that, before reading, you would consider your capacity to handle reading about pregnancy loss, abortion, and ethics with a generous and tender heart (not just for me, but for yourself and for those you know). If you can’t, that’s okay, there are other things to read. I will be keeping an eye on the comments though and deleting any I consider inappropriate or unhelpful or unkind. Thank you for understanding. —Lore

Six years ago I began an ordinary June day feeling a bit nauseated and tired. I didn’t think much of it. The week before I’d been exhausted and thought maybe I was coming down with a bug. That afternoon I took a nap and woke up with excruciating pain in my lower side. Later that evening, Nate took me to the ER.

Of all the things I could have possibly imagined the doctor would say when he finally came to my bedside, after blood and urine tests, after a transvaginal ultrasound, the words, “Did you know you were pregnant?” did not occur to me. The shock I felt in that moment competed only with the look on his face as he said the words. I knew immediately it wasn’t viable. I’d never met anyone who had an ectopic pregnancy (to my knowledge), but somehow, that word sprung to my mind and I asked, “Is it ectopic.” He nodded.

They admitted me by midnight and then it was a bit of a waiting game. Would I miscarry naturally? Would my tube burst and send me into deadly internal bleeding?¹ Over the next five days I had no fewer than fifteen transvaginal ultrasounds, twice daily blood draws, learned about a drug called Methotrexate (Methotrexate would stop the cells from multiplying in my body, essentially terminating (aborting) the pregnancy.), and also learned I would likely need surgery to remove the pregnancy as well as my tube and possibly one ovary.

The rational mind would already view the pregnancy as nonviable, as it was growing inside the fallopian tube and not the uterus, and as it grew it would only burst the tube (leading to internal bleeding and almost certain death for me). It could never grow bigger than the tube in which it was contained. Despite all of that, the fetus was still a fetus, and at around eight weeks gestation, it was already beginning to form nerves, muscles, and bones, it was beginning to take the form of our child.