Woman Complains It Was Too Difficult to Abort Her Baby: “I Had to Fly From Texas to California”

Opinion   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Nov 28, 2016   |   1:02PM   |   Washington, DC

Candice Russell was struggling to make ends meet when she discovered that her birth control had failed and she was pregnant.

Writing for Glamour, Russell said she knew that having an abortion was “right” for her; but when she called an abortion facility near her home in Dallas, Texas, she was told that there was a two-and-a-half week wait before they could fit her into the schedule.

Russell blamed pro-life lawmakers for making it extremely inconvenient for her to abort her unborn child. She also bashed President-elect Donald Trump for promising to sign pro-life laws and nominate pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s true Trump’s plan won’t end abortion access for everyone,” she wrote.

But his actions could make it more difficult for women to abort their unborn babies – something, she argued, that is already too hard for women like her.

Russell said she recently went through a divorced and was struggling financially when she discovered that she was pregnant.

Russell wrote:

I was 30 when I discovered that my IUD, the most effective form of birth control, failed and I was pregnant. Living on my own for the first time in nearly a decade after my divorce, I had spent the last few years barely scraping by, trying to find my footing on a salary that offered no benefits and barely covered my rent. I was beginning to feel like I was financially stable. But then I started feeling exhausted all the time. What I thought was the stomach flu turned out to be two pink lines on a home pregnancy test. After the doctor confirmed I was in fact about twelve and a half weeks along I immediately attempted to schedule an appointment at my local abortion clinic.

The abortion clinic in Dallas told her that she would have to wait two-and-a-half weeks for an appointment, but Russell did not want to wait that long. She said she already had taken off work because of feeling sick, and she did not want to bear any more morning sickness. She said her manager also warned her not to take off any more time or she could lose her job.

Because she already was 12 weeks along, Russell said she also was afraid that any delays in her abortion appointments could put her past the 20-week abortion cut-off in Texas.

Instead of considering parenting or adoption, Russell decided to take out a loan, lie to her boss and fly to California for an abortion.

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She continued:

My partner at the time lived in California, and even though we had recently broken up, I knew I would have support there should I need it. I called and set up an appointment for later in the week, giving myself enough time to try and find the money for my missing days from work, my flight, and the cost of the procedure itself. When I couldn’t make ends meet I took out a high-interest payday loan, told my employer that my grandfather had died, and flew to and from California in less than four days.

Russell said she was “lucky” that she had the abortion.

“No one should have to take out a loan to get a simple, five-minute healthcare procedure, and they shouldn’t have to leave their hometowns for it either,” she said.

Russell painted a desperate picture of abortion laws in the U.S., but her description is seriously flawed. The U.S. has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the world, being one of only seven nations, including North Korea and China, that allow elective abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Though abortion rates are dropping, every year about 1 million unborn babies lose their lives to abortion.

Most Americans support the common-sense abortion limits like those passed in Texas and other states, including basic health and safety regulations for abortion facilities, limits on abortion after 20 weeks, bans on sex-selection abortions and abortions based on the unborn baby’s physical condition, and more.

Russell had other options. She was not forced to fly to California or take out a loan, as she implied. Rather than abort her unborn child, she could have looked into the resources available to help her parent, or considered making an adoption plan. While neither are easy options, both would have given her unborn child the chance at life that he or she deserved.

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