Here & Now

The Voices of Three Wisconsin Women Who Have Had an Abortion

Frederica Freyberg:

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, the debate around abortion has scrambled the political landscape. States like Wisconsin have seen abortion laws passed 150 years ago back on the books. Over the next three weeks, “Here & Now” will be examining the new debate surrounding abortion presenting you with the viewpoints of those who have utilized abortion, those who want to keep it illegal, and those in the medical community advocating for their patients. Tonight, we begin with the voices of women who have had an abortion for, as they would describe it, completely ordinary reasons. They are speaking up now in an effort to normalize the conversation around abortion as healthcare. “Here & Now” senior political reporter Zac Schultz produced this story, letting the women tell their story in their own words.

Tosha Kowalski:

I was 26. I had just gotten out of a relationship, a long relationship with somebody for four years and that was actually the father.

Sara:

I was a full-time student at UW-Eau Claire going for political science. Really loving school. I was a single mom. I had a beautiful, amazing little son, working two jobs.

Dana Pellebon:

So I had sex. It was protected sex. And I actually didn’t know that the condom had broken. And four or five weeks later, I was pregnant.

Tosha Kowalski:

I knew immediately. I would say the day after. I just felt it in my body.

Dana Pellebon:

At first, I just thought I was sick, but I was with a really good friend of mine and she was like, “Mmm, maybe you’re pregnant.” I was like, “There’s no way that can happen. I’ve only had sex once and it was protected. It’s fine.” Well, it wasn’t fine.

Sara:

I immediately knew. A lot of people say it was a hard decision and I absolutely respect that and I’m sure that it is for some, but this was the single easiest decision I have ever made as a parent.

Dana Pellebon:

And at that point, I was not in a position where I wanted another child. It wasn’t something that I felt fit into my life and so I made the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

Sara:

Minneapolis is where I ended up going and getting an abortion. You have to take an entire day to go get the abortion. They tell you to take the whole day. So I got childcare for my child. I don’t even remember how I scraped up the money, to be honest, it was so long ago. It was $600, though, I remember that, because I remember it was a significant amount of money for me to come up with.

Tosha Kowalski:

I was shocked to find out that my insurance covered it and also very, very grateful. I thought that was just, I mean, so awesome because it’s healthcare. You know?

Dana Pellebon:

And if I remember correctly, it was a couple hundred dollars. I think some of it was covered by insurance, but not all of it.

Tosha Kowalski:

It was hard for me to be there at the actual clinic because, you know, I was 26. You saw all walks of life in that room. You saw young children. You saw older women. You saw couples.

Dana Pellebon:

There was a wide range of people, different ages, different races.

Sara:

I went through it. I am so grateful, so grateful for abortion providers and the nurses, the entire staff. I remember this lady, she was like, “Just hold my hand when it hurts, just squeeze my hand,” and I remember thinking, “Oh, boy, I’m going to break her finger. I’m probably going to break her fingers,” but everyone was just so great and kind.

Dana Pellebon:

And when I woke up, I was in a chair. They gave me some juice and some crackers, and what I noticed was that I felt great. I felt great. So I went to the hotel, ordered some food, and felt an enormous sense of relief and felt — I thought that I was going to feel all these sad feelings and that it was going to be all of this stuff that was happening, but instead, I had my Chicken Dijonnaise from the Weary Traveler. I remember because it was, like, my favorite dish at the time, and watched TV and really just felt good for the first time in about two months. And felt very much at ease and at peace with my decision at that point.

Tosha Kowalski:

I called my sister immediately when I got out of the clinic. I got into the car. I called her. And she just started bawling and she’s like, “I’m not crying because you got an abortion. I’m crying because you didn’t think you could tell me beforehand,” and I just didn’t want to put that on her because…

Sara:

There are many feelings that women are going to have around this and I think it’s because we’re not talking about it enough.

Dana Pellebon:

There were a lot of mythos that were spread, especially amongst persons talking about the Black community, so things like Black women in poverty used abortion for birth control.

Tosha Kowalski:

People don’t talk about it. People do not talk about it. I was told not to talk about it after I told my mom. I was told never to tell my father. I was like, why? I’m not ashamed. I don’t feel bad about this. It was a choice that I made and I would make it again a hundred times. I wouldn’t do anything different.

Sara:

My story is the majority of the story. 75% of the women that do this are from low income. I was low income when I did it. 60% are in their 20s. I was in my 20s. Almost 60%, 59 to 60% are already parents. You know, this is a parental decision that they’re making. I was already a parent. And that’s the majority of the stories.

Dana Pellebon:

I don’t think that I told anyone publicly until probably five or six years ago. At that point, I hadn’t told very many people because I don’t walk around telling people what I do at my doctor’s office. So when I did decide to disclose, it was a political choice to be able to say publicly, this is a choice that I made and it’s an okay choice.

Sara:

I think when we’re trying to tell our stories, the scariest thing is other people’s reaction. How are they going to react to this? What are they going to think about me?

Tosha Kowalski:

At this festival that I was at this past weekend where I was just making so many great connections and this one woman asked me if I was a mom and I chose to respond with, “No, I had an abortion,” and she said, “I love that that’s how you phrased it because it’s, like just because it’s like, an active choice to not be a mom.”

Sara:

It became easier and actually really empowering, too, to talk about it, because almost every time when I would talk about it and say, “Hey, I had an abortion,” you know, if you were in a conversation, you could walk away and somebody would come up to you afterwards and say, “Thank you so much for talking about that. I also had an abortion. I could never do what you just did.”

Dana Pellebon:

I think that was one of the barriers for people is like, I’m going to hate myself forever. I don’t hate myself forever. I’m actually very proud of myself for making a good choice for myself and my body.

Tosha Kowalski:

There’s no reason for me to get an abortion except for the fact that I wanted one. I didn’t want a kid. You know, I think sometimes people have — like that’s not a good enough reason, but it is. I mean, that is. That is. That is a great reason. I made the decision for me and my unborn child that that’s not the life I wanted.

Sara:

My abortion allowed me to find the love of my life, to get married, to have more children when we were ready. We have three children now. There was never a point where I had to sit my children down and say, just so you know, Mommie’s had an abortion. This is what abortion is. They’ve grown up with it and knowing it. So it’s normal. It’s normal in our house.

Dana Pellebon:

I was born two years after Roe v. Wade came into pass, so I always lived in a world where abortion was legal and to think that we had erased 50 years of progress was astounding and it was sad and it was angering.

Sara:

Because the women before us fought so hard to get us there. And we lost it. So…

Tosha Kowalski:

I’m not crying because of the actual — you know, I don’t think about my abortion often, to be honest, but I do think about all of the people who don’t have the right to choose and, like, aren’t lucky enough to get to choose the direction of their life.

Dana Pellebon:

There’s so many barriers that were put in place because people want to impose their morality on other people.

Sara:

I think the only way to fix that is for more of us to talk about it, to say it, to say “it’s normal,” to say “I had an abortion.” You love somebody who had an abortion. You probably love a lot of people who had an abortion.

Dana Pellebon:

It empowers them to let them know that there’s a different narrative that is out there, that there are people that are really okay with the choice. Even those who grew up being told that it wasn’t okay. It is an okay choice.

Tosha Kowalski:

I want it to become part of everyday language, I guess. For me, not for everybody. Like if I can help other people talk about it or feel okay about a decision that they made, that I want to do that.

Sara:

I’ll continue to share mine, but the more of us, the better, right? We have an army. Let’s start using our voices together and they can’t shut us up anymore.

Frederica Freyberg:

Next week on “Here & Now,” a report on a woman who decided against having an abortion with the help of one of the dozens of centers across Wisconsin whose mission it is to prevent women from terminating their pregnancies. You can also tune into a special series of reports on Wisconsin Public Radio, looking at abortion regulations since the state passed its original abortion ban titled, “How We Got Here: Abortion in Wisconsin since 1849.”

For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab.