Julia is a rising sophomore working with Sanctuary for Families.
As I sat on the Manhattan-bound F train, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Finally a moment to myself to digest what I had seen, to take in the women, the conversations, the momentary snapshots I had witnessed. I was tired, hungry, and eager to be home.
6:30 pm: My mom asks me how my day was. “Uncomfortable,” I respond.
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2:45 pm: We walk up the steps of the subway station and onto Jamaica Avenue in the heart of Queens. My short, bright skirt sticks out. I yank it down, hoping to show a little less leg than I originally intended. As we walk up the street and around the corner, I can feel the gazes of men carefully studying us, undressing us.
3:00 pm: We enter the Choices Clinic facility and are warmly welcomed by Crumbs cupcakes and bottles of water. The place is not at all what I expected—it is clean, expansive, and modern. There are flat screen TVs on three different walls and comfortable chairs surrounding each. Two senior staff members lead us to the back conference room where Merle Hoffman awaits us.
3:20 pm: For 20 minutes, Merle gives us a BRIEF synopsis of her incredible life. Interning in Queens, debates across the world, trips to Russia—all point to a certain passion that has driven her work for over 40 years. This passion is reproductive justice: the capacity for all women to make personal choices concerning the decision to have children or not to. “Ready to take a tour?” she asks. I was ready. I am pro-choice—why wouldn’t I be ready?
3:50 pm: I am not ready. As we pass through the halls of the Choices clinic, I can’t help but look at the patients in each step of the process. The women sitting in the large waiting room, those changing into their robes, getting their vital signs taken, the ones waking up from anesthesia, and the final women checking out from the clinic. For each woman I create a story. A rape, a broken condom, a changed mind. For all women I feel a sort of empathy, an understanding that exists only because I am a woman and I, someday, may be where they are now. I begin to feel nauseous as we finish the tour. I cannot identify where the feeling comes from, but it is there. Perhaps it is the nervousness of being in a medical facility or maybe that I forgot to eat lunch.
4:30 pm: Returning to Merle’s office, we begin to ask our own questions. She answers each with unwavering conviction. In one of her responses, Merle explains that an abortion is “the most intimate” of procedures and “the most intimate” of decisions.
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As I reflect on my time at the Choices clinic, I begin to understand my nausea and my discomfort. As I walked through the halls, staring at the patients, creating their stories, I breached this intimacy. I violated the connection between mother and child, between mother and self. I was an outsider, taking a tour of the most personal moment in a woman’s life. While I learned a great deal from Merle’s discussion, I did not belong in the halls of that clinic. I had no place wandering the rooms, creating stories for women whose lives I knew nothing about. At the beginning of our summer, Ada urged us to identify uncomfortable situations and to step into this discomfort. At Choices, I believe I did just that. I swallowed my discomfort and used it to ask questions and drive conversation. Yet, at the end of our visit, I wanted to be comfortable. I was tired, hungry, and ready to be home.
