By Sarah Terzo
Katherine describes how her abortion was botched:
Anyway, I had the abortion, and the doctor – the reason I was hooked up to an IV for 24 hours was that he had blown it with the vacuum or whatever it is that they use, and I had lost almost 2 liters of blood. So $1000 abortion, okay? 2 liters of blood, hooked up to an IV, in hospital for 24 hours.
The nurse when I woke up said, “You poor thing.”.… I said, “Is it over?” And she said, “Yes.” She said, “You’ve lost a lot of blood and you have to be here for a while.” I said, “What??” And she said, “The doctor really blew it.”…
Then the doctor said to me, “Don’t worry, honey, you could get pregnant tomorrow if you want to.” He was trying to make out like, you know, ha ha, everything’s okay. And it was terrible – it hurt…
Oh, also, despite the fact that he knew my family, the doctor insisted on taking a check for the operation, right before I was wheeled into the… It’s kind of really sleazy. I mean he could’ve waited.…
Everything was done under the guise of, this is a very upper-middle-class. I mean, you’re in the best private hospital, and you’ve got the best OB/GYN, and still it was screwed up totally.”
Sumi Hoshiko, Our Choices: Women’s Personal Decisions about Abortion (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1993) p.150, p.153.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Clinic Quotes and is reposted with permission.