A Complicated Choice: Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement

By Katey Zeh and Alexis McGill Johnson

Too often, the public abortion debate depicts the experience of ending a pregnancy in falsely simplistic terms. Anti-abortion activists falsely contend that abortion is always emotionally damaging for the pregnant person, while pro-choice activists focus on honoring bodily autonomy and personal conscience without always giving voice to the nuances of abortion itself. In particular, the pro-choice movement fails to acknowledge that some people experience abortion as a kind of loss.

A Complicated Choice addresses the fact that abortion stigma is ubiquitous, even among those who identify as pro-choice. We have not been supportive of people who have abortions, especially those whose experiences are complicated and involve grief and loss. Bringing the reader along the journeys of those who have had abortions, Rev. Katey Zeh opens up space for the complexities of our reproductive lives, giving voice to the experiences of grief, loss, and healing surrounding abortion experiences. She weaves these personal stories with key insights from the fields of psychology, theology, and public policy to illuminate the systemic injustices that undergird the conditions that shape a person's decision to end a pregnancy.

A Complicated Choice goes beyond the falsely simplistic terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" that define the public abortion debate and centers the real people making the decision to end a pregnancy in the context of their full lives and circumstances. A call to people of faith and to all people to examine our judgments about people who have abortions, we are invited into the act of sacred listening to the real stories of those most impacted. By focusing on these experiences, we will be drawn away from the stalemate of debate and into a spiritual response rooted in compassion for those who end pregnancies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Broadleaf Books
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781506473505

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Praise for A Complicated Choice

"A critical, essential offering to the national conversation about abortion that invites us to listen to those most impacted: the people who have made these decisions themselves. A Complicated Choice is a truly important offering for the United States today."

—Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, author of Surprised by God and Nurture the Wow; Scholar in Residence, National Council of Jewish Women

Katey Zeh creates conditions for choice and agency to guide the path for healing and community for those who walk the path of abortion.

—Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, PhD, author of Body Becoming and Activist Theology

Katey Zeh takes on concepts of stigma and privilege without demur. She brings a powerful perspective as a woman of faith, and relies on that faith to open a fulsome and compassionate dialogue with people about their individual experiences with abortion in a series of interviews.

—Herminia Palacio, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute

Sharing personal stories, coupled with a fresh perspective on some well-known gospel verses, Katey Zeh brings so much compassion and nuance to the conversation about abortion.

—Asha Dahya, author of Today’s Wonder Women: Everyday Superheroes Who Are Changing the World

In spaces where there is so much yelling and screaming about abortion, Rev. Zeh has taken the time to slow the pace, to listen and share, to shape a healing process that doesn’t include blame or shame.

—Pastor Kaji Dousa, senior pastor, Park Avenue Christian Church

Refreshingly relatable. Zeh gifts her audience with concrete ways to wrestle with faith and abortion, making this book a significant resource for religious and medical communities as well as public policy influencers.

—Monique Moultrie, associate professor of religious studies and director of undergraduate studies, Georgia State University

A Complicated Choice

A Complicated Choice

Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement

Katey Zeh

Foreword by Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

A COMPLICATED CHOICE

Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement

Copyright © 2022 Katey Zeh. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email [e-mail] or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cover design by Alissa Dinello

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-7349-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-7350-5

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

For all who hold untold stories in their hearts

Contents

Foreword

Preface

About the Process

A Note on Language

Part 1: Introduction

1. Honoring Your Experience of Abortion

2. Uncovering the Culture of Shame, Stigma, and Silence around Abortion

Part 2: The Stories

3. For Abundant Life

4. For Self-Preservation

5. For the Dignity of Young People

6. For a Just Society

7. For the Good of Growth

8. For Communities That Heal

Conclusion: Creating a Culture of Compassion around Abortion, Grief, and Healing

Recommended Resources

Acknowledgments

Notes

Foreword

COVID-19 taught all of us what isolation can do. It destabilizes our communities and tests our spirits. People who tried to access abortion during the early days of the pandemic felt this isolation acutely. As governors used the crisis as an excuse to ban abortion, some patients drove sixteen hours from Texas to California and Colorado just to access medication abortion. I think about how they must have felt on those long, lonely drives: isolated from loved ones by the virus. Isolated from their trusted providers by politicians. Terrified and utterly alone.

That wasn’t by accident. To borrow from Adam Serwer: the cruelty is the point. For decades, opponents of abortion have created barriers designed to alienate patients.

Stigma, too, is meant to isolate us—and no medical procedure is more stigmatized than abortion. The truth is, abortion is common. Nearly one in four women will access it in her lifetime. But that’s not the story we’ve been told.

Because stigma is one of the most powerful tools of oppression—it operates invisibly. It creates its own pathway in our minds and becomes difficult to overcome. It’s the foundation of the narratives we’ve consumed our whole lives, so it provides a ready justification for laws that limit our freedoms. And because stigma is so pervasive, it’s not just perpetuated by our opponents. When we shy away from the more complicated and nuanced side of abortion stories, intentionally or not, we isolate one another. Even our most vocal supporters have internalized false narratives about abortion, race, gender, and class. I certainly have. To unlearn these stereotypes, accumulated over a lifetime of exposure, takes real work. For as long as I’ve been a part of the movement for reproductive rights, I’ve also been exploring questions about bias. I can’t untangle the two. The same decade I first volunteered for Planned Parenthood, I was also leading the Perception Institute, a consortium of researchers, advocates, and strategists. We translated mind science research into solutions that reduce bias and discrimination. I’ve spent the better part of my career exploring how our brains process challenging conversations and experiences.

Here’s what I’ve learned: our brains are amazing, but they’re lazy. They slip into strong archetypes that reinforce stigma, without us even realizing it’s happening. But our brains also love stories. They’re hardwired to use narratives to make meaning. We can use what we know about the mind sciences to our advantage. When we share abortion stories, we’re actually building new, strong archetypes against stigma. Through the seventeen stories in this book, Katey Zeh is giving us the tools to build a new practice: to, as she says, develop our individual and collective capacity to offer compassion to one another.

Sharing a story you’ve been told to hide is a radical act of defiance. And choosing to witness that story—without judgment or prejudice—is a radical act of grace. In the space between the telling and the hearing, the spirit is at work. As a movement for reproductive freedom, we need to create the conditions for these radical exchanges. We need to create a space where people can be vulnerable. Where they will be seen, and accepted, for who they truly are. The seventeen storytellers in this collection have trusted Katey with their truth, and in turn, she’s modeling how we can build a movement for reproductive freedom with trust as its cornerstone. Where there is room for every story in all its fullness. Where there is room for joy and ambivalence, for grief and its half-lives, for innocence and experience, for hardship and privilege. Where there is room for everyone who has had an abortion: women, men, trans and nonbinary people. Where you are not just welcome, you belong.

As the nation’s leading provider of sexual and reproductive health care, Planned Parenthood has a role to play here. In our hearts and in our movements, we need to make room for all kinds of complicated, beautiful stories. We need to show people it’s okay to complicate the narrative. When you share your imperfect abortion story, you don’t hurt our cause. You actually strengthen it.

To wrestle with stories that make us uncomfortable, or bump up against our deeply ingrained stigmas, we need to be braver. We cannot be afraid—even when our fear is coming from a very logical place. As abortion advocates, we know how our words can be twisted. We’re so scared to get things wrong because millions of people have trusted us to get it right. Their ability to access health care depends on it.

But life doesn’t always make narrative sense. It’s complicated. So are our stories.

My own faith story is complicated. Maybe yours is too. For me, there was no moment on the road to Damascus. My relationship with God didn’t come easy. Like many, I rebelled against my upbringing in a characteristically cliche way: "I don’t do organized religion. I’m more of a spiritual person. My mom, faith warrior that she is, would shout after me Remember Jeremiah 29:11: ‘For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’" I envied my mom’s surety in that plan during many dark times in my life, which in itself misses the point: faith emerges most clearly in dark times. It may seem ironic, but that insight is what helped me find a way into a pew to build my practice and reconcile the intangible. God speaks when we sit still and listen.

That’s something Reverend Katey Zeh does so brilliantly. She listens, then brings stories to life in all their glorious, messy complexities. Her voice is as vibrant on the page as it is in our movement: unapologetic, brimming with love, and guided by faith. She has a singular talent for making us think twice about scripture we thought we knew by heart, only to find something new and transformative. She uses the Bible to hold up a mirror to the fight for gender justice today, both in these pages and in Women Rise Up: Sacred Stories of Resistance For Today’s Revolution.

However this book found its way to you, I hope you read it with the same spirit in which Katey wrote. Bring an open heart. Give these stories permission to change you. When strong feelings surface, honor them and name them. Remember that testimonies of grief and ambivalence don’t harm our fight for freedom: they are freedom in action. Have faith in that power.

Faith and fear cannot coexist. We always have a choice. In Mark 5:25–34, the hemorrhaging woman’s faith overcame her fear. She cast off the shroud of stigma and spoke her truth. Katey Zeh asks us to consider this moment as not just healing for her—but perhaps, for everyone who witnessed her. Toni Morrison said, The function of freedom is to free someone else. Sharing your story doesn’t just free you: it gives others the tools to imagine freedom.

So step out of your fear. Tell the story on your heart—the one only you can tell.

Let’s get free.

—Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Preface

On a steamy June morning in 2007, I made the one-mile drive from my apartment to the abortion clinic where I’d scheduled my appointment. As I turned off the main road and onto the side street where the facility was located, I felt a prickling surge of adrenaline course through my body like an alarm system that had been triggered. Just outside the clinic entrance, a group of protesters, all of them gray-headed and white-presenting, took up most of the length of the sidewalk. One was an older man who wore a clerical collar and held up a Bible in his right hand. They were holding signs bearing gruesome, bloody images and condemning words in bold block lettering I did my best to ignore.

Approaching the parking lot, I had no choice but to bring my car to a near stop as I pulled up into the steep driveway. That momentary pause in my speed was their opportunity, one they had practiced and perfected. Two of the protesters approached my car, thrusting their hands toward the driver’s side window, only a thin pane of glass separating us. They held pamphlets too small for me to read, but I didn’t need to see them to know exactly what they said. You don’t have to kill your baby. I kept my focus on the road, averted my eyes from theirs, and parked as far away from the sidewalk as possible.

I’d arrived at the clinic with time to spare. I’m habitually early, especially when nervous. My appointment wasn’t for a few more minutes, and I wanted the chance to collect myself. I didn’t want the people on the sidewalk to see just how shaken I felt. I dabbed at the beads of sweat on my forehead and estimated how long I thought the walk to the clinic entrance would take me. OK, I thought to myself. This will take less than ten seconds. I can do anything for ten seconds. Then I will be inside, and I won’t have to see them again until I leave. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and prayed for peace. Then I stepped out of my car.

With my gaze toward the ground, I hurried across the pavement to the locked clinic door and buzzed the front desk to let them know I was there. After giving them my name, I waited a few seconds, though it felt like minutes, before being let in. That was when I realized that the group of protesters had begun screaming at me from the sidewalk. Their vicious shouts carried as I made my way inside.

God doesn’t want you to kill your baby!

You’ll regret your abortion!

You don’t have to do this. We can help you!

Not that it mattered, but what the protesters didn’t know was that I was not at the clinic to get an abortion that day. I was there to help care for the people who were.

While I am not among the one in four US women who has needed an abortion in her lifetime, I recognize that I could be. I’ve used emergency contraception. I’ve had late periods. I’ve feared that my birth