No! No.
In despair hiding her face. For she could not reveal her name to him, she dared not. And she could not risk giving him a number, for a phone shared by others. Until finally Voorhees relented, in pity of the distraught girl/woman he relented saying Come back tomorrow at this time. Someone will see you, and examine you. And then we’ll proceed—maybe. After-hours. I’ll be here. All right?
THESE WERE DEVOUT CHRISTIAN women and girls who did not “believe” in abortion. They’d been instructed by their elders to consider abortion a terrible sin—the “slaughter of the innocents.” They would not alter their beliefs (usually) except just this single time for they knew (they prayed) that God would forgive and God would understand. Jesus would forgive and understand. Because there is nowhere else to turn in such desperation except the Devil’s party Voorhees the Baby Killer.
Because I can’t let anyone know that I am pregnant, Dr. Voorhees.
Because they would hate me forever. They would never forgive me for shaming them.
Because I am not able to have this baby. Because I am not well . . . I am out of breath and there is a pain in my chest, sometimes I think that I will faint. There is diabetes in our family, I am afraid to have a blood test.
I have never been to any hospital. No one in our family has.
We do not believe in blood transplants—is that what they are called?—we do not believe.
Because I am too old. I have had my babies, I can’t have any more I think I will die. I am so tired.
Because I will lose my job. Because I can’t commute ninety minutes a day if I am pregnant, if I have another baby I will lose my job. I can’t afford to lose my job I will be evicted.
Because the father is gone. Because he is not coming back.
Because the father would kill me, if he knew.
Because the father is married.
Because the father has too many children already.
Because the father would deny it, he would say that I am lying.
Because the father would say that it was my fault, that I came to him . . .
Because my parents would be disgusted. Because my father would never speak to me again so ashamed in the eyes of the church and our neighbors.
Because I am too young. Because I want to finish school.
Because girls who had babies who had to get married did not finish school and are not happy now. I know some of these girls . . .
Because I don’t know how this happened. I did not want it to happen.
Because it is the same man as with my sister. Because he is engaged to my sister. Because my sister cannot know!
Because it is a secret, he said he would strangle me if I told.
Because I tried to do it to myself, with an ice pick. But I was too afraid, I could not.
Because I hit myself with my fists in the stomach. Because I was sick to my stomach vomiting and choking but that was all.
Because there is no hope for me, if you do not help me.
Because he is so old.
Because he is too young.
Because he went away into the Army. He could not come home.
Because he lives right next-door. We would see him all the time and his family would see us.
Because they would not believe me anyway if I told his name.
Because they would believe him.
Because one other time it happened, a girl from our church said it was him but no one believed her, everyone was disgusted with her and her family and they had to move away.
Because I did not want to be with him in such a way but he made me to prove that I loved him. Because if I tell, he will never love me again.
Because if there is no baby he will not know. Then he might love me again some other time but if this is known, he will never love me again.
Because we might become engaged. If this goes away.
Because nobody will love me again and I would not blame them.
Because everyone who knows will speak of me in scorn and disgust. Because they will say of me, she has broken her parents’ hearts she is a whore.
Because God will understand. It is just this one time.
HE’D SAVED LIVES. Lives of girls and women.
Girls who’d tried to abort themselves out of shame. Girls who’d allowed pregnancies to go full term seeming not to know that they were pregnant and in the very midst of labor screaming in denial. Pregnant women who’d avoided seeing a doctor though knowing, or guessing, that the fetus had died and that it was death they carried in the womb and not life. Girls who hid their pregnancies inside their clothes, tight-corseted. And their milk-fat breasts flattened against their chests. You would think it was 1955, or 1935. You would not think such terrible things happened any longer.
Out of ignorance? Religious intolerance?
Out of a wish to be good. And to appear good.