“Abortion, birth control, and sexual health are never discussed within our community.”

Abortion, birth control, and sexual health are never discussed within our community, especially by our family. We don't even hear about it after marriage as well. I never had the "talk" with my family but it was known that I did know the basics from health class in middle school. Now my family tells me, "you're old enough now to know this, right?" I think a lot of the problems with the South Asian diaspora and access to abortion and birth control, fear of getting pregnant before marriage, and sexual health stems from our family maintaining sexual health education as a taboo topic. For me personally, this is where I believe it stems from. 

In the year 2020, I got pregnant. It was with my ex-boyfriend of five years at the time, and it happened after we broke up. We had always discussed that if we were unmarried and not in a stable moment in our life, our priority decision would always be an abortion. So the decision to get one was very easy. The process was definitely NOT. At the time, I graduated a year from my Master's program and was job searching at the time. My ex at the time was working a minimum wage job at a T mobile store, and both of us were living with our families at the time. None of us were clearly at the point to raise a child together, nor did we have the finances. Initially, I didn't think I was pregnant. Once in a blue moon, my period can be weird at times. It can be very late or just once in a while, skip a month. I thought it was one of those times for me, so I didn't think much of it. But a few weeks later, I went to Planned Parenthood near my house to make sure that I wasn't. But lo and behold, I was pregnant, and 8 weeks. The doctor at the time was ironically my former roommate during undergrad, so she was super nice and just there for me as an individual. She told me I could take the two-part pill, and that the first part would be stopping the pregnancy since it stops the hormone needed for pregnancy, and the second part would "miscarry" it out of your body. She was very thorough in explaining that it is an excruciatingly painful process since I would be bleeding, but also since I was 8 weeks, I would be able to notice the form of the fetus when it's out. She always emphasized that it is good to have someone be available with you every step of the way because it is a very mentally challenging time as well. 

I commend my ex-boyfriend at the time for being there for me during my Planned Parenthood appointments, even though at the time we were unofficially together. However, what deeply saddened me to this day is that he wasn't there for me when I went through the actual process. In fact, no one was. I took the pills at home. I suffered pain and bleeding at home. I saw "it" while at home. I did this all while I was in the bathroom of the same house my family and I was living in. My parents thought I just was using the bathroom for a while but thought nothing of it. So they were completely unaware of everything happening. Throughout the whole situation, I was alone. I suffered mentally and physically for a while, especially mentally. I may have physically recovered, but mentally it still pains me that I had to go through this alone. My ex, who reasonably was unable to come to my house to be there for me, but unreasonably wasn't available to simply talk on the phone with me throughout this process, hurt. Not being able to open up to my parents about this whole ordeal, hurt. There is always one thing I always told my closest friends whenever I retold this story to them, and that is "I wouldn't wish this on my own worst enemies if I had any." 

People always assume abortion is simple, easy, and a "quick fix." A lot of conservatives wrongfully assume that people use this as a form of birth control when in reality none of that is true. Even though for my ex and I, the decision was easy, it took a discussion for this decision to be made. For many women out there, that discussion happens while they were pregnant. The process I went through was painful in many ways. I still think about it from time to time, and how much I had to go through that one day. I can only imagine what many women who choose abortion have to go through. Why would women put themselves in so much pain (in a physical, mental, and emotional sense) if the decision to have an abortion and the process to have one was so easy? Because it isn't. I thankfully live in New York where abortion access is easy, but even then the wait time for access is long. But I can only feel for others who live in states that have trigger laws where if the Supreme Court makes a decision overturning Roe v. Wade, what pain they might go through? I can only feel for the women who currently live in states that have extreme restrictions on abortion access already. They would be suffering twice as much. 

I can also only feel for my South Asian sisters who may live in those states, especially the ones who come from restrictive families and how their families would react. To my sisters who have no knowledge of sexual health, access to birth control, afraid to go to a gynecologist because sexual health is so undermined in our community, I can only feel how much pain and worry they are going through. Abortion access is intersectional and that's something this country and many of its people do not realize. Getting pregnant before marriage can mean a death sentence for many young women in our community or even isolationism, and/or forced to fend for themselves. A lot of pro-lifers talk about the life of the "baby" but what about the women carrying the fetus? What about their lives? Their possible imminent doom because they got pregnant? What about them? And that's something I wanted to emphasize and I sincerely hope everyone understands.