Recently, NPR aired a story that included an audio recording of a woman undergoing a D&C abortion. It was clearly meant to portray abortion as a normal, empowering experience. Between sound clips of the vacuum aspirator whirring and the patient moaning in pain, the reporter’s voiceover paints the relationship between the staff team and the patient as one of women supporting women — like doulas at a birth. At the end of the abortion, relieved laughter is heard as the patient thanks the staff.
This rosy portrayal of abortion masks dark truths. For one, the irony of comparing it to birth is that abortion is birth — the forced birth of a child who dies during the process. That patient’s 11-week pregnancy was the size of a strawberry and had distinct fingers, toes, and fully developed facial bones. The D&C ripped that child to pieces with the force of a vacuum.
The sound of that vacuum is triggering to many women suffering from abortion-related PTSD. For me, it was the sound of the woman’s pain that brought flashbacks to my medical abortion over 20 years ago. Women with abortion trauma like me and my mental health patients are ignored by mainstream America — hence why NPR didn’t think to offer any warning before playing that clip.
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