I was in Quito, Ecuador for over a year. My Spanish was good, but I had never learned the word for miscarriage. “I’m not pregnant anymore” is all I managed to say. Hours earlier, I had woken up with sheets dark with blood and cramps worse than any I’ve ever had. Looking at the sheets, I knew this wasn’t a normal heavy period, but I didn’t know I was pregnant. When the bleeding didn’t stop, we went to the hospital. I looked out the car window at the colonial era buildings of Quito. I loved this city so high in the Andes. I had a vague idea that abortion is illegal, but I didn’t think that had anything to do with my situation. I was wrong. I learned that because abortion was illegal in Ecuador, many women had unsafe abortions or tried to defect. When things went wrong, they went to the hospital as a last resort to stop the bleeding or treat the infection, claiming they were miscarrying to avoid legal action. In 2014, deaths from these abortions accounted for 15.6 percent of all deaths in the country, Reuters reported.
I became a suspected criminal
Women who, like me, experience incomplete miscarriages may need medical intervention to stop the bleeding and make sure all the tissue passes through the uterus. Treatment for an incomplete miscarriage is the same as treatment for an elective abortion. When the nurse finally put me on, I tried to say that I wanted local and not general anesthesia. Being unconscious in an unfamiliar hospital, at the mercy of people who treated me with suspicion and contempt, scared me far more than the procedure itself. I learned a hard truth that day: Banning abortion is not just banning abortion. It turns every woman dealing with a gynecological emergency into a suspected criminal. In a sense I was lucky. As a foreigner who could pay, I probably received better care than the average Ecuadorian. I was pretty disoriented at the time and blocked out the details. But I think we paid $200, in cash, before they even operated on me. The next thing I remember is my friend gently rocking me in the recovery room. “You’ve been out almost an hour,” he said. “I thought you were in a coma.”
I was glad to be back in the US when we came back
When I returned to the US, I was relieved to be back where abortion was safe and legal, and where no one would suspect me of faking a miscarriage to have an abortion. I returned to a country where many women—my own included—received their primary care from clinics, often free, that also provided abortions. Overturning Roe v. Wade throws it all out the window. If you miscarry in a US state that restricts abortion, you may face worse than I did in Ecuador. There are already examples of women in the US being prosecuted for abortions. This can only become more prevalent. I don’t want to demonize Ecuador or Latin America, as abortion is legal in Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay, and Mexico, sort of. In December, Mexico’s Supreme Court declared that abortion is no longer a crime, although its exact status varies by state. The difference is that in Mexico, reproductive rights are advancing, while in the US, they are being abolished. Erin Van Rheenen is a writer, teacher, and traveler who just finished a novel set in Central America.
