I was a woman in my twenties, living two thousand miles away from my family, and I owned my own business. I was capable. I was independent. But in addition to relief, I felt shame and embarrassment. I told only a few people I could trust. I worried that people would look at me differently if they knew. I worried they would think I was stupid, careless, slutty, irresponsible, selfish. I was terrified people would find out, especially my clients. My face flaming with guilt, I lied about why I had to take a few days off.
I still feel a small bite of shame. It follows me to Planned Parenthood, where I work as a volunteer escort. I feel it pricking at me as I stand in front of the clinic, my heart pounding in my chest, as anti-abortion protestors shout horrible things: You’re going to hell. You’re a murderer. Your baby will scream as she’s being aborted. The worst black genocide is happening right now in that clinic. Mommy, don’t kill me.
Despite our best efforts to shield patients, they can’t help but notice the protestors. They are bewildered by random strangers who make them feel worse than they already do. They don’t understand why their deeply personal experience has become public.
It isn’t fair. None of this is fair.
I chose to write Camille’s story to sound an alarm, to show young women what they have to lose, how their bodies are being regulated, and how their rights to decide when and if to have a child are being slowly taken away by laws that shut down clinics, set abortion limits on gestation periods, outlaw rare late-term abortions (usually used to save the mother’s life or prevent a baby’s suffering), require fetal burial, and on and on. I wanted to talk about how shame is used as a weapon to control women’s reproductive rights.
Because abortion restrictions are in constant flux, it was almost impossible to keep up with the changes as I wrote, so I set the time line for Camille’s story in 2014, after Texas passed extreme reproductive laws. I based Camille’s story on fact, in particular an Atlantic piece from June 2014, “The Rise of the DIY Abortion in Texas.” The article tells the story of women who travel to the Rio Grande Valley in search of misoprostol, the abortion pill, on the black market.
In the year and a half it took to write and edit Girls on the Verge, new abortion laws in the United States have been passed, challenged in the courts, upheld, or overturned. As I write this on March 29, 2018, the Kentucky House, controlled by Republicans, just passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in history: an eleven-week ban on the common abortion procedure called dilation and evacuation.
Although seven in ten Americans believe that abortion should be legal, women’s reproductive freedom is not assured because the political anti-choice movement is strong. There are protestors at nearly every abortion clinic, some of them peaceful, some of them violent. Abortion providers, support staff, and volunteers have been harassed, doxed, and exposed. Clinics have been shot up, bombed, and burned. Doctors and nurses have been murdered. Officer Garrett Swasey, Ke’Arre Stewart, and Jennifer Markovsky were shot and killed in a Colorado Planned Parenthood in 2015; Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed in his church in 2009; Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot and killed in his home in 1998. Since the early 1990s, there have been eleven murders and twenty-six attempted murders.
It’s no wonder that women are afraid to talk about their experience. But to break the stigma of abortion, we have to bring it out into the light. Women who are able to share their stories can help put an end to the fear and the shame.
In January 2017, I walked in the Women’s Rights March in Chicago alongside my aunt Pam. She is one of the badass feminists who walked in the 1978 March for the Equal Rights Amendment in Washington, DC. As we joined the crush of people on State Street, she looked at me and said, “I can’t believe we’re still protesting this.” I can’t believe it, either. How long will we have to fight to live in this world on our own terms?
Talking about my own abortion scares me because I don’t know how people will react. But I’m fifty-one years old now, and I’m tired of ducking my head and pretending it didn’t happen. I’m ready to talk about my abortion now. Like Camille, I’m not embarrassed anymore. I’m not ashamed.
The Facts
Roe v. Wade became law in 1973, making abortion legal in the United States. But it remains up to the states to regulate abortion, and many enacted Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, which create never-ending regulations on clinics and on women. Nonprofits, such as Texas’s Jane’s Due Process and Lilith Fund and the National Abortion Federation, help women work around these laws, but it can be overwhelming and taxing in an already stressful situation, and women are often forced to travel many miles, sometimes to another state, to reach their nearest provider. Legal organizations, such as the Lawyering Project, the ACLU, and the Center for Reproduction Rights, challenge these laws.
The possible overturning of Roe v. Wade would mean the end to legal abortions in the United States. Women would still have abortions, but they would have to seek illegal and unsafe abortions.
Texas’s restrictions on abortion—noted in the epigraph—were struck down in the Supreme Court (Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt) in 2016. But the damage was done. Many women’s clinics shuttered in the years it took to appeal.
Pregnancy “crisis clinics” have stepped into the void left by shuttered women’s health clinics. These sham clinics and mobile units (often parked near legitimate women’s clinics) offer free ultrasounds and pregnancy tests. They offer counseling, which is an attempt to persuade women not to have an abortion. They give incorrect information about contraception and abortion. It is often difficult to tell a crisis clinic from a genuine clinic.
Abortion is common. Despite restrictive laws, as of 2017, one in four women in the United States will seek an abortion by age 45. Fifty-six percent of women who seek abortions have a child already. Thirty-four percent are 20 to 24; 12 percent are teens age 15 to 19. Seventy-five percent of women seeking abortions are poor.
Abortion rates are dropping. Due to widespread availability of contraception, data taken between 2010 and 2014 shows a drop in the abortion rate—teens accounted for 46 percent of the drop. Abortion restrictions exist in most states. The Guttmacher Institute, the leading research and policy organization for sexual and reproductive rights in the US and globally, notes that 43 states have gestational limit prohibitions, 20 states prohibit “partial birth” abortions, and 37 states require parental involvement.
Despite all of this, you, like Camille, have options. If you need help or advice on pregnancy, there are resources available to you. For information on abortion in your state, visit guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws and the sites listed below.
Planned Parenthood, plannedparenthood.org
NARAL Pro-Choice America, prochoiceamerica.org
National Abortion Federation, prochoice.org
The Guttmacher Institute, guttmacher.org
Jane’s Due Process, janesdueprocess.org
The National Network of Abortion Funds, abortionfunds.org
The Lilith Fund, lilithfund.org
National Organization for Women, now.org
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank …
Christa Desir and Carrie Mesrobian for the Boobie Bungalow, providing insight into boys and virginity, and for so many other things.
Melissa Azarian, Terri King, Katie Mitschelen, Marina Cohen, Sofia Del Carmen-Maisonet, and Ashley Biggs for listening and offering advice. Thank you, Terri, for providing the title.
My editor, Christian Trimmer, for taking a chance on me.
Mark Podesta, Katie Klimowicz, and the Letterettes for the kickass lettering.
My amazing and supportive agent, John M. Cusick, and Folio Literary Management.
Tina Hester and Amanda Bennett at Jane’s Due Process for patiently explaining Texas abortion law and parental bypass.
My fellow Planned Parenthood volunteer escorts, especially Betsy Hunt and Marty Zimmerman. You organize us with humor and k
indness.
Texans Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, and Wendy Davis, former Texas state senator, who continue to work tirelessly for women’s right to choose.
Escorts, volunteers, medical and support staff, and patients of women’s health clinics who are forced to run the gauntlet every day. Your bravery is inspiring.
And finally a big thank-you goes out to my husband, Mark, and my family, who have always supported my writing dreams.
About the Author
Sharon Biggs Waller is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novels The Forbidden Orchid and A Mad, Wicked Folly. She lives on a ten-acre hobby farm in Northwest Indiana with her husband, Mark, two horses, ten dairy goats, four cats, two dogs, thirty laying hens, a gaggle of geese, and a turkey. She is a proud Planned Parenthood clinic volunteer.
Visit her online at sharonbiggswaller.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Sharon Biggs Waller
Henry Holt and Company, Publishers since 1866
Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010 • fiercereads.com
All rights reserved.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition of this title as follows:
Names: Waller, Sharon Biggs, 1966– author.
Title: Girls on the verge / Sharon Biggs Waller.
Description: First edition.|New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019.|Summary: Camille, seventeen, gives up her spot at a prestigious theater camp to drive from Texas to New Mexico to get an abortion, accompanied by her friends Annabelle and Bea.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015681|ISBN 9781250151698 (hardcover)
Subjects:|CYAC: Coming of age—Fiction.|Abortion—Fiction.|Best friends—Fiction.|Friendship—Fiction.|Actors and actresses—Fiction.|Autombile travel—Fiction.|Texas—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.W15917 Gir 2019|DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015681
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at [email protected].
eISBN 9781250151704
First hardcover edition 2019
eBook edition April 2019
Girls on the Verge Page 17