Tag: pro-choice

I am a coward.

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By Lauren Conaway

I am a coward.

When the doctor told me I was pregnant, I was dumbfounded. The room was cold. I was vulnerable in my little robe, and his words echoed for what seemed like hours.

How could this be? I was on the pill. Every month, I called Planned Parenthood. I made sure to pick up that prescription, and I took that tiny, politicized pill religiously. 4:00 p.m. on the dot, every day. I later came to find out that I’m what’s called a “fast metabolizer,” a concept I didn’t even know existed until it was too late.

I was almost two months along. I was almost 20 years old.

My periods had always been a bit irregular so the first tip-off was the constant vomiting. I was so, so sick. From the moment I woke up to the moment I put my exhausted head on the pillow, I felt like an absolute trainwreck. Unable to keep food or even water down, I lost almost 20 pounds over the course of a month. Later, as I watched Kate Middleton grapple with hyperemesis gravidarum during her first pregnancy, I felt a pang of recognition. Is that what I was experiencing so many years ago? I’ll probably never know.

At the time, I was 3 months past a PTSD-fueled nervous breakdown and the subsequent ending of my brief and dramatic college career.

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Babe Monthly: What’s happening in Texas and what we can do about it

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By Emily Park

At Catcall, we’re all about turning catcalling on its head and calling out the patriarchy with stories that inspire the shes, theys, and gays and highlight the work that needs to be done to dismantle systemic inequalities. 

We put together Babe Monthly to highlight the major headlines, stories, and stats—good and bad—in feminist news that have surfaced over the last month. The mission of this monthly column is to highlight the challenges we face in the fight for women’s, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC rights, while uplifting and empowering our readers with the work that’s being done—and the amazing people who are doing that work. 

These last couple of weeks have been some of the most challenging weeks in the reproductive rights movement we have experienced in a long time. While we usually spend a couple of hours scouring headlines for the best feminist news that has come up in the last month, it’s hard to focus on anything but the abortion ban that went into effect in Texas on Sept. 1.

Banning abortions from taking place around six weeks after conception—before many individuals even know they are pregnant—the Texas law doesn’t include any exemptions for cases of rape or incest. The law is the strictest abortion ban to go into effect in the United States.

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