Marchel Marcos never learned about sex, let alone safe sex or what her options might be if she ever became pregnant. As a teenager in what she described as a conservative Hawaiian home, and as a student at a Catholic school, she was on her own when, at age 15, she discovered she was pregnant.
“I didn’t have a close relationship with my mom, and to be frank, I was so scared of her and what her reaction would be,” Marcos, now a Patient Advocate and the political director at APANO, told the Board of Commissioners on Thursday during a proclamation honoring abortion providers.
When she asked her mother, hypothetically speaking, how she would react, her mom was unequivocal: She told Marcos that she would pack her things in trash bags and throw her out of the house.
“That’s the mentality that stuck with me, that I could only ever count on myself,” Marcos said. But she discovered she could also count on the healthcare providers at Planned Parenthood. There, clinic staff walked her through her options and supported her through her abortion and then through her aftercare.
And so when Marcos became pregnant a second time, she returned to Planned Parenthood and again got the support she needed to make the right decision for herself. Today, she has a 10-year-old son. And she credits Planned Parenthood for helping her make that choice.
“I was able to choose to become a parent and able to choose what happens to my body,” she told commissioners. “And I want to thank you for recognizing the value of abortion providers in our community.”
Honoring providers, protecting rights
March 10 became the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers after Dr. David Gunn was murdered by a white supremacist anti-abortion extremist March 10, 1993. Since then, at least six other providers have been killed because they provided abortions as part of their reproductive healthcare.
March 10 provided a way to honor the life and work of Gunn and all people who provide abortion care.s.
Five clinics provide abortions in Multnomah County, including Oregon Health & Science University, Planned Parenthood and the Lilith Clinic. Representatives from those clinics, and from Forward Together and Pro Choice Oregon, joined together Thursday to honor Abortion Provider Appreciation Day in Multnomah County.
“We are proud of our policies that support a full array of reproductive health options for people, providers, staff and patients,” said Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, who sponsored the proclamation.
[Download and post this “Abortion is Healthcare” poster]
Abortion is among the safest medical procedures in the United States, where more than 600,000 procedures were performed in 2019, the most recent year for which data was available. In fact, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine published a study in 2018 confirming that scientific evidence consistently indicates legal abortions in the United States are extremely safe.
Oregon has long had few restrictions on abortions. Yet layers of federal and state laws increasingly threaten access to abortion care for many Americans.
And additional restrictions in many states have forced abortion clinics to shut down, such that 90% of counties in the United States did not have an abortion provider. Compounding those limitations was the 2019 move by the Trump Administration to gut the Title X program, further threatening access to abortion referrals and care, which has led women from other states to come to Oregon for abortion care.
Last year the nation saw the highest number of new abortion restrictions in a single year, including provisions that limit abortions before most women know they’re pregnant, and provisions that allow anyone to sue those who provide or support abortion care. Now some states are even trying to limit someone’s ability to travel for safe, legal abortion care.
“And this year, we face a Supreme Court decision that will likely overturn, or at the very least dramatically reduce, the rights articulated in Roe v. Wade,” Commissioner Jayapal said. “It’s a bleak landscape; but through it all, the practitioners who provide abortion care continue on, with courage, compassion, and dedication. We honor those practitioners today.”
Abortion care is healthcare
Oregon has enshrined abortion rights into state law. State law, for example, requires private insurers to cover abortion care at no cost, does not require parental consent, sets no limitations on the method of abortion treatment, has an expansive interpretation of medical professionals who can provide abortions, does not require a wait time to receive an abortion and does not require a pregnant person receive counseling before choosing an abortion.
Jayapal has long advocated for womens’ reproductive rights, and sat on the board of Planned Parenthood. Last fall, after reading an essay by Egyptian American journalist Mona Eltahawy, Jayapal sat down to tell her own story.
It was a story she had not shared often, one that caught in her throat. A narrative — common, but rarely elevated — about a healthy, financially secure adult woman who had options.
“Choosing an abortion allowed me to choose myself,” she said during Thursday’s proclamation. “And it’s only because of the dedicated, courageous providers we honor today that that choice exists. So we stand against extremists who harass and shame those who provide and receive abortion care, and we thank the heroes who make reproductive choice and justice a reality for all people.”
Among those who joined the Board on Thursday was Dr. Abigail Liberty, a provider at OHSU who specializes in abortion care.
Liberty called abortion care “the bedrock for all reproductive healthcare.” She thanked her patients, her colleagues, and all who help make comprehensive reproductive health accessible to people in Oregon.
“By coming together today and recognizing the community which provides abortion care as well as people seeking abortion, we continue to chip away at the stigma and isolation which has too long characterized abortion in this nation,” Liberty said. “I trust individuals to know what is right for their bodies. I can be a physician who continues to provide abortion care because I practice in a community that trusts individuals to make the best decision for their lives.”
Catherine Braxton, a doula from New York with roots in the Deep South, sits on the Birth Justice Committee with Forward Together. She uses herbs to induce abortion as part of providing traditional and culturally appropriate medical care; part of that care is witnessing and holding people’s stories, she said Thursday, stories about pregnancy, birth and abortion.
In college, Braxton volunteered to walk alongside people who needed to seek abortion care as they came inside clinics, buffering fellow students through screaming and threatening crowds.
“It should not be up to society to make the choice for someone else,” she said. “Protecting abortion as a service and abortion providers who offer the service is supporting a stronger society. The truth of it is, the only one who can make an informed decision is the person who is pregnant.”
Commissioner Lori Stegmann thanked the providers and advocates who spoke Thursday and all abortion providers in the community.
“It’s time we talk about abortion as healthcare for women. I support anyone seeking the full range of healthcare they need,” she said. “It really does go back to that saying: ‘My Body, My Choice.’”
Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson applauded the work of abortion providers as “heroic.”
“We know abortion rights are under attack in the United States, but in Multnomah County, we are never going to waver on our commitment to protect a person’s right to have an abortion,” she said. “It’s not just about one medical procedure, but about bodily autonomy.
“And we have to push back against that just as hard,” she said.
Commissioner Sharon Meieran, who is also a physician, said she’s thankful that Oregon protects people’s rights to comprehensive healthcare.
“Abortion is healthcare,” she said. “As a medical professional, as a mom, as a human being, we need to be standing up, advocating, doing everything in our power to elevate abortion as healthcare, as a human right, and to overcome what is happening in our country.”
Chair Deborah Kafoury added her gratitude and commitment to uplifting people’s rights to abortion access. Kafoury’s mother, Gretchen Kafoury, was a proud champion of people’s reproductive rights. She helped women access abortions and housed women from other states who needed to get care in Oregon. And so her daughter learned about abortions when she was just a kid.
“I just thought it was an important part of life, something that every person with a uterus should have the option to choose,” Kafoury said. Then during college, in the small southern Washington town of Walla Walla, she learned that abortion access isn’t equal everywhere. When a friend got pregnant and needed an abortion, it was Kafoury who drove her an hour to the closest provider.
“We have heard over the past couple of years an extra-special appreciation for our healthcare providers during this COVID pandemic,” Kafoury said. “But there’s a special place in the world for abortion providers who put their lives on the line every day to save other people’s lives."
