It is comforting to be haunted: how attitudes to abortion have changed through the ages
The Body’s Unyielding Reality
It is comforting to be haunted – When the moment of my abortion arrived, the physicality of it struck me like a sudden wave. I had spent so much time framing it as a symbolic act—a testament to autonomy, a victory for women’s rights—yet the experience itself was raw and immediate. Fasting for hours before the procedure, I felt the weight of the body’s preparation, my hands trembling and damp as I waited in the sterile clinic. The aftermath was no less visceral: waves of contraction, the mingling of blood and anaesthetic-induced vomit, and the lingering cramps that seemed to defy logic. For days, I was a vessel of discomfort, soaked in the quiet intensity of my own vulnerability. This was not a political statement, nor a choice wrapped in abstraction, but a bodily event that left no room for pretense. I had imagined it as a culmination of feminist progress, yet the truth was far more primal. The pain was not just a companion to the decision but the decision itself, a visceral reminder that the right to choose is not always synonymous with the ease of choice.
Ernaux’s account of her pre-legalisation abortion in France captures this tension vividly. She describes the experience as an “experience that sweeps through the body,” a phrase that echoes the helplessness of the moment. The sensation of being pregnant and then suddenly not—of the body’s dramatic shift from one state to another—was something I could not easily translate into rhetoric. It was not the act of choosing that lingered, but the sheer force of the body’s reaction. The partner’s presence, the dizziness that compelled me to lower the car seat, the cramps that pressed against a hot radiator—all these details crystallized the reality of the process. I was not thinking about life in broad terms, but about the specific life I had lost, its immediate and necessary end. The body, in its unfiltered urgency, spoke a language that could not be softened by slogans or statistics.
“The abstraction of abortion ‘debate’ severs women from history, context, circumstance.” — Adrienne Rich
Language, it seems, often struggles to encapsulate the body’s experience. The terms “life,” “choice,” and “rights” are convenient, yet they risk flattening the complexity of what happens when a woman’s body is transformed. These words, while useful, can create a kind of distance—a virtualisation of the real. When we speak of abortion in abstract terms, we may lose sight of the personal and the historical. Ernaux’s words, written decades before the current battles over reproductive rights, now feel prophetic. The repeal of Roe v Wade in the United States in 2022, alongside the restrictive laws in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, and even France and Italy, has rekindled the sense that abortion is not merely a medical procedure but a political and cultural flashpoint. Yet the essence of the experience remains unchanged: it is the body that endures the pain, and it is the body that remembers.
Abstraction in Abortion Discourse
Abortion debates often operate in the realm of the abstract, prioritising ideology over the lived experience. This tendency is not new; it has been a feature of discourse for centuries. The language of rights and autonomy, while empowering, can obscure the visceral reality of the procedure. For instance, the notion of abortion as a “healthcare right” is logical, yet it downplays the emotional and physical toll of the act. Similarly, the idea of it as a “murder” is stark, but it ignores the context of a woman’s decision, her circumstances, and her agency. These competing narratives are useful in their clarity, but they risk reducing the experience to a binary—one that neglects the nuance of the human body’s response.
Ernaux’s account reveals how deeply the body’s sensations shape our understanding of abortion. She writes of the “sweeping” nature of the experience, a phrase that suggests the body’s own transformation is both swift and profound. This perspective contrasts sharply with the way many modern debates frame abortion as a political act. The focus is on policy, on legal frameworks, on the moral weight of the decision. But Ernaux’s work reminds us that the history of abortion is not just about laws and ideologies—it is about the women who lived through it, their pain, their resilience, and their stories. The abstraction of the debate may make it easier to discuss, but it also makes it harder to feel.
Ernaux’s Enduring Legacy
More than fifty years after Ernaux’s abortion in 1963, her words carry renewed significance. The repeal of Roe v Wade and the erosion of reproductive rights in various countries have brought the past into sharp focus. In places where abortion was once a woman’s right, it is now a contested issue, with women navigating new layers of fear and determination. Ernaux’s insistence that the “experience of what it was like before” is not obsolete underscores the cyclical nature of reproductive rights struggles. The sensations and memories of the body—of cramping, of blood, of the dizziness that accompanies the process—remain as potent today as they were in the 1960s.
The history of abortion is not a linear progression toward freedom, as some narratives suggest. It is a history of resistance, of adaptation, and of enduring pain. Even in the most progressive societies, the experience of an abortion is marked by the body’s vulnerability. The body, after all, is the first witness to the decision and the final victim of its consequences. The language of abstraction may offer clarity, but it also risks severing the connection between the act and the lived experience. Ernaux’s account, rooted in the particular, reminds us that history is not just a collection of events but a series of intimate, embodied moments. These moments, though individual, are part of a larger continuum, one that continues to shape the present and inform the future.
The Persistence of the Past
Abortion, like history, is more than a single event—it is a complex, ongoing narrative. The experiences of women who have had clandestine abortions, whether in the 1960s or today, are not so different. The pain, the fear, the determination to choose—these are universal, even as the contexts in which they occur shift. In the wake of legal changes, the past does not vanish; it lingers in the memory, in the body, and in the collective consciousness. The sudden transformation from pregnancy to unpregnancy is a reminder that abortion is not just a right but a reality, one that defies the neat categories of politics and morality.
The current debates over abortion rights reflect this enduring tension. While the language of rights and autonomy has been central to the discussion, the body’s experience remains the anchor. The pain is particular, the memories are vivid, and the emotions are raw. This is why Ernaux’s work resonates so strongly today. Her account of the body’s struggle during an abortion is a testament to the power of the personal in shaping the political. The past is not over, nor is the present a guarantee of the future. Abortion teaches us that history is not a straight path but a winding road, marked by pain, resistance, and the unyielding presence of the body. To understand this, we must listen to the stories that are not just about rights but about the body’s own voice in the debate.
