I became pregnant in Texas as a college student. I knew if I continued with the pregnancy, it would set my life back. Still, I’d never had to fight so hard for something I wanted and was best for me.
The following is Madysyn Anderson’s personal story, as told to Courier Dallas, where it originally appeared.
When I first saw the positive lines on the pregnancy test, my heart stopped. I couldn’t believe it. I was on birth control. I felt sick about the idea of telling my parents that I had gotten pregnant at 21, the very start of my senior year at the University of Houston in September 2021.
It was really difficult to think about breaking the news to my parents because they had been teen parents themselves. They constantly drilled into me and my two siblings that we shouldn’t make the same mistakes they did when they became such young parents. My mom was just 16 when she had my older brother, and she married my dad within a year.
They told us to focus on ourselves and our careers and become established so that when we were ready for a family, it could be a joyous experience, not something stressful that could hold us back in life like it did for my mom. My mom didn’t graduate college until 2008 after she had divorced my dad. She worked a full-time job and raised three kids while doing night classes. Now she is a lawyer, and I’m very proud of her.
I was devastated that I had made the one mistake they told me not to make, and I was so afraid of disappointing them.
While I was on birth control at the time, it wasn’t unusual for me to miss a period for two months, as I have endometriosis. Even though I constantly felt nauseous for a couple of weeks, I chalked it up to stress because I was helping my sorority run our annual recruitment effort.
I decided to take a precautionary pregnancy test because I had broken up with my boyfriend of two years in August, and I wanted to start seeing other people again. When I did, and it came up positive, I couldn’t believe it. I ended up taking five drug store tests—including digital tests—before I had to face the fact that I was definitely pregnant.
The timing could not have been more of a gut punch. I was very aware of Texas’ new law which banned abortion from the time a fetal heartbeat was detected, usually around six weeks. It was the first law in the country to limit access to abortion at such an early stage in pregnancy, even though Roe v. Wade was still officially the law of the land.
SB 8 became Texas law on Sept. 1, and I found out about my pregnancy just a couple of weeks later. I prayed that I was still within the legal time to get an abortion in the state.
I called the local Planned Parenthood immediately, but they didn’t have an appointment until about a week later. Because I was already over nine weeks pregnant, there was no way I would be able to get an abortion in Texas. That was a lot to handle, and I just cried because I knew instantly that any chance I had to keep this private was gone. It was very hard to come to terms within minutes in a doctor’s office all by myself.
I knew at this point that I had to see my ex. I felt that he deserved to know, and even though the relationship had not been the greatest, I knew that he did care about me. Fortunately, he was kind and supported my decision to get an abortion. His mom, however, tried to talk me out of having it because it would have been her first grandchild.
Because I was already over nine weeks pregnant, there was no way I would be able to get an abortion in Texas. … I knew instantly that any chance I had to keep this private was gone.
I was sure that if I continued with the pregnancy, I would wind up back in a relationship with him, and I would have to lean on my parents a lot with childcare if I wanted to continue school. I knew it would set my life back, and that was a choice I didn’t want to make. I’d done everything I could to push through college. I was so close to finishing. I didn’t want an unwanted pregnancy to prevent me from completing the biggest achievement in my life thus far.
I researched where I could go to get an abortion. A lot of the states in the South required waiting periods, so I would have to go to a clinic twice. I called all the way to Georgia, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.
The place that could take me soonest was in Jackson, Miss., which was a seven- or eight-hour drive. It was called the Jackson Women’s Health Organization—the very clinic that was later the subject of the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe.
I’m so glad that I didn’t take one of my now ex-friend’s advice and go to a crisis pregnancy center instead of Planned Parenthood. Other friends warned me that they are run by antiabortion groups who try to convince you to keep your baby. I don’t think I could have handled someone calling me a terrible person at that point. I was sleep-deprived, sick all the time and couldn’t eat. I was barely holding onto the threads of my life. I also was trying to determine if Planned Parenthood could help me cover the cost of the abortion and travel with gas cards and food coupons.
The biggest problem was that none of my friends could go with me on that drive to Jackson. That’s when I finally broke down and decided to tell my dad. I didn’t know how he would react, but I knew in my heart that he would have my back—and he did. He immediately agreed to drive me to Mississippi and got us a hotel there.
It was difficult to go into the clinic alone for my first required visit due to COVID-19, even though I was escorted by someone who worked there. Protestors screamed at me. It made me angry and frustrated. They’re screaming that you’re a horrible human being and you wouldn’t be here if your mother made the same choice. They could be yelling at someone who’s just there to pick up their birth control because Planned Parenthood offers a lot of different services. The protesters’ sense of entitlement to tell you what to do is jarring. I think they probably feel entitled to their own opinion, but I’m also entitled to mine.
At that first appointment, one of the providers was legally required to give me scary warnings about the risk of getting breast cancer or becoming infertile because of an abortion. I knew that these weren’t factually true.
Then I was given a time and date a week later to come back for the procedure. Even though the legal waiting period in Mississippi was just 24 hours, the clinic had such an influx of women coming for abortions from Texas that I needed to wait a week for the procedure.
On the drive home, I finally decided to text my mom and tell her that I wanted to talk. She called back right away. She was a little hurt that I was so scared to talk with her. She thought she had built a better relationship with me and that I would know I could go to her. I confessed to her that I was so worried I was a disappointment to her. Thankfully, she reassured me that I wasn’t and vowed she would do whatever it took to get me whatever I needed.
True to her word, she booked flights for us to fly to Jackson the next week for the abortion. Then she drove me from the airport to the clinic and waited in a coffee shop for me.
It was actually kind of comforting to talk with the other girls in the waiting room who were there for the same procedure. We talked about who was nauseous and how far along we were, just finding commonalities.
After I walked out of the clinic and was finally able to see my mom, I broke down. It sucked having to do it alone because of COVID-19, and my mom was so apologetic that she had to leave me. But, that was the first night I was able to sleep and the first time I didn’t feel nauseous after 13 weeks and four days.
I feel very lucky that my parents ended up being understanding, and I felt tremendous relief that it was finally over. I’d never had to fight so hard for something I wanted and was best for me. I could finally move on with my life. There was nothing else that could hold me back.
I have friends who don’t agree with the choice that I made, but they understand that it was my body, my choice. This does not have to be a make-or-break for friendship as long as you are respectful. You don’t have to agree with my choice, but you don’t get to make me feel bad for making it.
However, when I heard that Roe v. Wade had been overturned by the Supreme Court, I was shattered. It was right around my 22nd birthday, and it was the worst birthday present I could get. I bawled my eyes out in my room. My worst thought was how little girls have to grow up without knowing about bodily autonomy and don’t have that safeguard. The little girls would have to go through hell again if they were raped or taken advantage of in any way.
I decided that I wanted to share my experience with abortion and be an educational resource. Abortion is so stigmatized, and I was tired of no one speaking out about it. I wanted to be a resource for other women.
I found that I had a passion for advocacy.
My dad came with me and sat in the committee room. … I did not expect that this abortion experience would be something I would share so closely with him.
I was very excited when I learned through a contact at Planned Parenthood that I was selected to appear before a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing called “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America.”
The hearing was chaired by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to focus on the harm that Republican abortion bans or restrictions in 22 states have created since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which ended the federal guarantee of abortion rights.
My dad came with me and sat in the committee room. Beforehand, he helped me prep for potential tricky questions. He had been a rock star, wanting to promote my advocacy. I did not expect that this abortion experience would be something I would share so closely with him.
I told my story to the senators there, and I pleaded with them not to continue with these antiabortion policies. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (Ill.) led the Republican contingency. He had a cartoon drawing of a fetus’ gestational age in the womb next to him.
Texas’ two senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, were not there, but a few other Republican senators, including Lisa Murkowski, Markwayne Mullin and Ted Budd, attended. It felt amazing to require these powerful people to hear me talk about my experience. Republicans caused this outcome. It was a heartbreaking outcome in terms of what I had to go through but also a heartbreaking outcome (for them) since their laws and tactics haven’t worked: People are still having abortions.
It was also empowering because there was a packed gallery, and I know they were impacted by my story. Numerous people came up to me afterward, including senators, to thank me for sharing my story.
Sens. Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders (I-Maine) were incredibly kind and wonderful.
Now, I’m hoping that Texas will turn blue in November—though that’s a shooting-for-the-stars kind of hope. The majority of women I meet and talk to agree that women should have a choice over their bodies. I’m seeing more men be upset when they realize this will affect their nieces, cousins, sisters or significant others in the future.
Unless our country gets a reality check about who we elect to office and we educate ourselves on their positions, we women have no hope of deciding whether we want to start a family or not—or if we want to carry a rapist’s child. We stand no chance unless we fight for what we believe in.
I’m doing what I can to show the real effects of these laws and encouraging people to vote. I’ll go out and vote and I’m ready to fight.
The Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade represented the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. A series from Ms., Our Abortion Stories chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls. Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.
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