Day One Reflection (Abortion: The Unfinished Revolution conference)

Today I attended an International academic conference, where researchers presented their papers.

Here I was, a 3rd year undergrad student, in the presence of University professors, PhD students, Masters students, representatives of NGOs, researchers for various agencies, policy writers, professionals, who had travelled from all over the world to talk about their research.

As someone who wants to go into research, I value the opportunity.  I am blessed to attend a University that understands the importance of research, and encourages it, even amid some controversy.

The easiest way to think of is to go through each of the panels I attended, and perhaps talk about my experience attending them.   I have notes haphazardly jotted down all over my program.  Ideas I wanted to think more about, books and movies I want to look into.  I'm going to try to make sense of them.  I'm going to remove names, although they can easily be found on the program.

The first panel I chose to attend was titled "Understanding for Change:  How PEI's abortion policies impact on women's lives" 

There are a number of reasons I chose this panel in the end as opposed to the other concurrent sessions.  Originally I wasn't sure, because I thought I knew a fair amount about PEI's abortion policy, having lived here for the past several years.  UPEI students were presenting their research though, and I felt it was important to support my fellow students.   I learned there was in fact a lot I didn't know about the impact that PEI's abortion policies have on women's lives.  The panel was a comprehensive blend of statistical data, quantitative and qualitative analysis, the personal experiences of women who had attempted to access abortion,  had accessed abortion and who had induced their own abortion as a result of lack of access.  It discussed the misconceptions that citizens, and in some cases medical professionals have about access in PEI and the discourses and narratives surrounding abortion in PEI.  The panel consisted of the Chair of the Psychology department, and 3 Honours students, one who was doing their honours post-graduation.

I then attended a discussion group where the personal story of a woman who had had a medical abortion in PEI was told.  I like to think of myself as a fairly well educated person when it comes to types of abortion and procedure.  Perceptions I had were shattered in this discussion.  The experience the woman had was traumatizing.  In my mind a medical abortion was fairly easy- you get a shot, you insert something (pills/seaweed) into your vagina, you have a heavy period, boom you're done.  Which is the case for many women.  However women I know who have gone this route have been from provinces where it's easily accessible, where aftercare was provided, and who had a medical professional they could contact if something concerned them.   That is not the case in PEI.  The doctor was shroud in secrecy.  It was hard to find him, as there's only one doctor known to provide medical abortions, the aftercare was subpar, she went over a month not knowing if it had worked properly.  The medical system failed when the doctor eventually tried to get her in for an ultrasound, because it was never booked.  She went over a month not knowing if she was still pregnant (she wasn't) not knowing what had happened.  It was never explained to her what actually happens, that it's not automatic, and that over a month later she would have the most extremely painful, heavy period as her body shed the lining.  While the pain she was unprepared for was traumatic, it seemed like the emotional turmoil of not knowing, of not having someone explain to her what happens, of not having someone validate her concerns after, affected her the most.

In the afternoon I attended a panel called "Telling Abortion Stories" where a PhD Candidate from the University of Calgary, and a Professor from James Madison University in Virginia presented.  The woman from the University of Calgary spoke about her research with abortion providers.  She sought to find out who they were, what were their personal stories.   What kind of people were providing abortions?   She soon realized there was no category to define them, there was no type, they were men and women from different backgrounds, different cultures, had various sexual orientations, family situations, they could not be categorized as a "type".  I found her focus on not the question "why" but the question of "who are you?" fascinating.   So often we focus on the why, as if people need to justify their decision, when I think it's much more interesting to find out about who people are, what their stories are.    The JMU professor's presentation had me madly writing down names of books I want to read, as she went over different narratives in books.  She focused on "our mothers" and the discussion of abortion in memoirs.

Things I want to read as a result of this panel are:
Reality Check by Jessica Shaw
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
and here is where my haphazard notes fail me... I wrote down "No Choice book" and "The Choice Monologues" but Amazon.ca does not seem to be helpful and requires more information.  I'll have to look into those.

The last panel of the day I attended was Abortion in Literature and Popular Culture. 
This panel consisted of an Assistant Professor & Author from Queens University, a woman who I think was a student at the University of Witwatersrand, a Graduate student from the University of Cambridge and the Interdisciplinary Studies Coordinator from New York Institute of Technology.   There was so much packed into this session.  Ideas of white privilege, the narrative surrounding men in portrayals of abortion in popular culture (they are often not flattering and men are made to appear as domineering or dead beats.).  The "othering" that happens in literature and popular culture surrounding abortion, how it's often portrayed as lower socioeconomic class (which is not the average person who gets an abortion in Canada) and often they are not white.  Abortion is portrayed as not something that "good, middle class, white women get" when statistical data in Canada actually shows that the average person who gets an abortion in Canada is educated, white, middle aged and middle class (I'm pointing that out... none of them were Canadian).  However throughout history it's never been upper class white women who have been unable to obtain access to abortion.  Even if it was illegal, if you had enough money, you had an easier time finding access.   I kind of went off on a tangent there.

Briefly mentioned in the discussion, I spoke to a woman who wrote foreign aid policy for the USA, to have her tell me the name of the movie, and I have added Ntozake Shange's 1975 stage play "For colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf" and Tyler Perry's 2010 movie adaptation to the list of things I need to read/see.

My final session of the day was a discussion group called "The politics of studying abortion"
It was fascinating to listen to people from all over the world talk about their experiences with studying abortion.  People who had put themselves at risk because it was considered controversial, people whose colleagues thought they were crazy because abortion had been legal and accepted for so long in their country that studying abortion was considered "a thing of the past".  We heard from people from all over- Ireland, The USA (various states), Norway, Sweden, the UK, Canada (different provinces), South Africa, West Africa, Australia... It was so interesting just to hear of people's experiences and how varied they were.

There is so much I valued from this conference.  The chance to listen to, and talk to, academics from around the world, the ability to listen to different research, learning about different research methods, because the methodology was vastly different across the papers.

I am looking forward to tomorrow.