“How do I get an abortion?” an anxious woman asks the doctor. He responds with his own questions about her relationship status, her income and her decision to not have a child. This interaction isn’t fictitious; it’s the opening scene of Rachel Cairns’s podcast “Aborsh” and her upcoming autobiographical play, Hypothetical Baby.

Her unhelpful doctor’s appointment prompted Cairns to turn to Google for the information she needed. It also forced her to think about the state of reproductive justice in Canada and all of the people without access.

Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1969, but at that time, could only be approved by a panel of doctors and only performed if a pregnancy threatened the life or health of a pregnant person. In 1988, this approach was ruled unconstitutional, and abortion was more fully legalized. However, barriers to abortion care remain. Despite increased availability of medical abortions, which are induced by taking pills called mifepristone and misoprostol and can be prescribed online, surgical abortions are often inaccessible in rural areas. Many patients seeking this care end up needing to pay out of pocket to travel to clinics outside their cities or towns, and many end up unable to access the care they need at all.

Cairns was eventually able to get an abortion on Christmas Eve, 2019. She started writing the play the next summer as a way to process, and also to share. While it’s a one-woman show, Hypothetical Baby prompts the audience to think about the state of abortion access in Canada like Cairns did when she was googling to fill the gaps in her own health care.

Now that Hypothetical Baby is almost out in the world, Cairns says she feels both excited and nervous. “I’m trying to talk about abortion and reproductive choice and fertility publicly in the way we talk about it privately with the closest people in our lives,” Cairns says. “We talk about it privately with heart, humour, irreverence, oversharing, honesty, neurotic vulnerability. I’m trying to humanize the experience and show how fraught it is for many people.”

Cairns, who had an IUD at the time she became pregnant, says she grappled with the complexities surrounding her abortion. “It didn’t feel like I was choosing anything because I hadn’t consented to this [pregnancy] as a possibility,” she says. “At the same time, it was a choice that was informed by so many personal and societal factors that affect all of us, like housing, access to childcare, livable wages for the city you live in.”

As the pandemic halted live performances, Cairns turned the play into her award-winning podcast, “Aborsh.” In the podcast, Cairns speaks with experts and activists about reproductive freedom in Canada while sharing her own story.

Cairns’s work promises an honest conversation about abortion that sees her navigating the surprising emotions she experienced surrounding her choice to not become a parent. Written and performed by Cairns, Hypothetical Baby runs December 8 to 17 at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre.

In March 2012, Shannon Hardy came across dozens of headlines about Prince Edward Island’s abortion policy. The Island hadn’t offered in-province abortion services for 30 years, and those seeking terminations at private clinics had to travel to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick on their own dime. “I just thought, ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe that happens,’” says Hardy, a 44-year-old social worker in Halifax.

Overwhelmed by the restrictions, Hardy decided to join forces with Island-based activists, set up a Facebook page, and take action. Within the month, the Maritime Abortion Support Services (MASS) was born, offering emotional and practical support to Maritimers seeking abortions. Among the volunteers are “doulas,” who help patients navigate the health care system, drive them to the hospital, make them cups of tea, and provide a non-judgmental ear.

While most associate doulas with birth, abortion doulas remind us of the emotional labour necessary to support those terminating pregnancies. By listening to their clients and simply advertising their services, these doulas help destigmatize abortion.

Across Canada, and especially on the east coast, conversations about abortion in the public and political sphere have long been fraught. Though a 1988 Supreme Court ruling found the ban of abortions in the country unlawful, the law deeming the practice illegal remains in the Criminal Code, and few politicians are interested in rewriting it. And on the east coast, where access to abortion has been difficult even in the last five years, many are faced with a great deal of shame when seeking medical assistance to terminate pregnancies.

As a result, abortion doulas provide a way for women to remain empowered during the process. The supports are largely practical: Doulas can help their patients find a clinic that allows their support person to be present during the procedure. They also prepare clients for the experience, including a conversation on how to deal with protesters, should they be there. But most of all, it’s a doula’s duty to offer comfort and companionship. “You follow their emotions,” Hardy says. “I’m simply here to be with you.”

There is no accreditation for abortion doulas in Canada, though informal weekend workshops are available in some cities—opening up the practice to those who want to make a difference to those struggling in their communities. In Halifax, Hardy hosts her own workshop, focused on communication. It’s important, for example, to use gender-neutral terminology, and avoid terms of endearment like “sweetie” or “honey,” which can come across as condescending.

Meanwhile in Calgary, Jessica Shaw, a volunteer full-spectrum doula, begins her workshops with a brief history of abortion in Canada, including legality, accessibility, and acceptability. Following that, she delves into how abortion medications work and what kind of care is needed throughout the process.

Those who sign up for the training include both paid and volunteer abortion doulas. And the workshops are popular—this summer in Halifax, Hardy’s filled up in a matter of days, and she’s been invited to run sessions in Newfoundland, Ontario, and Manitoba. While Shaw and Hardy are both volunteers, Brittany-Lyne Carriere in Toronto offers full-spectrum doula work—birth, miscarriage, abortion and fertility—full-time. She charges around $30 an hour, but also offers reduced rates for those with financial difficulties, and accepts barters too. Her work is often grassroots, focused less on profit and more on empowerment. “I recently traded a Thai massage for abortion doula care,” she says. “That kind of energy exchange is really important to this kind of work.”

Doulas’ often voluntary labour can play a significant part in changing attitudes about and improving access to abortion. It can often be difficult for patients to ask questions about accessing the procedure because of the sense of shame that is attached to abortion. “There are hotlines you can call for this information, but even that feels stigmatized,” Carriere says. Abortion doulas’ presence can help people get accurate information and reassure them that their bodies are their own to make choices about.

“The way we can destigmatize abortion is to talk about it—sharing stories so it becomes less scary and more normal,” Shaw says, noting that one in three Canadian women will have an abortion at some point in her life.

In January, abortions became available in P.E.I. But that doesn’t mean Hardy’s work in the Maritimes is done. For one, the only P.E.I. hospital offering the service is limited to first-trimester abortions, so Islanders in their fourth month of pregnancy and beyond would still have to leave the province. And even though it’s possible to get an abortion in Nova Scotia, it’s difficult. Patients have to wait until they’re at least eight weeks pregnant, may have to travel hundreds of kilometres to the province’s only pregnancy termination unit in Halifax, and until recently, required a doctor’s referral.

Still, it’s encouraging to see slow but steady policy changes. And like P.E.I. offering abortion services after 30 years and many provinces paying for the abortion pill Mifegymiso, doulas’ work plays a significant role in reducing barriers to abortion care. After all, as Shaw says, “women have been helping other women as long as abortion has been happening, which is as long as people have existed.”

The latter woman, Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, founder of New Wave Feminists (slogan: “Badass. Prolife. Feminists.”), was on stage. As part of a panel featuring “young leaders,” she sat with two other women. One was Alexandra Swoyer, another Ave Maria graduate and a Washington Times journalist who covered the presidential campaign for Breitbart. The other was Alison Howard, the director of alliance relations at Alliance Defending Freedom. Each had their cell phone out, fingers swiping and connecting. Moments earlier, by way of introduction, the moderator, Jill Stanek, the national campaign chair of the Susan B. Anthony List, crowed, “I have surmised that you all know that we won, right?” She went on to say that the anti-abortion movement must prepare for “the most evil tricks that we can’t even possibly imagine” and called feminists “perennial losers.” She cheered what she deemed feminism’s “generational in-fighting” and its “reluctance to pass the torch”—stoking the divisiveness within the movement. “My observation of the pro-life movement is exactly the opposite. We first demonstrate the love of our young people before they were even born,” she said, emphatically if not grammatically. She was so proud of the women on stage, she beamed. “These women are so precious.”

Herndon-De La Rosa had recently catapulted onto the national stage after New Wave Feminists applied to become a partner at the Women’s March on Washington and was, to her great initial surprise, accepted, and then, swiftly and much less to her surprise, rejected. The march pointed to its pro–abortion rights stance as the reason for its rescinded partnership, but Herndon-De La Rosa “invaded” the totally public march anyway (the audience applauded wildly at this, as if she’d infiltrated the Gestapo) and welcomed the publicity boost the controversy created. She went on to say there were no hard feelings and joked that she “needed to send them a fruit basket, because this is the best thing that’s ever happened.” I’m not sure what she said after that because the room erupted in laughter and clapping, drowning her out. A few minutes later, she won the room again when Stanek asked the panelists how they saw the movement’s future. “The future is pro-life female,” answered Herndon-De La Rosa, riffing off a popular feminist T-shirt with a similar slogan. She added that it was important for anti-abortion advocates to promote the pro-women narrative. “We’re not trying to control women or take over their bodies—that’s not it at all,” she told the crowd. “We believe that you should have control over your body from the moment it first exists.”

Yikes.

Moments later, after the panel ended, the audience voted to skip their washroom break—they were too engaged to stop. Hood, who emceed the conference, his face permanently pink with excitement, encouraged attendees to step out if they needed to, directing them to the men’s room. “There are restrooms,” he added, hesitating, before jovially breaking off to responding laughter and shouts of “good for you!” as he confessed, “I don’t know where the women’s room is.” A few minutes after that, the audience broke into another round of rowdy, gleeful laughter when John-Henry Weston, editor-in-chief of the website LifeSite: Life, Family & Culture News, jumped up on stage, holding his laptop, voice hiccupping in excitement as he interrupted Hood.

“Outside the conference room, teenage girls clumped together. The youth rally had ended at the same time. I was surprised to see how many of them carried signs that read ‘True feminists protect human life.'”

“Breaking news! President Trump just did it again,” he cried, emphasizing “again” with Shakespearian drama. “He once AGAIN called out the mainstream media for not coming to cover the March for Life.” Giddy noises rippled through the crowd. “He’s like our best advertisement tool right now.” Westen broke off into giggles that were answered with more laughter and riotous clapping. “President Trump is also confirming—officially, sort of—that Mike Pence is going to show up tomorrow.” At this, the audience lost composure, filling the room with shouts of “Wow!” He continued quoting Trump, and the audience continued mirroring his excitement, hollering victory.

What a fun crowd!

The blending of traditional conservatism and new feminism made for a strange but effective mix. In one breath, we got speakers who asserted things like “mom’s the real issue”—referring to the presumed superiority of the traditional family structure and the sanctity of motherhood—and, in the next, other speakers praised feminism and lamented what they saw as a you-can’t-sit-with-us mentality in the movement. Both, however, preached a brand of pro-women activism rooted in restriction, no matter how often it employed “dank memes,” risqué language, or Urban Outfitters–style (ahem, sorry, Pro-Life Outfitters) “All Lives Matter” shirts shilled on tattooed bodies. While it’s beyond my purview to define someone’s feminism for them, the more I became exposed to the Anti-Abortion Movement Dictionary’s meaning of feminism, the more I became convinced it wasn’t as advertised: a sort of modern feminism-for-everybody with a “pro-life” twist. Take one of New Wave Feminism’s memes, for example, a funky pink text on a black, distressed background: “We reject the failed feminism of victimhood and violence, for ourselves and for our unborn children.” In the corresponding Instagram caption, Herndon-De La Rosa added, “The fauxminists can have #victimhood if they want it. Real #feminism is beyond that.”

Well, now, doesn’t that sound familiar?

Outside the conference room, teenage girls clumped together. The youth rally had ended at the same time. I was surprised to see how many of them carried signs that read “True feminists protect human life.” (The signs were hot pink, of course, a shade so ubiquitous that day it might as well have been the event’s official color.) At the bottom of the sign, a pink banner highlighted the Guiding Star Project, accompanied by #NEWfeminism.

Curious about what, exactly, new feminism was, I hunted down the organization’s booth at the nearby trade show, where teenage girls carrying the signs were even more abundant. I scanned through a pamphlet at the booth, which was bordered by still more young girls, trying to master my poker face. “‘Old feminism,’” read the pamphlet, “is based on the idea that men and women are interchangeable and that women have been unfairly held back from achieving their potential in society because of their role as mothers in the home.” (Oh, geez.) “New Feminism,” the pamphlet explained, “views femininity through a lens of hope and joy. We honour the unique feminine genius—the way women think, perceive, and love as women—and celebrate that these strengths are compatible with the strengths of others. We know that true feminine success is measured by a woman’s love of others” [italics theirs]. Sure, fine, but I had just one question: by what bar is true masculine success measured? The pamphlet didn’t say, but I’d seen enough that day to guess.

I wandered through the trade show, checking out the other feminist-branded booths. For all their dismissal of “old” feminism, these groups tended to promote a feminism that was—well—musty, like first-wave, nearly-a century-gone, make-sure-you-have-mothballs-handy-because-it’s-so-old kind of old feminism. Non-profit Life Matters Journal, a publication of Rehumanize International, an organization that describes itself as “a non-partisan, non-sectarian/secular group dedicated to the cause of life,” displayed a giant mint-and-pink standing banner that asked, in lettering reminiscent of both tattoos and Pinterest, “Can you be Pro-Life and Feminist?” On it, they’d given Rosie the Riveter a makeover, rendering her face blank except for a piece of tape over her mouth that read “life,” a nod to the Silent Siege project, which calls its tactics a “divine strategy from the Lord”—a strange choice for a supposedly secular group. As the banner pointed out, early feminists, including Alice Paul, who spearheaded the battle for women’s right to vote in the U.S., and Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S., largely protested abortion, at least in public. Still, as much as we owe a debt to these women, I’m not about to grab a petticoat and try to be them. I might picture myself standing on their shoulders, but it’s not in a straight and unwavering line. Rather, it’s an inverted pyramid that allows for pluralities and expansion, a rejection of this idea that it’s good to go backward.

Excerpted from F-Bomb: Dispatches from the War on Feminism copyright © 2017 by Lauren McKeon. Reprinted by permission of Goose Lane Editions.

Kristen was in high school. Mackenzie was 23. Jess made a pros and cons list. Each woman had an abortion. Without Apology: Writings on Abortion in Canada centres around a woman’s right to choose. In this five-part series, women share their personal stories, alongside a detailed history of the criminalization of abortion in Canada. Editor Shannon Stettner powerfully tends to the intimate—and sometimes political—conversation first ignited in the 1960s when cis men wrongly dominated and interrupted the abortion debate. The collection is at times grim, harrowing and passionate, but it ultimately solidifies the notion that a woman’s body is solely hers—point, blank, period.

Women are still forced to ask Daddy Patriarchy for permission when it comes to reproductive rights. Being denied access to a safe abortion because a doctor is Catholic, for example, seems absurd in 2016. Yet here we are. The bright side is progress is being made, at a snail’s pace perhaps, but made nonetheless. This year a new medical abortion option will become available to women: RU-486 (marketed in Canada as Mifegymiso).

Medical abortions provide more choices to women as well, putting more control in women’s hands, “As usual with medical decisions, there are a variety of factors at play,” writes Planned Parenthood Toronto in response to my questions, “including many personal ones, and the important thing is that there is a choice at all.”

Mifegymiso has been available for women in France for over two decades. In Canada it usually takes nine months for a drug to be approved. Mifegymiso was reviewed by Health Canada for two and-a-half years. It’s now hoped this option will become available in the spring. Mifegymiso is a combination of two drugs. The first drug will prevent the production of progesterone, which prepares the uterine lining for pregnancy. The second drug, misoprostol, will cause contractions, eventually leading to an abortion. The process is similar to a miscarriage, and can even be used to aid in such situations. Only doctors will be able to give women a prescription for Mifegymiso, at least to begin with.

The current medical option is similar, using a mixture of methotrexate and, again, misoprostol. Methotrexate blocks cell growth; in the case of abortions it prevents the placenta from growing. This same drug is used to treat cancer and arthritis, as well as ectopic pregnancies. Misoprostol is taken at home, 3 to 7 days after the methotrexate is injected. A woman may choose a time that best suits her needs within this time frame. Misoprostol comes in tablets to be inserted vaginally. Like with Mifegymiso, the methotrexate misoprostol combo creates an abortion similar to a miscarriage.

While a trained pharmacist can fill the prescription, they must deliver it directly to a physician, who will have to administer the medication. It is never in the hands of a patient. So, as a Toronto Star article points out, “But if you’re in a remote or rural community, you don’t have a family doctor or your primary care provider doesn’t want to prescribe an abortifacent pill, you could be in the same boat, access-wise, you are now.”

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Trudeau volunteered at McGill University’s sexual assault centre. He notes in his interview that he was one of the only male facilitators there. His work there is what he credits for his response to two Liberal MPs who were proven to have sexually harassed multiple women. After the first report was made to Trudeau directly, he suspended Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, and eventually expelled the pair after an investigation. During his interview he says of the events, “When she came to the leader of a different party to talk about this, I realized that this was something that I wasn’t going to simply shrug and look away from.” Though he says in the same interview that any sort of violence against women is unacceptable, and that his party will strengthen the criminal code for repeat offenders, he could not offer a dollar figure for what was being put aside for places like women’s shelters: “The issue with the infrastructure program we’re putting forward is we’re being a partner to municipalities and provinces. I don’t think it’s up to the federal government to draw lines on a map or to tell a municipality what it needs and where.”

Trudeau often spoke of misogyny within the old boy’s club of politics, and in older generations. However, when asked about why it exists in younger generations, he mentioned misogyny in certain types of music and absent fathers in certain communities. “Is it a coincidence that two of the three factors Trudeau cited about violence against women are well-worn stereotypes about black people,” asked activist and writer Desmond Cole while tweeting about Trudeau’s interview last month. Trudeau responded to these questions regarding subtle racism when speaking with reporters in Montreal on September 22, “I wasn’t speaking of any community in particular. I was saying as leaders, as parents, as community leaders, we need to make sure we are combating misogyny in all its forms, wherever it’s found. Whether it’s in fashion magazines or popular music or popular culture, we all have to work together.” Still, this wasn’t what was initially said. His original comments were pretty specific and the dots were not hard to connect. Even the most well-intentioned rich, white dude is bound to be out of touch with the rest of us, but I hope he continues his education on the social factors he admits to playing a role in our society’s acceptance of misogyny.

The Liberals talked about improving childcare throughout their campaign. Something that is much needed, especially after being destroyed by the Conservative party. A national childcare plan has not been laid out. Instead, money will be given to each province to address their specific childcare needs. But as Up for Debate interviewer Fracine Pelletier says, this does not necessarily mean better childcare, “[Mulcair’s] saying, you get this money if you do a daycare. You’re saying we’ll give you money, we hope you do daycare.” This is a fair point, and it would certainly be more comfortable knowing there is a solid national childcare program in place.

Another fair point was that though Trudeau and his party are pro-abortion rights, Prince Edward Island, lead by a Liberal government, does not have access to abortions. Trudeau responded saying this needs to change and that he will have a conversation with any jurisdiction not living up to its responsibilities under the Canada Health Act, which includes reproductive rights.

When Harper said Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women were not radar-worthy, the Liberal party said a national inquiry is needed. The party’s Policy Resolution 110: A Resolution for Action for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women states the Liberals will reinstate the research funding the Tories took away from Sisters in Spirit, a research, education, and policy initiative run by Indigenous women researching and raising awareness about violence against Indigenous women and girls. The party also says they will align themselves with Indigenous advocacy groups.

The Liberals opposed Bill C-36 and Trudeau has said they will be looking at the Nordic Model when reforming the law. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network quote the party saying it will “deliver on prostitution reforms laws formed in consultation with experts and civil society, including sex workers themselves, which includes rigorous examination of supporting facts and evidence.”

There are so many more questions regarding women’s rights that have yet to be answered. Unfortunately this is all a wait and see situation, one that we need to keep on top of whilst trying not to be distracted by a no-more-Harper afterglow. Seriously, though, that was a heck of a celebration.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Here’s a glimpse so far:

Up for Debate

Wouldn’t it be handy if there were a debate specifically about women’s issues? There hasn’t been one since 1984. That means there has not been a debate focused on women’s issues in my lifetime. Up for Debate, an alliance of over 175 national women’s organizations, invited Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, and Elizabeth May to debate such issues. Mulcair was proud of the fact that he was the first to accept the invitation. Trudeau and May also accepted, and Harper did not. When the time came, Mulcair backed out. If Harper wasn’t doing it, neither would he. As a result, because two men didn’t want to play, organizers canceled the event. Up for Debate went ahead with Plan B, where one-on-one interviews with the politicians were arranged. Mulcair—the guy who backed out of the debate last second—took this opportunity to identify as a feminist. Trudeau also says that he is a proud feminist. Harper did not participate in the interviews.

I was looking forward to this debate. Very disappointed it had to be cancelled. https://t.co/q2Awq4iQcX

—    Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) August 24, 2015

Where did our debate go, @ThomasMulcair? And @pmharper? #women #GPC http://t.co/iSLL9pN4Ue pic.twitter.com/m1cQArPhnZ

— Green Party Canada (@CanadianGreens) August 24, 2015

Transcripts of full interviews:

Mulcair

Trudeau

May

Munk debate

The Munk debate is a charitable initiative of the Aurea Foundation, a right-wing organization founded by Peter and Melanie Munk of Barrick Gold. The September debate was on Canada’s foreign policy. Unlike the women’s issues debate, RSVPs to to the invitation of right-wing millionaires were quickly accepted, disheartening to say the least. May was not allowed to attend. The Munk Debates reasoning is the Green Party does not have party status. However, as a charity they are not legally allowed to support or oppose a political party. So the reason is official, not because of the boys-only nature of the Munk Debates. In the end, May used Twitter to participate in the debate. Trudeau said May should have been able to attend. Yet, he still attended, as did Mulcair and Harper.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Harper has said there really isn’t an issue around the fact that Indigenous women are over-represented among Canada’s missing and murdered women. For him, it is a non-issue that does not rank high on the Conservative radar. Not all candidates agree with him. “”Do you think that if 1,200 women who had been murdered or had gone missing in Ottawa, we’d need the United Nations to tell us to have an inquiry?” Mulcair asked at an August rally. “It would have happened a long time ago. This is about racism, that’s what this is about.” The NDP leader says he will launch a national inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women. May has said the same and Trudeau has committed to support indigenous advocacy groups.

Childcare

Women today can work! Just for less money. Oh, and often only within daycare hours—which usually do not reflect the precarious shift work so many women undertake. Currently, Harper maintains he will slash all benefits for low-income earners, including childcare. Trudeau says he will end this trend and help families with lower incomes. Mulcair promises affordable childcare, saying, like healthcare, childcare is worth the money. May agrees that childcare is kind of a big deal.

Sex Work and Bill C-36

Harper passed Bill C-36 into law, further endangering the lives of women in sex work. But actually, he is saving them, because these women need to be saved by the morals of rich white men, as do we all. (Sarcasm intended.) May says the Green Party will repeal C-36, and Trudeau said, last year, that his party would be looking at the Nordic Model. More information about parties’ positions on sex work can be found here.

Domestic Violence

Those who participated in the Up for Debate interviews touched on this subject. Prior to the debate, the only thing the Green Party addressed in terms of domestic violence, according to a Toronto Metro article published August 26, was that “false allegations” were common. OK. At least, by the time the interviews were done May, a self-described feminist changed her tune, saying Canada needs a national strategy to confront domestic violence against women. Both Mulcair and Trudeau spoke about Parliament being a boys’ club and that they will lead by example there to make it less so.And money for shelters is a good idea, says Trudeau, but it isn’t up to the federal government to create them because municipalities, he believes, should do it. So, someone is going to do something, don’t worry about it.

Abortion

Pro-choice, anti-choice, reproductive rights. Light stuff, right? Harper doesn’t actually come out and say he is anti-abortion rights. Instead he says that abortion should not be discussed within politics because it is a matter of faith and morals. And although his own faith condemns these rights, he isn’t in the good books of anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition (CPL). The Conservative party is, though. At least there is someone out there ready to police women’s bodies. Phew. The CPL hates Trudeau, so that’s a good sign for the Liberals. Mulcair’s NDP is also pro-abortion rights: “A New Democrat government will increase funding for women’s organizations, particularly women’s rights organizations. Family planning, reproductive and sexual health, including access to abortion services, must be included in Canada’s approach to maternal and child health.” May is also on Team Abortion Rights.

The Niqab

Conservatives were getting attention for doing things like peeing in people’s mugs, and that was weird. So, a distraction—I mean, very important issue—was created by the Harper government. The niqab is a veil that covers part of the face and a sign of faith worn by some Muslim women. It is also being attacked for being anti-Canadian—as decided after settler colonialism. The argument goes something like this: “My white grandparents knew what it was to be Canadian (after white folk made what it is to be Canadian tailored to said grandparents) why can’t everyone else?!”

While fostering xenophobia the Conservative party is saving women by oppressing women. Anti-Muslim propaganda is being circulated on social media and women are being attacked because of this federally accepted hatred of the “Other.”

Mulcair says this is wrong. Like, no one likes the niqab, he says, but we need to trust the authority of tribunal decisions. Trudeau is also opposed to Harper’s stance. At a Maclean’s sponsored debate the Liberal leader said:  “You can dislike the niqab. You can hold it up it is a symbol of oppression. You can try to convince your fellow citizens that it is a choice they ought not to make. This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state’s power to restrict women’s religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn. It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot wear.” As for May, at a televised French debate she said, “It’s a false debate . . . What is the impact of the niqab on the economy, what is the impact of the niqab on climate change, what is the impact of the niqab on the unemployed?”

Fun Facts

• Trudeau addresses misogyny, in certain communities.
• May re-started a women’s caucus in Parliament.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

This policy will prevent doctors from providing or denying health care, “on the on the grounds of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status or disability.” (In further it’s-about-time-news, gender identity and gender expression are newly protected grounds of discrimination under the Ontario Human Rights Code.)

In addition to having to refer patients elsewhere (in other words, to doctors who don’t decide who is and isn’t morally worthy of care), doctors will have to explain to their patients, directly and with sensitivity, why they are not willing to recognize things like women’s reproductive rights.

The policy reads: “While the Charter entitles physicians to limit the health services they provide on moral or religious grounds, this cannot impede, either directly or indirectly, access to care for existing patients, or those seeking to become patients.”

Um, how has this not happened yet? How is this even a thing?

I was naive enough to think the primary concern of health care professionals was the health of their patients. But this is clearly not the case—and some medical professionals appear upset their personal beliefs can no longer trump proper care.

Take, for instance, the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada. The organization, whose members take pride in what they believe to be moral integrity, held a press conference on the March 25 to announce it has filed an application asking the court to realize this new policy breaches sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As reported by the Toronto Star, Health Minister Eric Hoskins recently told reporters: “They’ve been given an alternative. None of this is forcing anything . . . all that’s required of them is providing timely access to another health care professional.”

But to provide such access would be to value reproductive rights—and that’s always been a scary thing for some people, and too often it’s those same people who are in power.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her first year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Messages like this are posted in solidarity at nbprochoice.tumblr.com

New Brunswick’s only private abortion facility will be closing by the end of July due to lack of funding. The Morgentaler Clinic announced the news last Thursday, April 10.

If this closure happens, women in New Brunswick, and some from P.E.I (who make up 10 percent of the clinic’s clientele) will have little choice when it comes to abortion. Since the clinic is private—that means not covered by Medicare—it does not have to follow the province’s restrictive regulations, stating two physicians must approve of the procedure deeming it “medically necessary,” and that the procedure must be done by an Ob/Gyn. Only two Moncton hospitals provide such abortion services.

According to the Morgentaler Clinic’s Change.org petition:

“The regulation also violates the Canada Health Act, which Health Canada has said mandates full funding of abortions at both clinics and hospitals. Over 60 percent of N.B. women needing abortions are forced to pay out of pocket for abortion care at the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton, because hospital access is inadequate.”

“Medically necessary” is defined, vaguely, in the Canada Health Act as: “medically necessary is that which is physician performed.” So really, it is up to a government, which, in N.B., isn’t exactly known to be pro-abortion rights. According to a press release from the clinic, when the facility was opened 20 years ago, the premier at the time, Frank McKenna said, “If Mr. Morgentaler tries to open a clinic in the province of New Brunswick, he’s going to get the fight of his life.”

Women must also be able to find doctors who are not anti-abortion—assuming all women have been able to acquire family doctors.

The Social Action Project’s petition has 9,638 signatures petitioning the New Brunswick government to fund their services.

The clinic’s procedure costs are $700 for under 14 weeks pregnant and $850 for pregnancies between 14 and 16 weeks. The clinic has never had enough to cover the costs, and subsidies were provided by Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who died last May. Clinic representatives told CBC, “In the past 10 years, the clinic has contributed over $105,400 to subsidize abortions for women unable to pay the full amount.”

After the clinic’s closure women of low socioeconomic status, single mothers, and students will be left alone to either have a child they are unable to care for or turn to unsafe procedures. Either that or pray they can meet the province’s current criteria to obtain access to a safe and timely abortion.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna writes Gender Block every week and maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Our Jan/Feb 2014 issue is on newsstands now!

The anti-abortion movement has newly latched onto Post-Abortion Syndrome, a controversial diagnosis that it claims mimics PTSD. The pro-choice response: the syndrome doesn’t exist. How women’s grief became the latest abortion battleground

Outside the walls of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, a light snow falls quietly on the streets. Inside, the waiting room is not much louder. Several women and a few couples sit in silence. A nurse calls 23-year-old Yana’s name. She walks into a doctor’s office. She sees white walls, an angry-looking nurse, and stainless steel. Yana lies down on a hospital bed. Her legs are pushed back and she gives herself over to anesthesia while a surgeon terminates her pregnancy.

One week earlier in January 2013, her “semi-boyfriend,” who is not in the waiting room, drove her to a sports bar near her house in Richmond Hill and handed her a pregnancy test he bought because his friends told him girls sometimes make this stuff up. It made her feel violated, like he didn’t trust her. She, after all, had trusted him when he showed up two months before that with a handful of articles to read—if the guy pulls out, chances of pregnancy are slim. She had believed him. But now she sat in a bathroom stall and peed on the stick: pregnant. Nine weeks.

“Nine weeks means fingers,” says a friend from her ball hockey team. Yana tries to block the image from her mind. Alone on a gurney, she wakes to a faint outline of the surgery room, vomits on her hospital gown, and wonders if “it’s out.” Fifteen minutes later, she’s eating cheese and crackers on a La-Z-Boy in a room full of La-Z-Boys. Her parents walk her to the car. Her father doesn’t say much, but drives her home.
Back in her bedroom, she Googles anything about post-abortion. The guilt she feels or doesn’t feel. The selfishness she should feel deep inside her gut—her ball hockey friend is sure of that. She clicks onto anti-abortion websites and abortion rights websites. On one of the anti-abortion websites, she sees a book for sale: What God Thinks of You. She sees the word “repent.” A lot of women cry on their babies’ due dates, according to several anti-abortion websites. Yana’s due date was September 27. She chooses the name Helena. When Yana was born, her mother called her a wolverine because of her wild brown hair. Helena, Yana thinks, would look like a wolverine. There’s a blizzard rushing in, layering the driveway, piling on the roof.

Anti-abortion supporters believe Yana’s post-abortion feelings and actions can be attributed to Post-Abortion Syndrome (PAS), a controversial condition coined by U.S. anti-abortion advocate Dr. Vincent Rue in 1981. According to Rue and those in the anti-abortion camp, PAS refers to the negative psychological effects experienced by women who are “traumatized” by their abortions. PAS has never gained recognition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), however, and many scientific studies—not to mention abortion rights advocates—have questioned that it even exists. Still, it’s managed to dominate Canadian and U.S. counselling services available to women post-abortion—to the point that unbiased, in depth and non-politically charged counselling is often very hard to find.

So where does this leave women who, like Yana, just want someone to talk to? What about those who are free to choose but unable to talk freely about abortion, barred from emotions, frozen between affirmation and regret?
In Canada, many post-abortion counselling services are offered through distinctly anti-abortion Christian-based ministries and organizations; abortion rights advocates, wary and dismissive of PAS, are also largely indifferent to any need for counselling. It’s been this way since the late 1980s—nobody, really, seems to be able to separate PAS from a woman’s need (or not) for counselling. As always seems to be the case with abortion, we have become lost in the political consequences.

PAS was first introduced as a subset of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) believed to cause a range of symptoms from nightmares to loss of appetite, directly related to a past abortion. It soon gained political stamina in 1987 when President Ronald Reagan appointed surgeon general C. Everett Koop to study PAS with Rue as a consultant (according to several anti-abortion websites). Anti-abortion supporters hoped the study would force the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Koop, however, was unable to provide conclusive data about the mental health effects of abortion.

Meanwhile Rue was relentless. He later wrote in his 1992 essay, “Post Abortion Syndrome: An Emerging Public Health Concern,” that “the decision to elect abortion can generate significant resulting psychosocial distress.” In 1995, he wrote PAS is “capable of causing … PTSD.” According to the new DSM 5, this seems unlikely. It states PTSD is not induced by a co-occurring medical condition. Rather, the disorder, resulting from exposure to a threatened or actual death, injury or sexual assault, is diagnosable based on four symptom clusters: re-experiencing the event, avoiding trauma-related stimuli, negative changes in mood, and heightened arousal—such as self-destructive behaviour. Incidentally, these are all criteria anti-abortion advocates claim is present in PAS.

Central to this discussion is the word trauma. Anti-abortion advocates and the post-abortive women who join their debate say a woman can experience trauma if she knew abortion was wrong, but went through with it anyway or was forced into having one. The Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health defines trauma as “the emotional response when a negative event is overwhelming.” Because people respond to negative events differently, symptoms can range from no emotion to feelings of helplessness, anger, shame or even panic.

Criticism surrounding post-abortion trauma, however, predates even PAS. In 1963, for instance, Dr. Jerome M. Kummer published a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry called “Post-Abortion Psychiatric Illness—A Myth?” He found no correlation between psychiatric illness and therapeutic abortion. Kummer stated, “If the ill effects of induced abortion have been so grossly exaggerated, we must ask ourselves why?” He speculates this was “part of the means of enforcing the taboo.”

The taboo has since created much frustration among the scientific community. In an effort to completely demystify the issue, a 2008 study led by the American Psychiatry Association Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion reviewed all empirical research on PAS since 1989. Results found that women who have abortions suffer no greater trauma than women who give birth. It did nothing to silence PAS-believers.

Among the most prominent today is David C. Reardon, an anti-abortion advocate and founder and director of the Elliot Institute for Social Sciences Research in Illinois. Reardon began pursuing the connection between poor mental health and abortion in the ’80s. Though his studies are largely considered flawed and were even disputed in the May 2003 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, 10 he continues publishing. In the March 2012 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry Reardon writes, “Many self-aware women want help coping with a past abortion experience. Why is it so hard to simply accept their self-assessments and stated needs? Women deserve better.” Maybe, but is the guilt-and-shame approach of PAS really the best approach?

Late February 2013, the snow has melted to a knee-deep slush in Scarborough. Today, like every Thursday since 1990, Second Chance Ministry, a Catholic post-abortion support group, gathers in the basement of Scarboro Missions at 7:30 p.m. On a small table, there’s a rosary with white hologram fetuses encased in light blue beads. Julia, a middle-aged, blue-eyed woman comes every Thursday. She says God keeps calling her there, to share her story with others; Julia is also a speaker for Silent No More Awareness, a campaign where Christian women hold public demonstrations to share why they regret their abortion. She places the rosary in my hands because in several minutes we’re about to pray specifically for priests who, in the days ahead, must choose a new pope. I glance up at the door. No other women are coming tonight.
Father Vince Heffernan, a soft-spoken, white-haired priest, enters the tiny room. He decided to advertise help for PAS in the church bulletin and around the city after he read a story about a woman who regretted her abortion. Usually, several women visit the group each session.

Julia heats up water for instant coffee. I choose lemon tea. She begins to tell her story. After spending years managing depression as well as trust issues within her marriage, she concluded her abortion, over 20 years ago, was the root cause. 17 Indeed, PAS has recently acquired new political leverage in the reframing of anti-abortion rhetoric: women are now victims, not villains. The real villains in this new sympathetic messaging are coercing partners, pro-abortion society, and feminists, as Paul Saurette, a University of Ottawa associate professor, explained on CBC’s The Current in April, 2013.

Certainly Julia believes she’s a victim of a pro-abortion society. She says healing finally ensued when she participated in a mass where women name their so-called unborn children. She named hers Marissa. “The children grow up in heaven,” says Heffernan. This leads to a discussion about ghosts, the occult, evil, if I live with my boyfriend outside the bounds of marriage, and how abortion traumatizes the psyche. The tea bag expands in my mug. Too cold to drink.

Post-abortion support groups such as Second Chance are widespread across Canada. Most are Christian-based, many are anti-abortion, and together they promote a type of closure that cannot exist without repent or shame. Project Rachel, a weekend retreat and ministry, advertises PAS research by Reardon via a website link called Hope After Abortion, while the website of the Pregnancy Care Centre in Toronto has posted a video of a woman who found relief in sharing her story and is now an anti-abortion rights advocate. Abortion Recovery International, an association that is “dedicated to connecting and assisting like-minded abortion recovery centers,” states they have no political component to their support, yet lists resources such as afterabortion.org, an anti-abortion website dedicated to Reardon’s research celebrating “25 years of pro-woman/pro-life leadership.”

Second Chance is co-founded by Angelina Steenstra, the national coordinator for Silent No More Awareness Campaign in Canada. The U.S.-based National Pro-Life Religious Council founded Silent No More in 2003. Its purpose is to “expose and heal the secrecy and silence surrounding the emotional and physical pain of abortion,” encouraging women to attend abortion after-care programs, but also to educate the public that “abortion should be unnecessary and unthinkable.”The first time I see Steenstra is at the University of Waterloo on a rainy afternoon in March 2013. Silent No More Awareness Campaign has set up a table in the Student Life Centre.

Steenstra, dressed in a bright red blazer, stands on a podium surrounded by clusters of sandwich-eating, iPod-wearing students, holding a sign that says, “I regret my abortion.” Julia, who met Steenstra at Second Chance, stands by her side. The university’s Students for Life group invited the group. Steenstra says she was there to “share her personal testimony about abortion” but the timing also complemented the discussion on Conservative MP, Mark Warawa’s Motion 408 which condemns sex-selective abortion. (Both a Parliamentary sub-committee and its parent committee, Procedure and House Affairs, has since ruled the motion non-votable, resulting in Warawa’s decision to not appeal, but rather, replace the motion with “The Safe at Home bill” that aims to protect sex abuse victims.)

Steenstra tells her story. Her voice is muffled under the noise, but certain words find their way through: “date rape . . . illegal abortion . . . suicidal . . . starved myself as punishment . . .” She talks to people who give her eye contact. Most don’t. A group of girls huddle over a sheet of mathematical graphs. A guy in a fringed wool hat and dress shirt gives the finger to another guy across the lounge.

A girl with a black puffer jacket stands to the side, talking into her cell phone. “I mean, I understand the sex-selective thing, but the other stuff . . .” This “other stuff” cannot be explained in one sentence. This “stuff” is why one guy just looked up from his Watchmen comic and stuck his headphones back into his ears. This “stuff” is also why five eager campus anti-abortion advocates and Steenstra’s husband, Walter with the video camera, sit in the middle among dozens of empty chairs. This “stuff” includes politicizing emotions, ulterior motives and suggesting one’s personal feelings speak for all women—a ten-minute narrative about hurt, seeking to end a long, laborious story about choice.

Later, two students approach Steenstra and say they want to get involved; they look as if they just got out of high school. They sift through stacks of hand-outs sitting on a white cloth-covered table. One pamphlet reads, “Goal: Get 10 post-abortive men & women who regret their abortion to sign up on our website.”

That same month, on a warm afternoon in Toronto Miriam McDonald, an editor at the Marxist newspaper Spartacist Canada, struts up and down a hallway at the Ontario Institute of Secondary Education at an International Women’s day rally. “Abortion is just a medical procedure like getting a wart off, except it’s all politicized,” she says. “A woman’s capacity to control her fertility opens the doors to full equality. That’s why it’s … stigmatized.” Another woman standing next to her in a baseball cap, handing out newspapers, says post-abortive women need counselling, not to overcome negative feelings related to abortion, but rather, to cope with society’s stigma and culture of shame. Three young people in lime green shirts with the words “reproductive freedom fighters” scurry back and forth.

Some women may need counselling services before or after they have an abortion, says Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC). She does not believe, however, that PAS is real. “It’s like the anti-choice movement works in its own bubble,” she says, “making up it’s own science and ignoring mainstream evidence and consensus.” The result, she adds, is confusion—public misinformation that scares women considering abortion. In Arthur’s mind, the act of abortion continues to be blamed for the source of trauma when, in reality, the unwanted pregnancy is often what’s truly traumatic. It’s not to say women don’t experience negative effects, she adds, just that it’s more complex than the anti-abortion activists portray.

At the ARCC table, a pamphlet featuring ARTS4CHOICE, a photographic narrative project that seeks to end shame surrounding women’s abortions, reads, “Now is the time to have the focus of the abortion debate shifted to women and their experiences.” I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a storytelling platform like Silent No More. The parallels are there: today’s display still insinuates politics, just from a different belief system. By placing the emphasis of trauma on the pregnancy, advocates dismiss the legitimacy of what women may feel after abortion. Everywhere I turn, it seems women are expected to take sides before we’re allowed to feel something. It’s as if our feelings represent something greater than our individuality, a value, a duty. Holding the pamphlet in my hand, I can’t help but think: shouldn’t the focus have always been on women and their experiences—minus the debate?
Not all anti-abortion advocates—or even abortion rights advocates—buy into the politics of post-abortion counselling. While the number is small, there are both groups and individual counsellers working to provide women-first, unbiased counselling services. Susan Armitage is one. Armitage is a therapist with a masters in divinity who works in Richmond Hill, not far from Yana. She advertises post-abortion counselling but doesn’t want women to misinterpret her Christian-based website as a strict anti-abortion point of view. To her, counselling is an opportunity to speak—just speak. “It’s a controversial time,” she says. “I’m pro-life, but people who support pro-choice shouldn’t be condemned.” She tells me a good counselling model should be based on the realization of how difficult the lives of pregnant women can be. “If I had a teenage girl come to me and tell me she was pregnant, I would help her understand what both decisions would be like,” she says. “Not paint a picture by saying the baby will make life so much better.”

Over in Vancouver, Everywoman’s Health Centre is an abortion clinic that provides free, non-judgmental counselling services and resources like the book, Peace After Abortion. Erin Mullan, who’s been a counsellor for over 20 years, works there. “When it comes to abortion, nothing is in the range of normal,” she says. “A woman’s culture, her religion or history, could all inform how she’ll feel.” For the small number of women she refers out to other counsellors who offer long-term support, abortion is not the main cause of negative feelings, but rather, “it opens a door of pain.” That door can reveal bad relationships, abuse, or mental depression. Mullan points out that coercion—if a woman’s been forced to have an abortion—accounts for one third of the problems she treats. “It can sit unfinished, inside of her for years,” she says, “if she wasn’t given the space to make choices.” At this clinic, the acknowledgment that abortion can be intimately connected to negative feelings serves no greater purpose than a woman’s well-being.

Post-abortion counselling is an available option at other abortion clinics across Canada. Arthur knows of at least two in Vancouver. Very few attend. Other parts of the country? Arthur polls a pro-abortion right listserv, of which she’s a member. The messages roll in from abortion clinics. Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Yellowknife all have services. The consensus among these clinics is that women with mental health concerns are referred to other therapists outside the abortion clinic. Some women prefer a telephone follow-up after abortion, while a small percentage return for a free session, without need for long-term care. Many women book the free appointment and cancel. Some just don’t show up. But why would they? Expressing feelings, in the same space one must barricade feelings, seems ironic. Abortion can also be a lonely time and returning to the clinic can be a reminder of this loneliness. Many women don’t want to walk backwards at a place where they’re expected to run forward.

But at the London Health Sciences Centre, in London, Ont., one counsellor says a significant portion of outpatient work follows women who have had genetic terminations—abortion due to fetal abnormalities—a population suspected to be under-served in other centres. It’s also not uncommon for women to seek treatment around their baby’s proposed due date which, strangely enough, happens to be a so-called symptom of PAS, one that Yana had stumbled across while searching websites after her abortion. But for every negative feeling—shame, heartbreak, confusion or otherwise—there are political innuendos that render women voiceless, many of whom are left with a multitude of questions, building up in a culture of silence.

In 1995, Melanie hadn’t been with her roommate’s brother for long, maybe eight months. By the time they had broken-up, he was off to university elsewhere, and she was in school in college, 21-years-old and pregnant. She found out after she vomited into a garbage can on the way to class. Her ex hopped on a bus, travelled to her off-campus residence and made out with her the night before her abortion, something she felt guilty about for a long time. The next day a James Taylor song played over a speaker while she lay on a bed behind closed curtains. Her ex bused back to London and left her alone. Her grandfather died the following day and she found herself travelling home, buying a dress for the funeral, shovelling her emotions into mourning his death.

“It was a whirlwind experience,” she says 18 years later, while making green tea, her apartment windows open. Cars sweep through the rainy Toronto streets, blending into jazz music playing on her radio. Recently, anti-abortion advocates stood outside the church across from her apartment with posters of fetuses. She’s not sorry about the decision, but sorry she was “stupid” for not using birth control. She feels guilty for not feeling guiltier. She feels guilty throwing out vegetables. Melanie wishes there were some way to make post-abortion counselling part of the process. She felt alone. She was uncomfortable going to her friends, her mother died when she was younger, and her father, she believes, would have been overly emotional—abortion is too political, too loaded.

When I was in the eighth grade at St John’s Elementary School in Guelph, I remember watching a black and white film of babies piled up in garbage cans. Years later, at 25, I walked into a Gramercy Park clinic in New York City, where I was living at the time, and had an abortion. Afterwards, I ate a carrot muffin from a deli on the corner and cabbed across town to my Hell’s Kitchen studio. I sat on my boyfriend’s lap, rearranging the small apartment in my mind: where the crib would have gone, the changing table, the play area. There was no room anywhere and I wanted to finish my degree and the decision was not a decision any more. We grabbed coffee down the street at the Galaxy diner. I was wearing a burgundy sweater I no longer own. We talked about the clinic, the doctor, my blood type (O-), the play he was writing, getting a second cup of coffee. We didn’t talk about “stuff.”

But I couldn’t erase the garbage-can babies from my head. I felt shame in talking about my abortion to most people. I had no regrets, but then I’d feel damned, caught in a grey area between lucky and inhuman. Reminded—in small ways—by friends, media or religion, that I should feel immoral and incapable. I ended up scavenging online message boards late at night, reading random abortion dialogue between faceless strangers. People, suspicious of their own feelings. No face with a real name to help me affirm I’d made the right choice —to remind me how fortunate I was. Like Yana, my waiting room was also silent. I told my mom five years later on a pitch-black November evening, driving down a gravel road, when I was visiting home. The Michael Bublé song “Home” played on the radio. It seemed like the right time. It made sense.

Back in Richmond Hill, past rows of strip plazas with Cash for Gold shops and walk-in health clinics, Yana dips her brush into sky blue paint at Your Fired, a ceramic craft studio. Recently her ball-hockey friend threatened to hit her hard with a ball during a game because of her abortion—because she should feel like a murderer. Yana spent the game guarding the net as a goalie, frightened. After, she says she spent the week alone in her room, crying and thinking about taking her own life. “Just feelings that came up,” she says. “But I’m fine now.”

She paints a ceramic letter “J” for a friend’s new baby, gently curving the edges with her brush. A Taylor Swift song fizzles in and out of an old stereo tucked into a ledge above us, mixing into Yana’s words. She says she made the right decision, even if her friend tries to convince her otherwise. What hurts the most now is losing her voice: she’s been a singer since she could speak. “The other day,” she says, “my voice was swallowed inside of me, in this place I couldn’t get to any more.” Last weekend, a jazz musician took her on a “semi-date” and asked her to sing in his band. She’s tried singing around the house. Working on not feeling guilty. Working on getting her voice back.