My 11-Year-Old Patient is Pregnant. Here’s What I Want You to Know About Being ‘Pro-Life.’

One December morning, I woke up early to hear the judges asking the lawyers about lifelong assignments. That can rob people of their reproductive freedom. And every week I continue to talk to judges, lawyers and politicians about issues they shouldn’t be talking about, that are far removed from people and their real lives as voices from another planet.

In those minutes I think of a girl in an exam room I met many years ago.

He was a patient to me. He is 11 years old.

We will call her Sofia.

This is my first year of work for the first time in training. Sophia’s mother took her with a sore stomach. When I reach her menstrual history, my mom said Sophia are menstruation but then she stopped. I calmed her down and told her that sometimes there may be some irregularities at the beginning of her menstruation and this is not uncommon. Then mama came out of the room and it was just me and Sophia.

He was calm and calm: a universal, clumsy teenager who felt uncomfortable in a relationship with an adult. He answered my questions with one word and didn’t know where to look.

As I walked out of the room, I heard the voice of a doctor in the emergency room, training me: “Don’t order a pregnancy test.” It was one of the pearls of his clinical practice: many young doctors ordered blood tests, ultrasounds, computed tomography, but they didn’t get the most obvious and basic diagnosis and spent thousands of dollars. to treat a patient when the “diagnosis” is actual. pregnancy ..

Therefore, don’t be the one who doesn’t order a pregnancy test. So I ordered.

A few minutes later, our medical assistant approached me, bewildered and gave me a positive test. “Run again” I asked Agape. He ran again. Positive. “Run again”, I said, “to buy some time and gather my brains and hope that some miracle will yield a different result.” Positive.

He was a patient to me. He is 11 years old. She is pregnant.

Sophia’s mother sat in the other room and quietly explained that the pregnancy test was positive.

He did not understand.

I had to repeat myself in different ways to find out that Sophia was pregnant. Shock, tears, phone calls. Soon a breathless father appeared, followed by the priest of the horrible family, and then the police. I remember the elders crying in a prayer circle in a separate room and I had a nightmare feeling and I had to remind myself that sometimes work is the worst witness day in someone’s life.

I tried to tell the truth about what had happened to Sophia, with a large atlas of anatomy sitting next to her stretched out on her lap. He did not say anything. I was grateful to have a policewoman at the clinic. This officer, when he allowed Sofia to speak, discovered the identity of a family member who had done this heinous and ironic thing to her. And when the police arrested this relative, they went to church because the offender was witnessing a choral rehearsal.

I remember my attention, my clear understanding that my only job was to make sure I was there to protect my patient. Whatever happens, my job is to make sure Sophia is focused on every moment and her mental and physical health is a priority. To ensure that in the face of this unspeakable trauma and crime he will find his way and his precious life is protected.

And part of it is the termination of pregnancy. We made sure he could access it and get it right away.

There is no doubt that Sophia’s life is meaningful and that means she was not forced to give birth at the age of 11.

And it’s not.

I always think of Sofia, especially during these times. I think of all Sofia in clinics like mine because abortion protection falls after the state … Protection falls like an evil domino. I think of the words “except in the case of the mother’s life”. The choice that night of awful revelation was for the life of the mother. A mother who shouldn’t have been, and fortunately wasn’t.

And while accessing an abortion for an 11-year-old boy who has been raped by a family member may be as easy as generating a consent, the truth is no one, anywhere, at any time or situation does. should be forced to give birth. Forced delivery should not be a reality.

Sofia is 20 years old. I wonder how he healed, how he dealt with this trauma. Did he go to college? Was he able to trust his intimate partner? Was she pregnant at the time she chose? do you already have a child? I could see her wide face and soft smile in my eyes and now I know how I knew then that the decision to end Sophia’s pregnancy, supported by the people she loved most, was a lifelong decision.

One of the things that remained in my mind after that horrible day was the feeling that the clinic was crowded. There was Sophia, her mother, then the father and the priest, then the police. There was weeping and prayer, unbelievers and believers. I remember how small Sophia was. His little face, his little hands and little thighs, and how this big and horrible thing happened to someone so small that they were blown away by the wind.

I remember how small the clinic room was. No room Politicians sign evil bills using children’s props As old as Sofia, there is no room for Supreme Court justices to say they value life I wonder out loud how pregnancy can be an extra burden. There is no place for another strange, useless, useless in this more intimate space. Our clinical rooms will always be very small for anyone except suppliers and our patients.

We will fight for this sacred space, we will fight for it to be free from the games of cynical politicians and their cracks. They have not been invited and we do not sit or stay next to them until they are forcibly admitted.

Note: Specific names and details have been changed to protect the privacy and safety of the persons mentioned in this article.