“Without autonomy, without decision making ability, without access to abortion care, many people have challenging situations that can be more painful or life-threatening,” she said.
Samie Detzer, a patient advocate with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told the committee she received “compassionate, expert” care when she had an abortion in 2015 at 25 years old.
“My abortion was not painful and was certainly not traumatic. I was not lonely, depressed or ashamed. I can remember more about the relief than the tears,” she said. “That story is mine alone. No one interfered to stop me from making the best decision for myself. No one tried to take control of what was mine – my body, my freedom or my choice.”
She compared her experience to that of her mother’s in 1968, several years before Roe v Wade affirmed the constitutional right to abortion, and the “needlessly painful and physically and emotionally traumatic” obstacles to receiving care.
"But I am glad she is not here to see this terrible moment in our country’s history,” she added.
“I wish I did not need to share the details of my life and my mother’s life,” she said. “Lawmakers can decide if people in this country will be able to get the healthcare they deserve, they can decide if states will be allowed to create insurmountable barriers to abortion, or ban it completely. … Lawmakers can decide whether abortion will look like my mother’s story or mine.”
Georgia state Rep Renitta Shannon told the House Judiciary Committee she had an abortion 20 years ago and faced “significant unnecessary burdens” to care, obstacles that have “have only increased” in the decades that followed, “exacerbating an ongoing public health crisis defined by more maternal deaths increasing poverty and greater inequality overall.”
“The Dobbs decision will amount to structural violence for many communities, but most egregiously for Black, brown, Indigenous people of colour and people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people and people living at the intersection of these identities who have already sustained centuries of oppression and lack of access to reproductive freedom,” she said.