The Right to Choose…Again
By Miriam Rice-Rodríguez
I missed my bus stop and wound up at a gas station beneath a highway overpass. For a moment, I contemplated walking to Planned Parenthood—but there were intimidating people everywhere I looked. Large-bellied, sharp-eyed, stained clothes—and there I was: small, wide-eyed, braless. A person experiencing homelessness laid on the sidewalk by my feet. I felt somewhat safer with them nearby, as a person carrying a weedwhacker approached, their eyes fixed on me intensely as they passed, their chin jutting out like the butt of a knife in a woodblock.
I weighed the risk of walking against the cost of an Uber—then called the Uber. A driver arrived soon after. When I saw the rosario hanging on their rearview mirror, I felt thankful I typed the address and not “Planned Parenthood.” What if they thought I was getting an abortion, though I came to remove my IUD? What if they pulled a gun on me, and took my life, before I could take the life of my “baby?” I knew this wasn’t likely, but the thought came, nonetheless. As we drove down the road, passing caravans of trailers, I thought of a Planned Parenthood in Tennessee I had seen on the news with anti-abortionists outside, attempting to prevent people like myself from making autonomous decisions about our bodies.
I felt at ease entering the clinic. I remembered the Planned Parenthood I got my IUD at a year ago, with its fortress of security systems. Two bulletproof, padlocked doors. The relief I felt then, making it safely inside, and how scary it was on the outside. There wasn’t a moat around the Oakland clinic, but the office staff were protected behind double-paned glass—was it bulletproof?
The IUD removal was quick and relatively painless. It hurt no more than the fingerpick they took to test for HIV. The nurse who took my biodata asked if I had experienced bloating. I said yes—bloating and water weight (high progesterone makes you thirstier than usual)—and they said they were relieved it wasn’t just them. How many others would be relieved to discover “it’s not just them?”
They asked me questions like “Is your partner restricting your access to contraceptives?” and “Have you been forced by your partner to come here?” and “Is it okay for ‘Planned Parenthood’ caller ID to show if we call you?” A reminder that for others, it is unsafe. Then, the obstetrician came in. They were golden and thin, like a stalk of wheat. I worried they might question why I wanted to remove my IUD, and I was grateful they did not. The doctor opened me up, and reassured me the strings were right where they should be. They counted to three, and it was gone.
My pelvis felt fleshy—and there was a sense of muscular relief. The internal emergency signals of “get this out of me!” that I had been ignoring until I was physically unable to have penetrative sex, or even orgasm, now said, “thank you.”
I looked at the IUD as I got dressed. This white, t-shaped piece of plastic, lightly bloodied. I felt grateful for the protection it offered me—and even more grateful it was now out of my body. IUDs work for many people, but not for everybody. Which contraceptive one uses should always be a personal choice.
Fear rose, remembering when Roe v. Wade was overturned, and I wasn’t able to get an IUD through the federal, military health insurance I had at the time. I’m not certain I’ll be able to get one again in the future. But walking out of the clinic, I felt empowered by my bodily autonomy. I chose to get the IUD, and I chose to remove it—all by my own volition.
Miriam Rice-Rodríguez is a queer, Panamanian-American writer and artist currently based in Oakland, California. She explores themes of the body, women’s issues, whiteness, decolonization, and ritual through a hybridized lens that blends her Latinx and white identities (she/they).
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