At 16 she didn’t mean to get pregnant. Her boyfriend pushed her too far one night. She wasn’t one of the lucky ones who got away with it. All she knew is her parents would kill her if she told them. And abortion was illegal in her state.
Walking around the neighborhood, she saw a small sign: Pregnant? Contact Maria. Afraid someone would watch her, she memorized the email address and string of numbers.
Back home, in her bedroom she pulled out her phone and called.
“Hello, how may we help you?”
In tears she tried to pull herself together: “I’m 16 and pregnant and live in Texas,” she tried to say.
“OK. How far along?”
“Two months,” she said, her voice breaking, her body shaking still from disbelief in her fate. “The first pregnancy test was negative,” she said, trying to let the woman with Maria know she checked early enough, that she had good intentions and didn’t mean for the pregnancy to go this far along.
“All I need to know is the town and state where you live. We can pick you up.”
“I live in Dallas. Texas.”
“Tomorrow at 7 a.m. you need to be at Milburn and Scott. Can you locate that intersection on your phone?”
“Yes. Who do I meet?”
“A car will pick you up. The driver will roll down the window and say they’re Maria.”
“How much will this cost? I don’t have any money at all. My parents cannot know about this. They would freak and hit me or something.”
“Cost is taken care of. You just need to get to a state where abortion is legal,” the woman replied.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You will told more details in person by Maria tomorrow. You can bring someone with you, or we will take care of you before and after the procedure. You will be gone more than 24 hours. You need to figure out a plan, something to tell your parents or others who may be looking for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, still crying about her predicament, having to lie, having to travel with strangers far away for what used to be a choice no matter where you happen to live.
“Don’t you worry. Just be prepared. You’ll be well taken care of. Be at the intersection tomorrow. It’s a bus stop with a covered area where you can sit. Try not to look upset, or others may begin to talk to you and get suspicious. Tell no one unless you can totally trust them. Be careful. Goodbye.”
Funny, her name was Maria, also. She’s Catholic. She could not tell anyone, not even her boyfriend Elias. He’d want her to have it. He’d want to marry and start a family even if they’re still in high school.
Maria didn’t want to get married at 16 and then have a baby. All her life she had plans for her future. She didn’t want to raise a child, not now. She didn’t want to have a baby to give up for adoption either. This used to be her choice. A private decision no one would have to know about. She was hurt and felt betrayed somehow. What other rights can be swept away so suddenly without the people being heard or requiring the people to vote – something that directly affected more than half the population of a country as big as the U.S.? Abortion is now legal in Mexico, she thought, baffled.
She thought of telling her best friend, but she was a blabber mouth. She loved Serena but didn’t trust her with the biggest news, the biggest mess, the biggest mistake of her life. She could tell only one other person.
“Grandma!” she thought with a smile.
Grandma Dona would keep this secret. She knew because when she was a young girl, she had an abortion back when it was legal. She believed the new law overturning a woman’s choice was wrong.
Maria took a train to Grandma Dona’s house in a nearby suburb. “Hi Grandma,” Maria said, greeting the old woman, a recent widow, with a smile.
“Maria! I wasn’t expecting to see your pretty face today!” Grandma exclaimed happily, then looked deeply into her granddaughter’s brown eyes. “Something’s wrong? Tell me.”
Maria cried as Grandma embraced her and walked her inside the house. “I’m pregnant and having an abortion. I have to leave tomorrow to go with some people who’ll take me out of state.”
Grandma closed her eyes and looked up as if in private prayer. “You’ll be fine. I will tell no one.”
Maria kept crying as Grandma stroked her long hair. “Now it’s not that bad. It’s not your fault either.”
Then she held onto Maria by the shoulders and looked directly into her face: “You shouldn’t feel ashamed of yourself. This is not a baby, not yet. Very far from it.”
Then Grandma walked Maria into the kitchen. “Let’s think of a story to tell your parents,” she said.
“You don’t need to say nothing to nobody. I’ll take care of that,” Grandma said. “I’ll call them and say I contacted you because I was feeling poorly and that you would stay with me for a couple of days as I adjust to a new medication.
“How’s that sound?” she said brightly.
“It sounds good, Grandma. I’m so, so sorry,” Maria said, starting to cry again.
Grandma prepared a couple of tortillas, filling them with roasted chicken. They ate together, Grandma smiling at her granddaughter. “You’ll be fine.”
Grandma asked about who’s taking her out of state, but Maria didn’t want to say. “I see. I guess this is how it’s going to be from now on unless this state allows the people to vote on this issue or a lawsuit overturns the latest decision and allows women to make these decisions in the privacy of their own lives and families,” the old woman said.
“You sound like you’re mad at me,” Maria said quietly.
“No, not at all!” Grandma insisted. “It’s the law that now puts women in such dangerous and costly situations to get an abortion if they want one. It’s bullshit.”
“I’ll tell you something,” Grandma began. “When I was a young girl of 17 and terminated my pregnancy, it was the best decision of my life, not the worst.”
“Grandma!” Maria exclaimed, not believing the words she was hearing.
“Now I didn’t think that for many, many years. But I’m at an age where I understand life a lot better. Young girls having babies is just wrong. Especially if they don’t have their own parents supporting them or the young man who’s becoming a father when he doesn’t want to.
“I’ve seen a lot more trouble with babies having babies, young people who have no business having babies, than I’ve seen with young women who have had abortions.
“You live long enough, you start to see how life comes full circle. You won’t think of this as a mistake when you’re my age. You’re doing what is right for you,” Grandma said, “or you wouldn’t be doing it. I know my Maria.”
“Yeah, but Mom and Dad would yell at me, first for getting pregnant, second for having sex, and now for having an abortion,” Maria said.
“Maria, they’ve not lived as long as I have,” Grandma assured, chuckling with a twinkle in her eye, “You’ll see when you’re an old woman like me.”
Grandma sent a text to Maria’s mother about her staying for a couple of days. No suspicions were aroused.
The next day Grandma Dona drove Maria to the meeting place and waited until she saw her get into the stranger’s car. She wrote down the license plate, just in case something went wrong.
Maria was taken to another vehicle and then given an airline ticket and told to meet a woman at a certain terminal section. She has red hair and will be wearing a flannel jacket. The two met and boarded the plane quietly, sitting together. Maria sometimes wept. Her companion looked at her with a comforting expression, saying, “It’ll be all right.”
“Can we talk?” Maria asked.
“Sure. What do you want to talk about?”
“Have you ever had to do this, you know, have an abortion?” Maria asked, then rephrased, “I mean, guess I’m being too nosy. It’s none of my business.”
Her companion would not say, just maintained a sympathetic look. “She’s not judgmental,” Maria thought, then understood why.
“Well, maybe you can tell me why you are involved in this new underground railroad to help girls like me get an abortion,” Maria said.
“I shouldn’t tell you too much about myself, you understand. But I just support a woman’s right to choose. That’s all. I grew up in a time when it was our option, our business.
“There were always large groups of protestors, even doctors killed, stabbed and shot, their families harassed, facilities burned.
“I knew they were wrong, just as wrong as they think women who undergo this procedure are, which is ironic, don’t you think?”
Maria smiled a bit. “Yes, you’re right.”
The Maria confessed, “I never thought I’d have an abortion. But things change when it’s for real. I know I can’t have a baby, that my boyfriend and I aren’t ready to be parents, not now, not for many years from now.”
The companion suggested Maria relax. The plane ride was short, a couple of hours. The less said, the better.
Maria, tired, closed her eyes. She was in a dream: A fetus on the floor looked up at her angrily, saying, “You never wanted me.”
Maria was jolted by the plane touching ground. She was haunted by the dream.
“You’ll go off by yourself, and a man in a plaid jacket will meet you,” the companion told Maria. “His name is Rudy.”
“I won’t see you again?”
“No. You’re in a state where you can now talk about this openly,” she said, “and no one will turn you in and people who help you in like Texas.”
Maria stepped out of the tarmac and saw a man in plaid. She walked up to him, and he smiled at her, saying, “Maria? I’m Rudy. Just come with me. You’re in a safe state now.”
He took Maria to his car where his wife was ready to drive them directly to a women’s clinic.
“Hi Maria! I’m Sara. How was your flight from Texas?” the driver asked.
“Fine, ma’am,” Maria answered, her mind still shaken by the angry fetus of her dream.
The couple sat in the waiting room as the procedure was performed. While Maria was recovering, Sara knocked on the door. “Maria, it’s Sara. I’m right here if you need me. Take all the time you need.”
“You can come in. I’m fine,” Maria told her.
After dressing, she turned around to Sara. “So, I guess it’s over. Except for the flight back home.”
“Yep, you can return to Texas now. We’ll get you back there in a few hours. You got a place to stay, someone at home who knows what’s going on?”
“Yes, my Grandma Dona.”
“Give her a call on your phone, dear. Let her know you’re all right,” Sara said.
Maria called Grandma. “I’m so happy to hear from you,” Grandma Dona said with relief. “When shall I pick you up? At the same place?”
Maria didn’t know, but Sara said it would be a different spot, this time outside of Dallas just to be on the safe side. “Grandma, I’ll have to call you when I get back to let you know exactly where they’ll drop me off,” she said.
Sara interjected: “Your driver in Dallas won’t just drop you off. They’ll wait until your Grandma picks you up.”
Maria was told she needed to wait at the clinic to ensure no signs of infection and was given a prescription just in case.
Before she knew it, she was whisked back onto a plane, traveling with a different companion, a much older woman named Chantall. “Have you had an abortion?” Maria asked, just wanting to hear from another woman who’d been through the same situation. Chantall said yes. “It was legal when I had it.”
“You were lucky,” Maria said. “This is so ridiculous, having to fly all over the country. How expensive. How does Maria raise money?”
“So many people support what we’re doing—and I mean people who have beau coups of money, honey!” Chantall assured. “Money for this is no problem, baby.
“It’s just all them states that restrict abortion, they’d love to do something to stop us. Underground Railroad,” Chantall said, put out. “I never in my life thought I’d be involved in something like an Underground Railroad—and this being the middle of the 21st century. Seems we’re going back in time.
“But here I am,” she said, folding her arms around herself as if determined to win a battle.
“Proud to volunteer for this civil rights movement.”