BEIRUT — Nour woke up unusually early that day. She rushed to the bathroom, hiding any evidence of her getting out of bed secretly in her clothes, before any of her family members woke up.
She locked herself in the bathroom, isolating her frail and trembling body. Panicked, she opened the box, read the instructions, and followed them carefully. In her case, a mistake might cost her life.
Then she sat waiting for the result. It was positive; she was pregnant.
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“The two red lines appeared in a few seconds, at a lightning speed, announcing the disaster,” the 20 year-old recalled.
Tears started to stream down her cheeks, she rushed back to her bed and tried to sleep. But she couldn’t; she turned the frightening options over in her mind. Her parents could kill her if they learned of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. But an abortion would be dangerous and could lead to her death.
Shock and abandonment
Nour got up, got dressed and left home as if she was going to her university. She went directly to the young man with whom she had been in love for three years, the father of the baby growing in her womb. She burst into tears as soon as she closed the apartment door.
“I’m pregnant, and I must have an abortion,” she said, recalling the he stepped back, saying:
“This is your problem. You should have been more careful. I don’t want to be involved in this disaster.”
“My shock was great. He failed me. He abandoned me within a second,” Nour said. She left his house and started walking — to nowhere. She felt pain, terror, disappointment, abandonment and loneliness. But she knew she had to act quickly.
She called her best friend to help find possible ways to end her pregnancy.
Risky options
In Lebanon, as in many countries in the Arab world, abortion is criminalized. Women and those who help them in abortion are punished due to religious and social restrictions. So women who seek to end their pregnancy have two options. The first is to have a secret abortion at a gynecology clinic, which is costly, complicated and risky. Many physicians refuse to perform abortions. And those who agree to demand a high price.
As if I was a criminal because I didn’t want to have children.
The second option is to have a medical abortion. But abortion pills are difficult to obtain. Pharmacies refuse to sell abortion pills without a doctor’s prescription. Some doctors agree to write a prescription in return for a pricy bribe.
Opting for the latter, less expensive option, Nour examined ways to obtain a prescription and found an association that provides reproductive and sexual healthcare. A worker at the association helped her find a doctor who could send her medicine for 0. It was expensive for a university student, but it was her only option.
Two kinds of pain
“When I took the medicine, I felt that the first stage of my arduous journey had ended,” she said, but the next step was more “painful, frightening, and dangerous.”
At home, she locked herself in her room, trying not to think of the frightening stories she’d heard of girls and women who died of miscarriages in their homes.
Nour doesn’t remember what happened when she took the first dose. But she felt severe intestinal pain. Following the second and third doses, she suffered from extremely painful contractions in her uterus, which meant that the miscarriage process had begun.
Two days later, her physical pain turned into psychological pain.
“The pain moved from my body to my nerves. I was haunted by a terrible feeling of guilt. It is as if I was just a criminal because I didn’t want to have children,” Nour said, adding that she has yet to completely get rid of the feeling of guilt.
To her family, she appears normal. “My secret is still hidden,” Nour said. “But if it’s exposed, it will be a disgrace to my family.”
