Hear the sights. See the sounds.
Publications
Controversial Art
“Recognition Earned”
Acrylic Painting Collage
This piece represents my feelings in regard to attempting to express my regret and remorse about my abortion at 16. My experience in speaking up about the subject always leads to a gaslighting reaction that I should feel lucky that I had access to the procedure, or that my feelings about the event are wrong or misguided, or a guilt trip where people ask me things like “but you still would support the right of other women to have one right?” All three hold feminist ideals above my feelings and glorify the procedure, leaving no actual space for empathy for regret or a true representation of all consequences to be faced.
This has led me to question feminism and how it really teaches women to think, choose, and act/react to other women’s suffrage. I have been discouraged from speaking about it, told to “let it go," “I need to move on," “Oh get over it, it’s not that bad," and “you need to stop talking about it." Of course, there is also the baby killer comments from time to time, but that perspective at least agrees with how I feel about the harsh reality hidden behind the glorified procedure of abortion.
Starting from the top left, there is a metal of honor for blood sacrifice displaying a feminist fist symbol which has a hand baring a knife killing the baby inside me. I am glamorously dressed with a kicked back posture to represent the idea that I couldn’t be bothered with the inconvenience of motherhood, because the feminist ideals said so. But I am sinking in to drown in the water that we swim in, and my eyes are red from the anger and pain that no one warned me I would face when the fact that I committed murder against my own innocent unborn came into sharp relief after the procedure. My throat is missing, turned around and placed in the center revealing seeing the truth I have been silenced about.
The background is like fire in the sky, and blood mountains are like obstacles to reach the final image. Over the mountains, there are monstrous teeth coming with the words “All hands that feed” inside them; they are meant to suggest that we BITE all hands that feed including feminism just as we have masculinism, colonialism, and capitalism. However, maybe, just maybe, these old ideals we cling to in feminism are drowning us the same as the many ideals we have challenged before. The people who are being hurt the most by feminism are the ones who the ideals are intended to help.
Controversial ME
“The Dream Girl”
Self Portrait Collage 2D
Instead of displaying words that have hurt me as originally planned, I decided to only go with positive affirmations, so when I hung it in my home, it would become a motivational piece. The affirmations appear around the figure because I struggle internalizing them. My figure was created using two topless photos of me -- merged -- making “hideous” faces. I wanted to represent “ugly” and call it beauty, because well fuck you and your definition of beauty. And I knew I wanted to create a third eye but in a deformed sense instead of the beautiful way spirituality sells it, because I have found all my spiritual awakening encounters to be painful and messy. I allowed myself to have two noses and two mouths to represent how I feel; I both sense way more than is normal and speak in a way that is too much for most.
Within the collage, I used:
- sex toys on my main masturbation arm to show I have no shame in self-satisfaction;
- knock-out scenes as well as the wolf and cougar to represent both the way I love and my aggressive, sometimes violent and wild nature;
- sex positions and lover’s tarot cards to represent my desire for love and sexually gratifying affection; and using skeleton versions of tarot cards to represent how it never happens, usually because I am too violent, aggressive, or pursue thereby pushing it away.
- And finally, chess pieces, books, skulls, black rose, candles, crystals, and other tarot cards to represent my likes in general.
I chose a traditional and modern version of the Tower to represent my experience with the card. At 15, I was gifted a deck by a friend of the family who thought I had seer energy. When doing the Celtic cross spread, I would get the Tower in the outcome nearly every time until finally a horrible life altering trauma happened. My mother threw away the deck, blaming the cards. However, 20 years later, I have begun to explore the art of tarot again. And when doing the Celtic spread again, the Tower returned in my outcome. But this time, it felt more like an epiphany of accepting and embracing what is lost or broken because it makes room for new beginnings.
Finally, I added a few strands of nature to bring out my hair for both a relief affect and to show my love of being entwined with the natural world, also seen in the image through crystals, animals, and the natural act of sex.
I am satisfied with the outcome and feel it represents my loud, bold, wild, aggressive, violent, sexual, and dark-arts-inclined nature.
Controversial Essay
Exploring the void:
Lee Nicole Salinis
Research Project 2022SP (HUM-220-B2)
Exploring the void: Considering The Lack of Ritual in Spaces We Need to Feel
A research project is supposed to be an objective search and summary of authoritative work on a particular subject. A young scholar can interject opinion, but only if authorities who agree with them are sourced as support, and they are not supposed to be too personally invested -- no you, no I’s, no me. However, not every subject is as well researched as needed or even approached in the humanized way the people affected by it really yearn for, and personal experience matters greatly in human value and meaning.
The subject of this research project is important to the nature of being human, as it deals with the other side of bringing humans into the world: choosing not to bring them into the world. The subject of anti-birthing, commonly referred to as abortion, is a hot-button topic that instantly sets both sides claiming my body my choice or what about the baby, but that is not what I am interested in doing. My interest is in researching what happens after an abortion, especially if the woman does not find it to be a #freedom #healthcare experience like social media would suggest.
I want to make very clear upfront that I am not making an argument for or against the practice of abortion itself. I have my opinions, and anyone reading or hearing this will have theirs. We may agree; we may disagree. That is not what matters to me for this essay, although I will clarify some opinions in discussion later. What matters to me is to examine -- across several cultures -- the effects of abortion and consider how much if any space is given for women to express or feel emotions --the human experience-- that come after.
What They Say Is
Authorities agree there is a lack of research on this topic. For example, according to Huss (2021) from only a year ago, “The consequences of pregnancy outcomes other than live birth on subjective well-being have rarely been analyzed in research to date” (p. 2803). This lack of research is odd considering abortion has been legal in America since Roe vs. Wade was decided on January 22, 1973, and around 60+ million women in America alone have had them since then (Abortion, 2020; Sedgh, 2011).
However rare this research may be, examining what sources I could find on the topic, a few scholarly articles caught my attention. Using what cultures could be found referencing post-abortion effects or care via scholarly articles available, we will look at a quick over-view of studies in Germany, South Africa, and Turkey regarding care or consequences post-abortion. I will then discuss a peer reviewed sourced personal account of the experience, my own human experience with the procedure, as well as art or lack thereof on the topic.
In Germany, a study was done by Huss (2021) to consider the outcomes of wellbeing after abortion which concluded “With regard to induced abortion, pre-event measures were a better predictor of overall well-being than the consequences of the event itself. Low life satisfaction might therefore be a risk factor for having an abortion rather than a result” (p. 2818). This study felt cold and clinical. Comments such as “induced abortion was shown to be rather a consequence than a cause of poor well-being” (Huss, 2021, p. 2820) seemed like a high-level scientific way of saying if your life sucked before an abortion, it is probably why you would choose an abortion, and it is probably going to suck after, which should not be blamed on abortion. Even though they did recognize a temporary decline in overall life satisfaction for some women after an abortion (Huss, 2021, p. 2817), it still felt like a disregard and dismissal of anyone who may have suffered emotionally after an abortion, like me, as if any negative emotions are just the fault of that person’s already negative outlook. Even if this is statistically true, it makes clear that any emotional voids created by abortion, perceived or real, cannot be emotionally fulfilled with stats, surveys, or data. In fact, stats and data on the subject can leave one feelingtheir experience has been statistically sanitized out of existence and that, although further research is suggested (Huss, 2021, p. 2820), one might perceive further pursuit on the subject regarding negative emotional aftermath to be seen as irrelevant. Simply put, stats say my feelings are irrelevant.
In South Africa, a study was done to follow the assessment and treatment of one particular woman referred to as Grace, who suffered what is referred to in the paper as post-abortion syndrome (Boulind & Edwards, 2010, p. 539). In this study, Boulind and Edwards (2010) concluded that active suppression of the event and social isolation were the probable cause of her symptoms, and that a lack of social support compounded both the negative effects and processing of the event (p. 545). This study was very different as it followed an individual experience instead of lumping a group of women together or passing out cold, calculated, data-driven surveys. Many of the recorded comments from Grace’s therapy reveal the internal turmoil and isolation women feel in the decision-making process, such as “the biggest decision of my life and there was no-one!” (Grace as cited in Boulind & Edwards, 2010, p. 543). Following her therapeutic process also revealed her suppression of the event Grace states “I tried to continue as though it had never happened… I thought that I could forget about it" (as cited in Boulind & Edwards, 2010, p. 544). To be clear, this woman was not a traditionalist or a conservative, yet she still faced pain that she felt pressured to ignore. Grace stated, “I suppressed all the hurt” when referring to her abortion (as cited in Boulind & Edwards, 2010, p. 545). This personalized look at one woman’s experience humanized the research with Boulind & Edwards going on to say, “To come to terms with a traumatic event and incorporate it as part of one’s life story it is important to be able to think through what it means personally and to evaluate these meanings carefully” (p. 545). Through 12 therapy sessions and finally an artistic collage, Grace seemed to find peace with her trauma, referring to the two babies in her art as “One is the one which was never born…and the other is the baby which I am still going to have” (as cited in Boulind & Edwards, 2010, p. 544). This was humanized research, for humane data outcomes, to support human beings, not statistics to prove some political agenda right or wrong.
In a Turkish study on abortion, which was elective but for deformities, Güçlü et al. (2021) found that women may experience short- or long-term psychological problems, and, for some women, the perinatal loss could cause grief that would become persistent beyond the normal six-month duration before “equilibrium” was restored (p. 221). Some might argue that an abortion for a deformity is different from a regular elected abortion for consensual pregnancy or especially rape. With the anomaly, the child may have been initially desired, however, this perspective assumes a woman can never have a change of heart, that an unintended pregnancy automatically means that children are unwanted, or that a different purpose for the same procedure always yields a different emotional outcome. However, a different reason for having an abortion does not mean a woman is immune from suffering the same grief and loss addressed by Güçlü et al. (2021)
What May Be
Some of the reasons women choose abortion stated in the German study by Huss (2021) include: “personal reasons: relationship problems, financial costs of child-rearing, wanting to postpone motherhood…societal reasons: disapproval of single motherhood, sex-selective abortions, population control” (p. 2805) and we could also add the health of mother and fetal anomalies addressed in the Turkish study by Güçlü et al. (2021) as well as rape. None of these studies clarified the difference between women who were raped and women who consensually conceived pregnancies electing to have an abortion. It seems assumed that a rape victim would not suffer any emotional aftermath in an abortion, just relief to be set free, when considering this lack of distinction as well as the stereotypical political debates. However, I would argue that the emotional aftermath could very well exist for them as well, even if “on paper” the abortion was 100% the right decision to make for them. The perspective on wanting or not wanting to bring a pregnancy to term may not mitigate the potential of an emotional aftermath. Again, I am not arguing for or against the choice; I am pointing to a void of space for expressing the very real emotional obstacles that women who have terminated pregnancies, for whatever reason, may face.
In addition, the research suggests that woman who terminate pregnancies for different reasons should be segregated into different categories, ie. rape, fetal anomalies, sex-selective, even spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), etc. as if these categories will guarantee the emotional obstacles they may or may not face. However, it seems to me that if one reads the literature closely, unaddressed and between the lines, it looks like the grief experience happens across the board, cross culturally and regardless of reason for the loss. We can see this throughout the cultures presented, in the German surveys, which did find that there is a temporary decline in overall life satisfaction for some women after an abortion (Huss, 2021), the Turkish study of elective abortions for fetal anomalies (Güçlü et al., 2021), as well as the personized research with Grace in Africa (Boulind & Edwards, 2010). I would also add for consideration that there is such a lack of space for women in general to feel, in regard to abortion that any stats or data collected are not truly representative of the facts. The truth is negative emotion in regard to abortion is suppressed, even if this is a personal choice, which can only be seen when doing more humanized research like the African study (Boulind & Edwards, 2010). It seems this void of humanized understanding of this kind of trauma is similar to the revelations seen in the #metoo movement. Women suppressed their true feelings and experiences for years because they felt unsafe, shamed, or unaccepted to express their trauma.
Within the conclusion of Güçlü et al. (2021) they suggested it would be helpful for women who resolve this trauma to be examined (p. 221). By looking at the arguments presented above, and below, it seems as if most women do not resolve this trauma, rather they suppress it. Further evidence for this claim can be found not only within the severe lack of art which will be discussed later, but also the very little scholarly or peer reviewed accounts of women's personal experience. Especially considering that in America, with 60+ million women recorded facing the procedure (Abortion, 2020; Sedgh, 2011). It is common knowledge that the majority of higher-level degrees being conferred in recent years, are to women. This very large, very intellectually capable group of human beings seem to have very little to say about their feelings. Is it really because they just resolve the event, feel no trauma worth discussing and just move on? Regardless, I did find one peer reviewed personal account.
Exceeding Paper Length Because It Gets Personal
The account by Gavel (1997) which covers both her pre- and post-abortion experience, made clear she is a self-proclaimed feminist, pro-choice activist, and states she would not change her decision of having an abortion. However, we still see an emotional aftermath in her experience, with statements such as “At times I find myself silently asking ‘who would that child have been?’" (Gavel, 1997). The trauma did not resolve itself after six months or even years as seen in comments such as “Being a mother has also meant I have grieved the loss of that pregnancy in 1976 in a way I never did before” (Gavel, 1997). Again, a void exists, and women, even progressive ones, having to silently grieve because of a lack of space to feel.
My experience is different, my perception of outcome opposite, because I do in fact regret my abortion and would change my choice if I could go back. I felt coerced by those around me who did not want the burden of helping me in motherhood, there was a social pressure that 16-year old’s should abort not birth, and I was denied a full choice when not allowed to see the ultrasound screen during examination even though I asked. This was 20 years ago and still, women have no space to just feel, and are even further segregated from each other in scholarly research by reason for the loss. Alternatively, they feel they must promote political purpose for their experience for proper utilization of their pain as seen in Gavel’s push to make clear her political position. Gross. Cold. Clinical. Suppressive. Void of Humanity or humanistic meaning.
However, I feel her pain. I don’t agree with her politics, but I don’t care; I feelher pain, and would welcome her into any space I create to just feelas equally as any other woman who has felt this loss and needs to grieve. We both need, deserve, and have a right to feel, to have value, and to allow our pain to have meaning. Her purpose for her loss is feminism, activism, and pro-choice (Gavel, 1997); my purpose for my loss is addressing the void for expressing the pain of this type of loss in society, filling the void personally through art that makes my unborn the loudest thing that has ever not existed, and creating a space for others to do the same, including her.
To clarify a bit, my biggest opposition to her side of the politics is its lack of space for expression, seen within her own account of having to grieve silently. Women lack the proper information in regard to the emotional aftermath of abortion which leaves even the most progressive women unprepared for what they will face emotionally. If they knew that making the choice would have come with such emotional consequences, many women I have met, including myself, would have just chosen to become mothers. It may be hard work and an inconvenience to career or education to deal with another human’s tears and needs, but from this side of the procedure, I personally do not feel the freedom I have the privilege to enjoy now is worth the cost. I struggle to even feel worthy of motherhood in the future because of the choice. I have probably spilt just as many if not more tears over my abortion than my child would have cried over the past 19 years they could have existed. The only difference really is I have no smiles, laughs, and heartfelt memories to balance them out. Even with that said, I still do not believe policies could fix this problem, and so I do not agree with the other side of the politics either. Making choices for others will not save women from this pain. The only thing that will suffice to prepare women for what could come, is allowing women to express what has happened for them after the procedure, so all women facing the procedure are truly informed of the full spectrum of consequences of abortion. The most powerful and productive place to do this in my opinion is through art, but that has been silenced as well.
In art observations, I had hoped to find just the emotion on display. However, when searching for visual art to include in this paper, the only “scholarly” work art not agenda related, is Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón’s art piece titled Henry Ford Hospital painted in 1932. This painting does not actually depict a fully elected abortion but rather one needed to finish a miscarriage that had started (Kahlo, 1932).
The painting portrays Kahlo in tears bleeding on a large bed with several items referencing the procedure surrounding her, including a fetus (Kahlo, 1932). The image feels similar to my own experience of a chosen abortion. With 60+ million women having experienced abortion in America alone you would think that some of us would have become visual artists and expressed the feelings of “I have grieved the loss of that pregnancy… in a way I never did before.” As Gavel, (1997) mentions in her article.
And yet when searching through google arts and culture, where I was directed to find scholarly art works for this project, Kahlo is the only true visual art not promoting a slogan or agenda. An example of this propaganda promoted as art is a badge found in the Glasgow Women’s Library, alongside other “agenda art” (Nation Abortion Campaign, n.d.). The pin has the abbreviation of the National Abortion Campaign NAC, the words ‘Abortion: Women’s right to choose’ and a picture of a women who looks to be protesting next to it. To me this lack of art is a clear example of the lack of space, the void, the lack of ritual needed for women to heal. Keeping pins from campaigns and displaying them as memorabilia of our history, even in art museums is fine; but when I am looking for visual art surrounding the emotional experience shared by 60+ million women in America alone, as well as the numerous women in the cultures presented above, I expect to see something more humanized, like Kahlo’s painting.
The Future Is Mine
In conclusion, there is a severe void, and lack of space for women to even be allowed to just FEEL after abortions. To me this void screams a need for a tribe for women, who have little to no concern of what political ideology or final thoughts on outcome regarding abortion are. Just open arms, listening ears, and accepting hearts of the pain and morning women who suffer the loss of a child feel. No matter what statistical category they fall in, whether nature, deformities, society, or personal choices caused it, or what political side their experience or final thoughts might be perceived to support. That this tribe needs to promote personalized rituals that stand up to or tear down the political silencing or exploitation of their pain for some agendas needs. I feel a calling to this void as it echoes inside me as well. This is why I started my journey to be an artist, and my poem included at the end of this essay is the very first place I openly expressed my experience with this pain in 2018, 17 years after my abortion. We as women who have suffered motherly loss need a powerful, ritualistic, and safe place for us to be allowed to speak of our pain, undivided, unsegregated, and unweaponized by agenda or clinical sanitation through stats or data. And I plan to fill the void.
Art Section
Shatter to pieces
It’s on the screen, alive and so clean, unheard beating, so pure and innocently harmless.
Yet unseen to me, my heart flees from glee, sinking sadness, not being allowed to know.
I dread the day, so foolish the way, I chose to be irresponsible.
No other choices were given, I guess I just listen, as they tell me to save the dreary date.
So, young and so cold, only 16 years old, this choice will shatter my world to pieces.
When the day finally comes, I sit and feel glum, surrounded by others as numb as me.
In the room I wait, I shiver and shake, thinking why?
Legs up High, and opened wide, this gown hugs no warmth for me.
“A customer you have waiting”, they say while I lye shaking, Full of endless regret.
One holds my hand, while the other, man, prepares to unleash the death.
So cold, the tools they use to destroy what’s inside me.
It happened so fast, felt like eternity, but in a flash, no turning back…it’s gone now.
Wallowing in my pity, these women speak so silly, so much death, and they regret nothing yet.
The months they passed, chest sunk with desolation, while my world did shatter to pieces.
It’s been 17 years today, and I still feel dismay when I look back on that horrible choice.
Though I still feel the burn, the hard lesson was learned
…It took destruction to find that I’m for life.
By: Lee Nicole Salinis
Henry Ford Hospital, by Frida Kahlo https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/henry-ford-hospital-frida-kahlo/kgHTa-02kVhHJA
Abortion: A Woman's Right to Choose badge, National Abortion Campaign
References
Abortion statistics: United States data and trends. (2020). National Right to Life News, 4.
Boulind, M. & Edwards, D. (2010). The assessment and treatment of post-abortion syndrome: A systematic case study from Southern Africa. PCSP: Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy, 6(4), 539-547.
https://pcsp.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/pcsp/article/view/1053/2466
Gavel, L. (1997). Turning point. Herizons, 11(2).
Güçlü, O., Şenormanci, G., Tüten, A., Gök, K., & Şenormanci, Ö. (2021). Perinatal grief and related factors after termination of pregnancy for fetal anomaly: One-year follow-up study. Archives of Neuropsychiatry / Noropsikiatri Arsivi, 58(3), 221–227.
https://doi-org.lrc-proxy.abtech.edu/10.29399/npa.25110
Huss, B. (2021). Well-being before and after pregnancy termination: The consequences of abortion and miscarriage on satisfaction with various domains of life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 22(6), 2803–2828.
https://doi-org.lrc-proxy.abtech.edu/10.1007/s10902-020-00350-5
Kahlo, F. (1932). Henry Ford Hospital [ Oil on metal]. Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City, Mexico.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/henry-ford-hospital-frida-kahlo/kgHTa-02kVhHJA
National Abortion Campaign. (n.d.). Abortion: A Woman's Right to Choose [badge]. Glasgow Women's Library, Glasgow. Scotland.
Sedgh, G., Singh, S., Henshaw, S. K., & Bankole, A. (2011). legal abortion worldwide in 2008: levels and recent trends. International Perspectives on Sexual & Reproductive Health, 37(2), 84–94.
The Challenges
There is no safe space to feel the truth of my experience with abortion...It leaves me wondering:
- How many other women have been silenced?
- Are we really only 5% of the 60+ million women who have had abortion like google searches say?
- Even if we are, where are our 3 million voices?
- Is keeping women who regret abortion out of the conversation pro-women?
- Is avoiding teaching all consequences, even the 5% for every women every procedure really prochoice?
- Why are women who suffer loss of life within their wombs separated and segregated from each other?