WITH CHILD

by Jan Chronister

Arizona for Abortion Access supporters carry photographs of women who died because of abortion bans during the 35th annual All Souls Procession—a two-mile long march for community members to honor ancestors and loved ones who have died—on Nov. 3, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (Mario Tama / Getty Images via Ms. Magazine)

Click to see "Rest in Power: A Running List of the Preventable Deaths Caused by Abortion Ban" by Roxanne Szal,  Ms. Magazine as of November 26, 2024.

At one time

being pregnant
was a dangerous
condition to be in.
 
I would have died
in childbirth like my 
grandmother
if I’d given birth
a hundred years ago.
 
My daughter, breach,
but barely six pounds.
Small enough
for the doctor to
reach in, position her
for delivery.
How would it have ended
without his help,
called in from fishing,
smoking a pipe.
 
My son’s cord
wrapped around his neck.
Intervention again.
A healthy baby boy is born.
 
The third time
I miscarried.
Doctors took care of me,
nuns ministered
to my soul.
 
No laws prevented them
from saving me.

Editor’s Note: Women NATIONWIDE can still receive safe, effective & affordable medication abortion services via the ASafeChoice Network of physicians. 

Jan Chronister splits her year between northern Wisconsin and southern Georgia. She has authored three full-length poetry collections and ten chapbooks. Her most recent is the fifth annual chapbook recounting the year through poems. Jan poetry appears in numerous print and online journals and anthologies. She also enjoys helping fellow poets publish their work.

WHAT THEY TRIED IN MY SMALL TOWN

by Chad Parenteau

Glenn set a car on fire.
Surprisingly stuck around 
until the police arrived. 
 
Jesse got his girl pregnant.
Denied it. His family told hers
never contact him again. 
 
Tim’s Dad shot my aunt’s cat
from his window, kept guns
Tim grabbed from drawers.
 
Brian and James tried college.
Drank their first night. Thought 
licorice would conceal breath.
 
Some trolled on Facebook when 
Trump lost, angry that our world 
was bigger than where they lived.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His latest collection is The Collapsed Bookshelf. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Nixes Mate Review, and the anthology Reimagine America from Vagabond Books. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.

THE BOARD SPEAKS TO AN ASSEMBLY OF FIFTH-GRADE GIRLS

by Terri Kirby Erickson 

Sunday school at a Baptist church in Kentucky, 1946 

The Board has determined that fifth grade,
which may be too late for some, is the most
optimal time to inform girls that post-birth
females are not fully autonomous human 
beings. No adverse circumstances or plans
or dreams or medical emergencies trump 
your legal and moral responsibility to give 
birth should any male, whether by force or 
consent, plant his seed in the fertile ground 
of a uterus that becomes, immediately upon
conception, the sole property of The State. 
The Board, comprised of five men and two 
wholly compliant women, strives to remain 
sympathetic to how hard it must be for you 
to accept this news, having been so revered 
before birth and deceived into believing you 
have the same rights and post-delivery value 
as boys and men. Let us assure you today, 
that you do not. Indeed, should you become 
pregnant and experience a life-threatening 
situation, the continuation of a fetal heart-
beat is all that matters. Furthermore, there 
are many government agencies dedicated to 
ensuring that, under penalty of death or life 
in prison for all involved, no pregnancy is
unlawfully terminated. No questions? Then 
you are, as will often be the case, dismissed.

 
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of six collections of poetry, including A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53), winner of an International Book Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, JAMA,Poet’s Market, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS), The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Third Wednesday, and many more. Other awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Silver Book Award. 

HIS ABORTION POEM

by Dick Altman

Source: “Abortion” by John Bartlow Martin from the May 20, 1961, issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

he’s the golden boy

of parent/teacher/friend

the boy wanted on everyone’s side

the scholarship boy

the grad school boy

the golden boy

who in that familiar moment

of uncontrolled/youthful rapture

watches his golden prospects

for the future turn to dross

                      *

the Viet Nam draft

breathes down his neck

he still hasn’t found a job

(too educated, he’s told)

he’s not married

(though one day he will

marry the woman

he impregnated)

they are neither ready to marry

nor ready to have/support children

abortion is illegal

Roe vs. Wade is nowhere in sight

                       *

he reaches out to his composer father

who reaches out to friends

in the music business

an address and phone number

in Harlem surfaces

no names/no receipts

the golden boy borrows

from his father enough cash

to pay for a semester of college

the young couple agree

this is their only alternative

they discuss their mutual anxiety

she—they agree—must make

the decision

                         *

they never talk about what exactly

took place on the fourth floor

of the Harlem walk-up

she’s bleeding profusely by bed time—

in the emergency room by next morning

a spontaneous abortion the doctor calls it

knowing it wasn’t

whatever made the embryo abort

likely ended her/their prospects

of ever having children

Roe vs. Wade would not be decided

for another nine years

Politico’s revelation the Supreme Court

may overturn the decision

shatters him to tears

 

Dick Altman writes from New Mexico. His work has been widely published in the United States and beyond.

IT’S PERSONAL

by Martha Deed

for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It's spring 1973 and the trees are budding
on 111th Street along the south edge of Columbia
and I, ripening also, am walking home
from the obstetrician's office at St Luke's
The walk is weekly now
Ready
Pass by a smiling female undergraduate
She waves and says
"Next time you will have a choice."
Yes
She does not know
This time I did have a choice
though others haven't
and while pregnant
I met with women at the clinic
(We negotiated my obvious condition delicately)
as I sent them to Puerto Rico or elsewhere
our male director having said
Psychotherapy is not the answer
for women who've been raped
or secretly abused
and so we linked with doctors*
who had licenses and safe offices

Five women
We looked at each other
We saw each other
We understood that what is good for one
could be catastrophic for the other
We understood that freedom does not include
dictating what should happen to someone else's body

but only what should happen to our own 

*Our clinic utilized Clergy Consultation Service.

Martha Deed, PhD has published two poetry collections (Under the Rock, 2019 and Climate Change, 2014, both with FootHills Publishing) 5 other full-length books, a half dozen chapbooks since her retirement as a Psychologist, dozens of poetry publications.  Her work is frequently anthologized. She received a Pushcart Nomination from The New Verse News in 2011. Lives on the Erie Canal in WNY.

ON NOTICING HOW MANY PRO-LIFE MEN ARE SMOKERS

by Julie Steiner

Sing about the sanctity human life has.
Preach with all your passion: Abortion’s murder!
Afterwards, wind down with a soothing ciggie,
     smug in your maleness.

Suck the calming poison that causes cancer.
Taint the perfect organs your Maker gave you.
Human life is precious in women’s bodies.
     Not in your own, though.

Slowly self-destruct, in a way that rules out
making any life-saving gifts to others.
Maim your liver, pancreas, kidneys, heart, lungs.
     Damage them. Waste them.

Vandalize these treasures, so you and others—
patients needing transplants—will perish sooner.
God made women vessels of life, not you, right?
     Men don’t get pregnant.

Smoking? That’s your medicine. Helps you function.
Helps you fight anxiety, which unmans you.
If you quit, you’ll crumble. Complete your mission!
     Think of the children—

millions—who will live when abortion’s outlawed.
(Care about them only until they’re born, though.
Vote against the programs that help support them.
     Kids are expensive.)

Think of justice: women should feel the birth pangs
God assigned to Eve, in His perfect wisdom.
Sin and death were caused by a wayward woman.
     Women should suffer.

Virtue equals maleness. Its root's the Latin
vir, “a man” . . . not homo, “a human being.”
Eve is evil. Punish, control, subdue her,
     adamant Adam.

Let your male self-righteousness rise like incense.
Smoke like that proverbial chimney, built on
hearthstones far beneath you, where women labor.
     Tower above them,

fiery martyr. Fume at the fallen females.
Wheeze your hymns to Him—to Almighty Maleness.
God forbid that women should say, as men do,
     This is my body.

Julie Steiner lives and writes in San Diego. Besides the TheNewVerse.News, the venues in which her poetry has appeared include the Able Muse Review, American Arts Quarterly, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, First Things, Rattle, and the Rat's Ass Review.

THE BEGINNING (WITH NO END)

by David Feela

Image Source: Freeology

In the beginning some man said
“Let there be rape”
and he saw that if it wasn’t divinely intended
it might not be legitimate,
so he made certain enough men
held positions of power
to keep an eye on the women
who claimed it had happened to them.
And there was whimpering
on the 1st day in November.

Then another man said,
“Let there be pregnancy”
and the men charged with
upholding God’s mind
knew it wouldn’t happen to them,
so there was much relief
on the 2nd of November.

And the Constitution said,
“Let there be elections”
so the men who had wives
pushed them in front of the cameras
to claim no matter what their husbands said
they were good men.
Infants were cuddled and kissed
all during the 3rd and 4th days.

Then the doctors said,
“Let there be amniocentesis”
and a window into life opened,
(though many pulled their shades)
which accounts on the 5th of November 
for the heat in Roe v. Wade.

By November’s election day a woman said,
“Let me make up my own mind”
but so many things had been said
the chance to lay the issue to rest
on the 7th day was pretty much dead.

David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.