Submitted by: Ashly Lorenzana

I’m a thirty-four year old sex worker from Portland.

I’ve been in the industry for around seventeen years, during which time I’ve had a total of seven abortions. The most recent of which was in late December of 2021.

I am childless by choice, making me part of a group of women not often heard by many or within the context of public debates on abortion.

I was ten weeks pregnant, which was further along than the times before. My theory is that the only cure for the social stigma surrounding the bodily autonomy of women is to be loud, straightforward and completely unapologetic. I’ll admit, most people don’t really seem to know how to react to any of that when it comes to abortion.

I’ve had both nightmarish experiences getting the procedure, and ones that went about as smoothly as one could expect.

I’ve had to end one pregnancy due to my prescribed birth control failing. There were times I used the morning after pill as my main form of birth control, unfortunately.

I wasn’t raped. No incest took place. I didn’t (and still do not) have other children to consider.

None of my abortions were emotionally difficult decisions for me to make. The public, it seems, has no sympathy for that narrative. Because honestly, we don’t hear those stories.

And it isn’t because I’m the only one.