Rosalind's Analysis of "We Do Abortions Here"

Rosalind Decker
Kerry Spencer
H English 150
October 16, 2011
Abortion: Where Black and White Flushes Scarlet

When conflict arises, we seek relief. Human nature is adverse to pain and suffering. We naturally shrink from difficult situations and decisions. We cling to hope, searching for a solution with minimal discomfort. Sometimes we get lucky, finding a clear answer. But sometimes there is no beaten path to follow, no obvious right and wrong. There is only sorrow. Abortion cannot be classified as black or white. It is a completely different kind of path—a red one. As Latter-day Saints, we are given no clear instruction concerning certain abortions. In cases of rape, incest, and danger to the health of the mother or child, the church abstains. The burden of choice falls upon the individual. In “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story,” Sallie Tisdale successfully uses paradox, point of view, and metaphor to force the reader to face the difficulty and pain surrounding this choice: either way, there is no happy ending.

Tisdale proves through paradox that abortion cannot be viewed simply as good or evil. In her description of her work, she says, “It is a sweet brutality we practice here.” In this paradox, Tisdale acknowledges the harshness of abortion. Abortion ends the life of a fetus before it has the chance to grow into a child. This is a brutal truth. But according to Tisdale, it is also sweet. The coupling of these words suggests that abortion is merciful. A burden lifted, perhaps, for a mother that cannot carry her child.

Tisdale also says that she feels a “loving dispassion” in her duties. She feels compassion for her helpless clients. “Certain clients waken in me every tender urge I have,” she says. But the other half of the paradox acknowledges the detachment necessary to conduct this procedure. This particular paradox successfully emphasizes the fact that Tisdale cannot care for both mother and child. If she provides relief to the mother, it means death for the child.

Tisdale states, “Abortion is the narrowest edge between kindness and cruelty.” She expounds by adding, “Done as well as it can be, it is still violence—merciful violence, like putting a suffering animal to death.” Merciful violence, kindness and cruelty—these words conflict with one another. The paradox of these words effectively underlines the bigger conflict, the conflict of choice. To whom is the kindness assigned, and to whom the cruelty? Either choice is tied to sorrow and regret.

In addition to using paradox to highlight the conflict, Tisdale chooses to write her story in first person present tense. This point of view personalizes the text to the reader. Every event described happens as it is read, as if the reader were there, acting it out themselves. The reader sees the world through Tisdale’s eyes, and follows Tisdale’s thoughts. “I watch a woman’s swollen abdomen sink to softness in a few stuttering moments and my own belly flip-flops with sorrow.” In this passage, the reader is provoked to feel as the author feels. The present tense makes the emotion current, and therefore more powerful. In one passage, Tisdale summarizes the bare truth of the conflict. “When I am struck in the moment by the contents in the basin, I am careful to remember the context, to note the tearful teenager and the women sighing with something more than relief.” Here, the reader sees the destruction of abortion, and also sees the anguish and sorrow of the women. First person present tense allows the reader to experience the conflict of the nurse themselves. This point of view makes the story much more real to the reader.

Throughout her vivid story, Tisdale uses the continued metaphor of a broken promise to describe her patient’s experiences. To Tisdale, the lives of her patients are full of shattered hopes and dreams. She says, “I see all the broken promises in lives lived like a series of impromptu obstacles. There are sweet, light promises of love and intimacy, the glittering promise of education and progress, the warm promise of safe families….And there is the promise of freedom: freedom from failure, from faithlessness.” Each of Tisdale’s patients has lost something they were counting on, and they lose another in her clinic: “the promise of pregnancy.”
Tisdale also describes in her patients “the sameness of human failure, of inadequacy in the face of each day’s dull demands.” The connotation surrounding promises is that of anticipation, of dreams and joy. Connecting abortion with a broken promise accentuates the misery surrounding each ordeal. In her own sorrow, Tisdale asks, “How can we do this? How can we refuse? Each abortion is a measure of our failure to protect, to nourish our own. Each basin I empty is a promise—but a promise broken a long time ago.” Claiming that the promise was broken long ago, Tisdale insinuates that these women failed before they came to her clinic. She suggests that the pain of an abortion lies in more than the loss of a child—it lies in the failures of a lifetime. Tisdale’s continuing metaphor of a broken promise reinforces her argument that abortion is a complicated act. No one makes a sincere promise with the intent of breaking it. Abortion is as undesirable and painful as a broken promise. Tisdale’s account is full of the guilt and sorrow she sees every day. It relays each patient’s shame, each mother’s blame, and each girl’s regrets. These women feel deeply their failure to keep their promise: the promise of life, retracted from an innocent being. By using this particular metaphor, Tisdale clearly communicates the difficulty of her patient’s choices.

Abortion is a topic replete with conflict. This conflict is the very reason it is so distressing, for it prevents us from determining a comfortable solution. Tisdale makes it very clear through her use of paradox, point of view, and extended metaphor that abortion is not an easy way out. She effectively implements these literary devices to convince her audience of the struggle surrounding this choice, and the sting connected with any resolution. Abortion is merciful and yet terrible. It cannot be labeled all good or all bad. Where black and white flushes scarlet, abortion can be found. This depiction is unclear, but realistic. Tisdale encourages us to accept that abortion is a confusing and painful subject, but deal with it anyway. In her final statement, Sallie Tisdale says resignedly, “I imagine a world where this won’t be necessary, and then return to the world where it is.”