Illegal Abortion

Author: Tantalize Copyright © 2007

Blog: Tantalize: Truth Embezzler

Location: Kuwait

The hallway lay buzzing with activity. There is plenty of sound. It smells like the place has been overly disinfected with chemicals. The walls are ultra-clean which go hand in hand with the tiles on the floor and the white lighting. But, cracks are cunningly hidden at the top and bottom portions of the walls by thick white paint, and away from immediate sight. It feels cold. Unemotional. Lifeless. Until, a cringing scream echoes from a distant room that is somewhere down the hall and around a corner. The sound is that of a woman in pain. It is in the early hours of the morning during rush hour. The pain blends perfectly with other layers of anguish drooling out of other rooms for different reasons within this Kuwaiti hospital. The agonizing sound, though, is cause of illegality, but it’s not apparent to any of the other patients, or even to most of the doctors. Abortion. That is what the doctor is conducting on a young Kuwaiti female. Illegal abortion that is, which is taking place by legal doctors and for illegal money. This is the thriving medical black market.

The woman enduring the pain is only 20 years of age and unmarried. She has had no formal or educational training in sex. Only Hollywood movies and trashy romance novels and hearsay from friends have justified her confidence into trying it. She also did not know she was impregnated although she thought she had sex. And now, she is pregnant and aborting. And, being helped to abort by the same doctor who officially works as a legal gynecologist during the day.

The cost of the whole ordeal varies from KD 400-700 for a span of a few minutes, but that is pale in comparison to the horrendous shame the young woman would have had to bear if she had the baby. The cost also includes taking pre–surgical pills, routine checkups, and ultimately surgically repairing her hymen back to the most virginal and natural state. By “most natural state,” I mean too tight for it to be natural yet close enough for most men not to detect it as being unnatural, unless they know the difference between excessive drying and natural lubrication.

The doctor meanwhile is making a larger extra profit illegally than he does with his legal job. He is Egyptian. Frequenting the local mosque to seek balance in his life is a ritual he has afforded most of his life. Realizing it has been an entirely another issue. Hearing mostly young Kuwaiti female patients legally ask for remedies to anal, oral, and illicit pregnancies all day has stiffed him out of the doctor he thought he’d be. Although he has advised so many teenage females against mostly anal sex, all he got was reverse anger and complaints. Kuwaiti women come to him as a foreigner so that he wouldn’t meddle with their local affairs, as could a Kuwaiti doctor. Indifference splatters throughout his face as his salary barely keeps him alive at work in order to support his second existence: family.

One of his children is a 14 year old daughter, but in his mind, it would never cross that she might one day end up on the same path because of his neglect of teaching her adequate sexual education, and maintaining such a responsibility. Still, he scorns his conscience at times because of his deep fear of contradicting or upsetting Islam if he ever had to teach her about sex at an early age.

The surgery was not conducted with the utmost cleanliness or professionalism, but this is the sacrifice of handling something supposedly shameful. Nonetheless, the cause of most pregnancies and abortions he conducts is due to young irresponsible Kuwaiti males who too have little sex education and more incompetent street smarts. The procedure could have been done in Egypt or even Cyprus, but she chose a more familiar arena to abort her 1.5 month fetus. There were other options instead of clinical/surgical abortion that she could have taken such as illegal suppositories (pills inserted inside her vagina) that would have done the same job. But that would have entailed excessive bleeding. Or, lying to her future husband by claiming it was her monthly period. Or, intentionally tightening her internal vaginal walls as a yoga maneuver during her wedding to fool her spouse. All, however, are successfully shy of surgery.

The 20 year old female feels a small amount of relief as she carries small amounts of blood with her when she slowly departs the doctor, departing the hospital to go home. Going back to live with the grand façade that most daughters put up in front of their parents all because of a short-lived sexual moment in which pleasurable ignorance had become her desire.