2026-07-27
37 分钟This is The Guardian.
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Welcome to The Guardian Long Read, showcasing the best long-form journalism, covering culture, politics,
and new thinking.
For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to theguardian.com forward slash long read.
This article contains some scenes that may be upsetting.
Take care when listening.
It is comforting to be haunted.
How Attitudes to Abortion Have Changed Through the Ages by Erin McGlocky, read by Lana Joffrey.
The physical fact of my abortion caught me off guard.
I had been so accustomed to defending abortion as an abstract right, as a right to privacy, to health care, to autonomy,
that when it came to having one, I was surprised by the brutality of it.
Fasting for hours before, clammy and lightheaded, my hands freezing
and damp in the clinic waiting room, waves of contracting pain afterwards,
the blood and the vomit from the anesthesia, the days of cramping and bleeding, soaking through pads.
Cold sweat.
I thought having an abortion would feel like the exercise