Hi, My Name Is Pamelia.

Hi. I'm Pamelia and I had a medication abortion in North Carolina in 2024.

I found out I was pregnant when I went to my gynecologist for symptoms I thought were a UTI, and my first thought was, "I won’t be the first person in my family to go to college after all.” I decided to have a medication abortion because it wasn’t time for me to be a mother. I was still learning how to be a person. Besides not having resources as basic as an education, a driver’s license, or a stable place to live, I needed time to heal from my traumatic childhood to be the mother I know I want to be.

I received my abortion pills through the mail.

From start to finish, the process was liberating. I took the pills at home, and I felt like my future was in my own hands for the first time in my life. What surprised me most was how quickly it went.

Because I had access to medication abortion, I was able to become a first-generation college graduate, enter graduate school at a top university, get a car and apartment of my own, and start planning for the baby I have always wanted. I felt free.

I'm sharing my story because people from rural, Southern, and Appalachian communities are often left out of this conversation. Because Indigenous communities need sovereignty over our bodies. Because death and pain are not the only things that come from the places I’m from. There is so much hope.

Medication abortion saved my life.