The performance I develop questions the contemporary process of understanding abortion, particularly its complexity as a means of self-knowledge. Feminism has sought to impact the legal system as a way of generating socio-cultural change regarding abortion and its practices. What still remains a barren land, however, are the processes of post-abortion self-repair—a space to understand the complexity of its symbols.

Drawing from my earliest memories of what motherhood meant—memories of my pregnant dog and me as her midwife—I set out to recreate other spaces of action among certain mammals. Particularly, the ingestion of dead offspring together with other remnants such as the placenta. Recent research suggests that the consumption of the placenta and the amniotic fluid may help the mother reduce pain after birth, as they contain a molecule called POEF, Placental Opioid-Enhancing Factor, which induces analgesia.

Another space of research is the sublimation of pain. Following the example of other mammals, in this performance I propose, as a powerful act, the ingestion of my own remains from my second abortion as a symbolic process. The first time I had an abortion, six years ago, my condition was different. Terror was latent throughout the process, and I found myself stunned beside my own bleeding body. I remember having thrown the remains of my abortion into the toilet, as someone who murders and hides a body, frightened in the midst of so much confusion. In this second process, I came to understand that the remains I so desperately discarded were part of my body, and I gave them over to ingestion as a means of acceptance and alignment with the matter I had produced.

“I had an abortion.” My once-secret voice is now public. My practice creates a space of rights and inquiry. In the interruption of a pregnancy lies a fabric of emotions and experiences so divergent they escape any form of characterization; yet through this performance I seek to re-signify my own fears and to meet myself again, gently.