Romina, who is telling her story herself for the first time, says: “I was really scared. I’d never been away from my mom in my entire life. I felt really alone and scared but I knew I had to do this.”
“How can I explain this? I am mad,” says Romina’s mother. “I’m mad because of the laws in my state. If we didn’t have these laws we wouldn’t have had to travel to NYC, everything would have been much much easier.
“Saying good-bye to her at the airport I was crying. I’d never been apart from her. She had to go and do this without me, the very first time we would be apart, and the truth is I was so so sad to be away from her. I kept crying but we had to do this.”
The responsibility of care for another woman’s child weighed heavily on Mendoza too, and you feel this throughout the film. How Mendoza stayed up all night with Romina after Romina takes the abortion pills. How an army of her friends came together to support a young girl who was on the precipice of adulthood, but still very much a child—like so many 14 year olds.
“At times she just wanted her mom,” Mendoza recalls, “and she was in pain because she was cramping. She called her mom, and wanted her mom, and at the same time was texting with her friends.”
For Mendoza, and Romina, and Romina’s mother, what got them through it together was community. On the night of the abortion itself, Mendoza says that Romina asked to watch movies with the people who had come over to support her. Romina says: “I actually liked NYC. It was nice to have all those people around. I am really grateful to everyone that helped me. I am not sure why they helped me but I really am grateful.”
It’s important not to misconstrue the youthfulness of Romina’s expressions—remember, she is still not even 16—for anything like a blasé attitude. She is clear eyed about the toll her abortion took on her, and having an already awful situation compounded by the inability to seek care in her home state.
“Honestly it was really hard. It was hard on my body. I feel good because it was the right decision and my body is totally fine now. Bad because it was hard to do, because I had to leave my house and my mom.”
However it is her final words, spoken by a teenager but which apply to us all, to which lawmakers must pay the most attention: “I needed to do it,” Romina says, “because it was what was best for me.”
Watch the film by Paola Mendoza here.
Paola Mendoza is a film director, activist, author of Together We Rise, Sanctuary and the forthcoming book SOLIS, and is a co-founder of the Women’s March and The Meteor. She has written forThe New York Times, Huffington Post, Glamour, Elle and InStyle.
