Pronouns: She/Her
Location: Texas
I share my story because abortion stigma and shaming is ridiculous.
Abortion Advice: Buy all of your comfort foods and items before the procedure (chocolate, soda, heating pad)
How I honor my abortions: My abortion enabled me to be the best mom to my baby.
What I wish people knew about abortion: Medication abortion hurts A LOT but it is still worth it and I have had two of them. That is my go-to abortion method and I would use it again if I needed to.
What is your favorite abortion movie?
Unpregnant. I watched it after my second abortion and had a good laugh!
Maleeha in the Press
“Maleeha, an immigrant from Pakistan who now lives in Texas, says she was stunned at the number of hoops she had to jump through to get an abortion seven years ago…”
Maleeha, 27, is an abortion storyteller with We Testify and the community organizer at Texas Equal Access Fund, an abortion fund serving the northern region of Texas. Years ago, when she found out she was pregnant, she knew she needed a medication abortion and wanted to confirm her length of pregnancy in a way that protected her privacy while using her father’s insurance. Her cousin shared a list of low-cost clinics she found through a Google search, and one—unbeknownst to them—was a Dallas-based crisis pregnancy center, White Rose Women’s Center
And one of the easiest ways Biden could go big on abortion is to talk about it openly and often, said Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of We Testify, an organization that fights stigma around abortion by sharing the stories of real people who have them. She said that if Biden really considers himself pro-choice, he needs to tell the American people a clear story about abortion and why expanding access to it matters.
I love Mother’s Day. It is a day dedicated to loving and pampering my mom, a single parent who has made so many sacrifices for me. I enjoy the opportunity to shower her with cards, gifts, and affirmations—from a distance, as she lives back home in Pakistan.
Maleeha Aziz, a community organizer for the Texas Equal Access Fund, used the pill abortion treatment twice — once as a college student who, despite being on birth control, was faced with an unplanned pregnancy and recently when an unplanned pregnancy with her husband. Aziz and her husband have a young daughter, but she faced a difficult pregnancy and worried about potential health complications.
There’s a good chance that you support abortion rights if you clicked on this story. You may already suspect that the title of the article is purposely attention-getting and even mildly tongue-in-cheek. You understand that there is no perfect reason to have an abortion; or, rather, that every reason is the perfect reason — as long as the person making the choice was able to decide for themselves, and follow through on that decision without unwanted interference.
It’s been 20 years since the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, one of two pills used to end an early pregnancy with a medication abortion. Yet confusion around the medication and restrictions on its use in telemedicine, not to mention lies about it from Republican senators like Ted Cruz, continue to make access difficult.
When Maleeha Aziz had a medication abortion, the 26 year-old says she traveled from Texas to Colorado to obtain the medicine. She received the mifepristone in a Colorado Springs clinic, then took the misoprostol when she was back home in Dallas.
Angel Kai, 21, is a storyteller for We Testify, an organization that gives abortion patients a platform for sharing their own stories to shift the narrative of abortion in the United States. She found out she was pregnant last year, only a few months after giving birth to her second child. Unable to support a third child, she started looking for an abortion provider. “I think I called about four different places, and they all told me the same price, and I was like, ‘There's no way I can afford to do this,’” she says.