What Comes Out

“What Comes Out” by Dawnelle Wilkie is an extremely powerful creative nonfiction piece Right from the beginning, Wilkie sends a strong message through the title, which is a creative play on the physical aspect of “what comes out” from women in the abortion clinic, as well as the truth that is coming out through her essay.

Wilkie’s purpose in writing this essay is to expose the raw reality which lies behind the façade of a rehearsed “script.” The effect of doing so is the creation and delivery of a persuasive, pro-life message.

Wilkie says after the 2nd paragraph, “Here is the truth. This is not the script.” She stays true to these statements, and the majority of the essay is the bare truth of what goes on in abortion clinics. However, she does use fictional, creative techniques which work to not only inform the audience, but also to persuade.

A recurring technique is Wilkie’s repetitive use of parenthesized phrases beginning with the word “imagine.” More important that just the phrases itself is the dissonant juxtaposition between the parenthesized phrases and what they are being compared to. For example, to conjure an image of the amount of women’s discharged blood (pg. 164), Wilkie says, “Imagine a Pyrex measuring cup, the four-cup size, the one you use to make brownies or to measure cut strawberries.” Why would Wilkie choose to compare a grotesque thing like discharged blood after an abortion to something familiar, like brownies and strawberries? Another example is when Wilkie compares emptying contents from an abortion into a colander (pg. 165) to “rinsing spaghetti.” Again, she draws comparisons from the uncomfortably unfamiliar to familiar routines and memories. The effect of these dissonant juxtapositions is that Wilkie makes it easier for readers to picture the processes involved in abortions. However, a stronger effect is that the readers are left uneasy and repulsed by the routine, casual manner in which such a grotesque procedure happens on a daily basis. Wilkie does not simply state her point of view that abortion is a cruel practice—her literary techniques that she intertwines throughout her essay effectively work to convey her perspective.

In the last paragraph of the essay, Wilkie says that “the forbidden word” is “baby” and that “the mother of all words” is “choice.” She is telling her audience that abortion clinics mask the harsh reality of the events that take place and words they avoid, like “blood, pain, clot, and fear,” with a positive, uplifting pretense of “empowerment, healing, and…choice.” Wilkie tell us the “truth” that if the public was exposed to what abortion clinics continue to hide, perhaps we might feel realize the seriousness of the brutality of abortion. She leaves her readers with a powerful statement—“I am waiting.”


-Jackie