(单词翻译:单击)
One bright afternoon in early January, on a beach in Southern California, a young woman spread what looked like a very strange picnic across an orange polka-dot towel:
1月初的一个阳光明媚的下午，在南加州的海滩上，一位年轻女子在一条橙色圆点毛巾上铺了一些看起来很奇怪的野餐装备:
A mason jar. A rubber stopper with two holes. A syringe without a needle.
一个玻璃瓶。带有两个孔的橡胶塞。一个不带针的注射器。
A coil of aquarium tubing and a one-way valve. A plastic speculum.
一盘鱼缸管、一个单向阀门。一个塑料扩张器。
Several individually wrapped sterile cannulas—thin tubes designed to be inserted into the body—which resembled long soda straws.
几根单独包裹的无菌插管——设计用于插入身体的细管——类似于长长的苏打汽水吸管。
And, finally, a three-dimensional scale model of the female reproductive system.
最后是一个女性生殖系统的三维模型。
The two of us were sitting on the sand.
我们两个坐在沙滩上。
The woman, whom I’ll call Ellie, had suggested that we meet at the beach; she had recently recovered from COVID-19, and proposed the open-air setting for my safety.
这位女士--我就叫她埃莉--她建议我们在海滩上见面；她最近刚从新冠肺炎病中恢复过来，为了我的安全，她建议我们去露天的地方。
She also didn’t want to risk revealing where she lives—and asked me to withhold her name—because of concerns about harassment or violence from anti-abortion extremists.
她也不想冒险透露她的住址——她要求我不要透露她的姓名，因为她担心受到反堕胎极端分子的骚扰和暴力攻击。
Ellie snugged the rubber stopper into the mason jar.
埃莉把橡皮塞子塞进玻璃瓶。
She snipped the aquarium tubing into a pair of foot-long segments and attached the valve to the syringe’s plastic tip.
她把鱼缸管剪成一对一英尺长的段，然后把阀门连接到注射器的塑料顶端。
In less than 10 minutes, Ellie had finished the project: a simple abortion device.
不到10分钟，埃莉就完成了这个项目:一个简单的流产装置。
It looked like a cross between an at-home beer-brewing kit and a seventh-grade science experiment.
它看起来像是家庭啤酒酿造工具包和七年级科学实验的混合。
The two segments of tubing protruded from the holes in the stopper.
两段管子从橡皮塞子的孔中伸出。
One was connected to a cannula, the other to the syringe.
一个接在插管上，另一个接在注射器上。
Holding the anatomical model, Ellie traced a path with the tip of the cannula into the vagina and through the cervix, positioning it to suction out the contents of the uterus.
埃莉拿着解剖模型，用插管的尖端沿着路径进入阴道，穿过子宫颈，对其进行定位，吸出子宫内容物。
Next, to show more clearly how the suction process works, she placed the cannula into her coffee.
接下来，为了更清楚地展示吸入过程是如何工作的，她将插管放入她的咖啡中。
When she drew back the plunger on the syringe, dark fluid coursed through the aquarium tubing and into the mason jar, collecting slowly within the diamond-patterned glass.
当她拉回注射器上的活塞时，深色的液体流过管子，进入玻璃瓶，在钻石图案的玻璃中慢慢汇集。
I had read about such devices before.
我以前看到过这样的设备。
But watching the scene on the beach towel brought history into focus with startling clarity: Women did this the last time abortion was illegal.
但看着沙滩毛巾上的场景让历史变得惊人地清晰：当以前堕胎是非法的时候，女性就是这样做的。
Ellie didn’t invent this device.
埃莉不是发明这个设备的人。
