Dianne

In 1969, four years before Roe v. Wade, I was in Spain and intentionally pregnant. At 27 my biological clock was madly ticking and my boyfriend of five years agreed it was time. But 2-1/2 months into the pregnancy, he said, “I _ _ _ _ed up. I can’t stay with you,” and walked out the door.

“You can have a baby later under better circumstances for both you and the baby.”

My amazing mother was visiting because I was pregnant, but she took the news with supernatural calm. She told me, “Whatever you decide, I fully support you.”

As I was weighing the options of going to Switzerland to live on a commune or going home to live with my parents, I met a young Englishwoman who said, “You can have a baby later under better circumstances for both you and the baby.” She herself had recently had an abortion in a nice clinic in London. I had only heard about back-street abortions in the States, or worse, in Mexico, so this opened up another option, one that felt like the best one for me.

My mother and I flew to London and I got an appointment with the clinic right away. The first thing was an interview with the doctor who gently asked me about my circumstances, why I was considering an abortion. The procedure took place within a day or two and I stayed overnight at the clinic. Even though I had not had any second thoughts about this, I woke up crying. It is a loss in a way, yet I have never in all these years even for one moment regretted the decision.

In 1983 I was able to adopt my precious daughter. On April 25, 2004, she and I participated in the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C. I told her, “If you continue to have choice, you can say you were part of it. If you don’t, you can say you tried.”