Janet

I got pregnant in 1974, the year after Roe v. Wade. I was newly married and in my mid-20s, but I had just found a way to go back to school to finish my degree, and I knew I would not be able to do that and have a baby.

“I had just found a way to go back to school to finish my degree, and I knew I would not be able to do that and have a baby.”

We were living in San Francisco. All around me were women energized and emboldened by feminism, thrilled to be shedding the skin of our mothers’ 1950s lives. It was such an empowering time. I had the abortion and felt no stigma or pain. Just the clarity that I was making the right decision for myself.

I think a lot of this clarity was because the specter of the dark days before Roe—when a woman’s future was a game of chance—still felt very real, very palpable. I think it’s important to remember that. To remember so we never go back.