My Abortion Before <em>Roe v. Wade</em>
Roe v. Wade is in peril. New restrictions on abortion exist in a dozen states. Providers are threatened with jail. And this week, the Supreme Court heard yet another attack on abortion rights with the Louisiana case June Medical Services v. Gee. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the ruling may leave the state’s 1 million women of reproductive age with only one legal abortion provider. And many other states stand ready to follow suit. This rush into the past has flung me back to a terrifying time in my own life half a century ago, one I never expected women today would have to face.
In late December 1965, I was 19 and in Brooklyn, home from college for the holiday break. I was also pregnant. I knew exactly how pregnant I was because I’d spent Thanksgiving with my boyfriend, Mark, who was in graduate school in Indiana.
I don’t remember everything about this time, but my memories of many of the details are extremely vivid.
On a freezing Monday morning just before dawn, I was standing by myself on a street corner in Rahway, New Jersey. In my pocket was a white envelope filled with five $100 bills that my parents had willingly given me to pay for an abortion. I kept checking to make sure the envelope was still there, as I
