Abortion Pre-Roe: A Survivor’s Story
Nearly 70 years ago I survived an amateur abortion. On a kitchen table in a drab house in a down-at-the-heels neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia.
On a dreary February morning, the loneliest day of my life. Victim of workplace rape by a prominent man who had enormous power over me, I had no other option.
My rapist gave me a phone number for the abortionist and the $100 required. My gynecologist remarked, as he worked, the next morning, to stop the bleeding that would have killed me, “You’re one of the lucky ones.”
Now, once again, the unlucky ones will die. Not women with money — they will still be able to access safe abortion care, as was true 70 years ago. But women without power or resources will die trying to end unwanted pregnancies, because the Supreme Court has authorized the state to take control of their bodies once such bodies harbor a fertilized egg.
God help us.
God, IMHO, or whomever one perceives her to be, is part of the problem. I was a committed Christian at the time of my rape and subsequent abortion. I remain so today, a believer in the sanctity of life. Millions of women and men — Christians, Jews, Buddhists, the hordes of ‘Nones’ who check None of the Above for the religion box — also believe in the sanctity of life but don’t happen to see that “life” beginning…
