I told the Supreme Court about my abortion. It changed my life.
ESSAY | It’s been one year since the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot create roadblocks to abortion
I left the courtroom feeling the weight of what I had just witnessed: the oral arguments for the most significant abortion case to come before the Supreme Court in a quarter century. After spending the morning inside the nation’s highest court, I was nervous as I walked out and looked at my phone for the first time that day. My deeply personal account of making the right decision for myself in the summer of 1987 when I was 19 to have an abortion in a Dallas clinic was to run that day in my hometown newspaper, The Dallas Morning News.
My heart pounded, bracing for the sting of hateful words filling my email inbox. Instead, I read a note of thanks from a stranger who was surprised my piece wasn’t yet another condemnation of a woman’s right to have an abortion. She said she was flooded with relief as she read my story because it was her story. She had chosen to have an abortion as a young woman too.
That woman was the first of many who reached out to me and have shared their stories since last year. The stigma that still surrounds abortion has affected us all, as well as the larger abortion debate. By keeping our stories to ourselves, as I did for so long, we inadvertently allowed a false narrative to take hold about women who have abortions: that we regret our decisions, that it ruins our lives, that it prevents us from having the future family we desired. Indeed, in his majority opinion upholding a ban on late-term abortion in 2007, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “It seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.”
Last year — nearly 30 years after my own abortion — I decided it was time to tell my story, as the Supreme Court took up a pivotal abortion case. Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt put on a trial a set of abortion restrictions the state of Texas said were designed to protect women’s health and safety, but in actuality, were laws to make abortion virtually unobtainable in the nation’s second largest state. The deceptive regulations had shuttered more than half the state’s clinics and left women facing extraordinary delays, travel or with seemingly no other option than to take matters into their own hands.
With so much at stake, a diverse coalition of doctors, lawyers, elected officials, faith leaders and ordinary people submitted 45 “friend of the court” amicus briefs to advance the argument that junk science and sham laws can’t undermine a woman’s ability to access legal health care.
For the first time, women from many different states and diverse backgrounds spoke out about the impact their abortion had on their lives. One brief included the stories of 113 top female attorneys who had abortions. Another documented the experiences of female business leaders. And the brief I joined provided details of why each woman represented chose to have an abortion and the importance this personal decision had in shaping our lives. Behind each story was a woman who had succeeded in life because she was able to make her own decision about how and when to have children.
Then, in a decisive ruling in late June, the justices ruled that governments cannot put up needless roadblocks in front of women trying to access abortion care. The Texas restrictions were declared unconstitutional, and struck down. It was an incredible day.
In the year since this historic ruling, I have only grown more emboldened in sharing my story — with friends, young people and others in my community. In doing so, I’ve found it creates even more momentum. Women approach me after I share my experience and tell me their story or simply say thank you. There is an understanding that passes between us. I am often thanked for my bravery, which troubles me; speaking up about a personal decision that is my constitutional right should not be considered an act of bravery. It shows we have more work to do.
Today we have a president in office and a party controlling congress that is committed to undermining women at every turn. The decision hasn’t stopped abortion foes from introducing new restrictions; it’s just made them more creative. In fact, my home state of Texas just passed a law that requires clinics to hold what are essentially funerals for fetuses — an act so hurtful and burdensome that politicians surely believe it will make women think twice about their decision.
With so many misguided attacks coming from lawmakers, we could put our heads down and give up. But instead I choose to redouble my efforts to share my experience in the hopes of getting more women to share their own. The truth is still the greatest weapon we have against misinformation.
A year ago, those stories moved the justices of the United States Supreme Court. Imagine the progress we can make if we keep going.
