I was born 10 months after the Supreme Court upheld a woman’s right to obtain an abortion in the 1973 landmark case of Roe v. Wade.
If, God forbid, I’d ever been raped in an alley, on a date, by a family member, or heck, a priest and conceived a child, abortion was a medical decision that was mine to make. I started having sex in my early 20s, and if my birth control failed and I became pregnant, I would have ended it. An unplanned pregnancy would have ended my career. To have a baby you want is a blessing. To have a baby you don’t want is a curse. Having the option used to be American. It’s not anymore.
The Supreme Court’s egregious 6-3 decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization released Friday morning overturned Roe, snatching my constitutional right to end a pregnancy from me. It’s now up to state legislators to determine if abortions are legal in their state. Trigger laws in 13 states immediately outlawed abortions and Republican lawmakers in 13 more states — most in the south and Midwest — are poised to impose their will on if, when and how a woman can terminate a pregnancy.
