Sex wasn’t talked about in our house. I was raised going to church every Sunday, saying grace before dinner, and praying before bed. The only times sex was brought up was when my parents were warning me not to do it. But mostly, it was just ignored.

In 1971, a year before Roe v Wade, I was a 22 year old, married nursing student in Denton, Texas. I contracted tuberculosis and was placed on a regimen of multiple medications in an effort to control the disease.

Constrained by a legal system and a bad lawyer, I got pregnant in 2002 accidentally with my current husband, prior to being officially divorced from my last one. In Texas, that meant that my ex could fight for custody of my yet to be born 5 week old fetus.

Like many, I always said, "I support a Woman's Right to Choose, but I would NEVER have an abortion myself." Until I got pregnant in my early 20s.

I grew up in suburban Texas, where "sex education" consisted of little more than a Mean Girls-esque "if you have sex, you will get pregnant, and die".

1972 Freedom

The summer of my 17th birthday, I became pregnant. My best friend and first feminist sister, Katie Bug, sifted through the ads in the back of the “Rolling Stone” and quickly found an abortion clinic in New York City that would do an abortion on an out-of-state 17 year old with no parental involvement.