I had an abortion...

[llmart]

56. What a wonderful post.

Our stories are important. They need to be told and others need to hear them.

I have fought for women's rights and considered myself a feminist since I was 16. I'm now 72. My mother had seven children. Her last child was born when she was 44 years old. The child was severely retarded - not just the cutesy, Hallmark Hall of Fame movie of the week Downs syndrome child, but uneducable with several physical deformities. There were no resources for caring for a child like that, so my parents gave her over to the state when she was six years old and never saw her again. My mother died an early death at the age of 55. I don't think she ever recovered from that birth mentally.

I swore I would never let anyone else, including my husband, have any control over my reproductive rights. From the beginning of our courtship, I made it very clear to my Catholic husband (I'm not Catholic or religious) that I was going to use birth control and if he didn't agree with my stance, then we should part company right then and there. He agreed with me 100%. I had two children, exactly four years apart, boy then girl and they were both very much planned and wanted. I was 25 and done with having children. I asked my obstetrician how soon I could get my tubes tied and he said the practice was made up of three male, Catholic doctors and they would not perform tubal ligations. I said thank you very much. I'll find someone else. He argued with me about how young I was and how I'd change my mind and regret it, and I told him in no uncertain terms that I would never change my mind. I did find someone else, had the procedure done (it was major surgery back in the early 70's before laparoscopic surgery) and never once have I regretted not having any more children.

Make no mistake about it. This is only the beginning of what these people are planning on taking away from women.