As a 30 year old woman, living in the United States, I am in the enviable position of never having lived in a time when I did not have the right to choose. Today is the 35th anniversary of the landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that granted me, and the millions of other women in this country, that right. Roe v. Wade is not about abortion. It is about choice. It is about the power to control the path one’s life takes, whether that path should include a child or not. Roe v. Wade is about making personal decisions without the interference or intervention of any outside authority. It is about privacy in making those decisions. I have never been in the position of having to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy. But at 17, working as a peer crisis counselor, I listened to girls who had. I held their hands. I hugged them and stroked their hair as they sobbed about the horrible decisions they were faced with making. I can tell you that not one of them took the responsibility of making that decision lightly. Not one of them was happy to have to make it. But every last one of them was happy to have it available. And so am I. It does not matter whether you could choose abortion for yourself. It does not matter what circumstances lead any woman to that decision. All that matters is that the choice be available. Now, more than at any other time since the ruling was made, the right to choose is in danger of being revoked. Many of the conservative candidates in the current presidential race would have your rights stripped to satisfy their moral code, their vision, their version of God. In order for our daughters, our nieces, our young women of today to have the right to choose, we need to stand up. We need to fight to protect the rights our mothers fought so hard to win for us. Stand up. Add your voice to those already demanding Roe v. Wade be upheld and our right to privacy maintained. Vote for a Pro-Choice candidate.
