I am mumblefortymumblemumble years old. I am young enough that I never experienced adult sexuality pre-Roe. I am old enough to be (voluntarily) past my childbearing years, now when Roe is threatened. I lived my fertile years in the sweet spot of reproductive freedom, in that, every single time I had sex and was fertile, abortion was available to me.
And as hard as it is to admit in public, I needed that freedom. I availed myself of that right.
I admit it now because younger women are profoundly threatened, and I feel it is up to people my age, people who have been blessed and are now on the safe side of fertility, to fight even harder. Easy enough to be young and to fight for what you might lose, for what you might desperately need, for what you should have; easy enough to sit back and relax because it’s not “your” fight, because you’re not the one endangered.
At a guess, more than half the adult women I know between, say, 30–50, have had at least one abortion. A similar number of men in that age range have gone through the experience with a woman who was important to them. I don’t have to bang a drum here. I don’t have to explain why. Most of the time, I haven’t even asked why. These aren’t stories we’re happy to tell. These aren’t stories we’re comfortable with. They’re dark moments in our lives, but we know that we were saved from the true darkness of no legal options.
So it’s time for those of us who are “safe” to stand up for our sisters and daughters. To be brave. To make admissions that others will hate to hear, that others will try to shame us with. It’s time to say, I will not let the lives of these younger women be made infinitely worse than my own. I will not take my privilege for granted. I will not walk away from the mothers and grandmothers before me who fought for these rights.
It’s wrong, it’s just wrong, that there’s this select group of women who have had this freedom, and who can opt out of the struggle. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
