“I needed intervention, and trusted my OBGYN when she helped me in this very vulnerable and grief-stricken time in my life.”

“The reason is between me and my healthcare provider. Hard stop.”

“I wasn’t pregnant, nor asking for an abortion, yet because of the very restrictive laws in Idaho, I have no gynecologist.”

“We both had come from warm loving families and knew that we were not yet ready to do the same together.”

“All night I had slept curled around the plastic container that contained my blood, her blood, the blood that grew from an egg that formed in my body when I was still in my mother’s body.”

“When I think of it, all I feel is gratitude.”

“I remember the day I had an abortion vividly, but probably not for the reasons that you think. It wasn’t scary, or traumatic, or upsetting. In fact, I remember it as one of the most positive days of my life.”

"Somehow I was pregnant, and I had exposed the one-week old embryo to a medication known to cause significant malformations of the heart and other essential organs."

"I want to tell people because I am not the stereotype of a person who gets an abortion. And that's just it: there is no stereotype. We all get abortions."

“When I learned I had become pregnant by someone who had an eye on my young girls, I did not hesitate to take advantage of legal abortion in 1973.”

“Pain is there and something else. Shame enters. It enters in the words of the nurse scolding me for having sex before marriage. Shame enters again as I hand the doctor cash.”

"It was a lunch counter at a five and dime store in Tijuana. I was instructed to be there at a specific date and time and to wear a specific piece of clothing."

"I tried to commit suicide to stop the pain and shame of having been molested and the consequences of it."

“They indicated that if she chose to keep the fetus, then they would have ethical issues in providing the recommended treatments.”

“When the doctor departs, my Catholic mom says, ‘Do not tell anyone about this.’ This is shameful to her.”

“I screamed; I fought; I pleaded with him not to do it, but he did. He raped me and then left as quickly and silently as he had come.”

“I never thought I'd be 40 when I had my first abortion, already a mother and happily married. But life rarely pans out as pictured.”

“He didn't offer to help pay for the abortion, question my decision, or offer any kind of emotional support. I learned later that he married within the year.”

“With no savings account, we were financially unprepared to bring a child into our lives.”