Abstract: This essay opens with the author noting that she will be 26 years old in 1999, the same age as the US Supreme Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade but that this decision is threatened by renewed clinic violence and by attempts to limit reproductive choices for women. The women who fought for the right to have an abortion understood that unless they could decide what happened to their bodies, they would not be able to decide what happened in their lives. The right to a legal abortion is not safe, however. Fewer facilities are performing abortions today than 15 years age, and 86% of US counties (home to a third of US women) have no abortion providers. In Washington, DC, impoverished women cannot obtain elective abortions through Medicaid, and many abortion providers have been frightened by death threats issued by those who claim to protect life. The author notes that when she left an abortion clinic frightened and confused 5 years ago, two protesters promised to help her through her pregnancy and with her baby. The promises never materialized. The Roe decision needs support to continue to survive and to keep illegal abortion performed by "back-alley butchers" a thing of the past.
Publication Year: 1999
Publication Date: 1999-02-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['pubmed']
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