When Roe v Wade was decided in 1973 I was a law student with a 3-year-old son. I heard about the decision on the radio. I arrived in class a little early, and found a few men already there, talking sports. No women – there were only ten of us in the class of 1975. I told them about the monumental, lives-changing decision. They resumed talking sports.
We were both very young
In 1989 Governor Bob Martinez of Florida called a special session of the legislature to pass a bill based on the Missouri law which the US Supreme Court had just upheld in the Webster case, permitting abortion regulation in the second trimester of pregnancy, beyond what Roe would allow. I was part of Voices for Choice, a group hastily formed by Representative Elaine Gordon to defeat the Governor’s bill. I spoke to any group that was interested, explaining Roe, Webster, and the impact on women and families of abortion restrictions.
Elaine Gordon image at floridamemory.com
I was driving to Tallahassee for a meeting of the group when I pieced together recent changes in my body, suddenly realized I was pregnant, and remembered the morning weeks before when I had found my diaphragm in the shower – I had failed to put it in. Walking to the parking lot after the meeting, still in shock, I told Elaine, a warm, motherly woman and a fierce feminist, who gave me a sympathetic hug. After nineteen years of raising my son alone, I wasn’t willing to start over again, and I had an abortion.
I have not been politically active for a while – some door to door work, a couple of demonstrations. https://elizabethmccullochauthor.com/pro-abortion/ On May 4, 2022 I was driving on the interstate again as I listened to interviews about the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Almost fifty years after Roe it seems that we are about to go back to where we started. My granddaughter called me from college in Georgia, horrified by the Georgia law that is waiting in the wings for Roe to disappear: no abortion after six weeks pregnancy, no exception for rape or incest. I briefly explained the situation and asked her again to please, please, PLEASE register to vote. She promised it’s the first thing she’ll do when she gets home.
The forces that have apparently succeeded in ending Roe have their sights set more broadly on other issues; we are going to be fighting all over again. The fight for women’s rights and other justice issues has continued without me; preoccupied with children, loss, aging, and writing, I haven’t done much in recent years. Yesterday I was completely disheartened, but despair is self-indulgent, and depressing as hell. I’ll probably leave demonstrations to others with more energy than I; but networks are organizing to help women get access to abortion, and others are working furiously for the mid-term elections. I will work with the latter and contribute money to the former. It’s time once again to light a candle and curse the darkness.
image by tuca bianca at pexels.com