The abortion issue and the impending loss of legal access.

[hamsterjill]

I’m curious as to the makeup of DU. Will you indulge me and take this poll, please?

I question whether people who have always lived with access to safe and legal abortions actually understand what is at stake - simply because of their having always had access. This is not a slight to the younger ones; just human nature.

Those of us old enough to remember days before abortion was legal seem to have more invested.

Thank you.

16 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Time expired
	I was born BEFORE Roe v. Wade was law.
	14 (88%)
	I was born AFTER Roe v. Wade was law.
	2 (13%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I was out of college by the time Roe v. Wade was decided,

and I knew of a couple of people who had to go to another state to get abortions. There was a kind of underground railroad to a doctor in (I think?) South Dakota who would do them, but they were illegal, of course. Roe v. Wade was a really big deal. I remember it very well - what sticks in my mind was seeing the headline in a street corner newspaper box and feeling this great sense of relief.

[bearsfootball516]

2. 1992 over here, I turn 28 on November 5.

[hamsterjill]

4. Thank you.

May I ask your thoughts on the loss of safe and legal access? I’m not trying to put you on the spot, I’m genuinely curious how younger voters feel about this.

I’m a woman who is 61 and this issue is truly paramount to me, but I see some posts on DU that make me believe not everyone is as concerned. An attitude of “what can we do anyway, so let it go.”

I understand we may have no choice but I’m not willing to go down without one HELL of a fight. Do younger voters feel the same? Do they understand the gravity?

Thank you much for any insight you’d be willing to share.

[bearsfootball516]

11. It's a scary, heavy thought for my age demographic.

My wife is two years younger than me at 26 and on birth control. She wouldn't herself have an abortion, but believes that women should have the right should they choose. It's a belief that's widely shared among others who are our age. I can honestly say that it feels like for the first time, people my age are invested in voting this November.

[hamsterjill]

12. Sincerely, thank you.

Your response gives me some hope and some peace. I appreciate it.

[niyad]

5. An early happy birthday, and first Saturn return. Here is to you having great cause to celebrate.

[bearsfootball516]

13. Thank you!!

[niyad]

3. I was in college when it came down. I knew a number of women who went to CA, where it was

legal. I also knew of two do-it- yourself ears. Fortunately, they both survived. Then I learned of various herbal helpers.

[smirkymonkey]

6. Me and all of my siblings were born before Roe v. Wade became law.

Two are half siblings. My mother died in childbirth with my brother. Not that she would have ever aborted him, he was a wanted child. This was because of negligence on the part of her obstetrician. However, that is still one of the reasons that I am so strongly Pro-choice.

Childbirth can still be more dangerous for women than abortions. Women still die in childbirth every day and there are still politicians out there who would outlaw abortion even if the mother's life was at risk. We must never let this be overturned.

[MiniMe]

7. I figure I'm lucky

I never needed abortion services, but they were available if I did. Legislation never stopped abortion, it just sent it to back alleys and a lot of girls/women lost the ability to have kids. If they do away with abortion now, it won't stop it, it will just make it much more dangerous for women

[Coventina]

8. My mother got pregnant with me as an unmarried, professional woman.

When she went to see her ob/gyn to confirm the pregnancy, he offered to help her get an abortion.

He could arrange to fly her to Japan, where abortion has always been legal, and not a religious issue, for a "vacation."
(This was in Seattle, which has always had strong ties to Japan).

However, my mother was a bible-thumping, holy-roller and was deeply offended by the offer.'

I'm sure the gentleman doctor in question has long since passed, but I think of him kindly, for being there for women.

[Greybnk48]

9. The bad old days, when rape was seldom prosecuted.

The rape laws were based on the sexual history of the victim.

[Shrike47]

10. I had pre-eclampsia, twice. Abortion became legal between those two pregnancies. I didn't abort but

I was so happy I had the option. Death was not a pleasant thought. (The second pregnancy occurred at a time when my doctors were assuring me I could not get pregnant. Hah.)

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. Yes, I had a friend who had pre-eclampsia really bad

They were unable to get her blood pressure under control with medication and her doctor suggested abortion at 20 weeks. She said absolutely not. Her choice. She went into labor at 36 weeks and had a stroke shortly after giving birth. She was 32.

[IcyPeas]

14. January 22, 1973 is the day it was decided

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roe-v-wade

Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion, is decided on January 22, 1973. The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The legal precedent for the decision was rooted in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy involving medical procedures.

Despite opponents’ characterization of the decision, it was not the first time that abortion became a legal procedure in the United States. For most of the country’s first 100 years, abortion as we know it today was not a criminal offense.

In the 1700s and early 1800s, the word “abortion” referred only to the termination of a pregnancy after “quickening,” the time when the fetus first began to make noticeable movements. The induced ending of a pregnancy before this point did not even have a name–but not because it was uncommon. Women in the 1700s often took drugs to end their unwanted pregnancies.

In 1827, though, Illinois passed a law that made the use of abortion drugs punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment. Although other states followed the Illinois example, advertising for “Female Monthly Pills,” as they were known, was still common through the middle of the 19th century.

Abortion itself only became a serious criminal offense in the period between 1860 and 1880. And the criminalization of abortion did not result from moral outrage. The roots of the new law came from the newly established physicians’ trade organization, the American Medical Association. Doctors decided that abortion practitioners were unwanted competition and went about eliminating that competition. The Catholic Church joined the doctors in condemning the practice.

[Claire Oh Nette]

16. late 60s

...born to high school sweethearts, a high school valedictorian now a sophomore in college (her) and one a four sport all state athlete, a senior (him).

Small town, West Virginia.

They planned to marry after school. A librarian, and a coach....

But I came along. He gave up his baseball scholarship to WVU to get a job so he could man up.
She left with her parents on a Myrtle Beach vacation in June, and then she went away...to stay with her grandmother, out of state, until time to go into the home for unwed mothers.

Once upon a time, babies like me were a commodity. The same people who decry abortion also INSISTED that middle class white girls and young women who found themselves pregnant give their babies away. These same people no longer adopt from the US, but from overseas. because Jesus???

Roe v Wade changed the market for babies: the supply of healthy white infants born to unwed mothers became the children of single mothers.

Pre-Roe, and this is what the generations after mine (Gen X) did not now about, all the stte by state abortion restrictions did was create dead women.

Fun fact: I had a heart attack at 24. (much easier to get over when you are young and healthy. Just sayin') which was "typically fatal in labor and delivery." I'm kind of why there are heart attack warnings on birth control. These Dominionists already conflate abortificient with contraception, and the attacks on birth control are already happening. WOmen's reproductive health is the lens through which I studied American History.

So, early on, I knew there'd be no babies for me. My super Christianist NW Iowa in-laws do not like when I ask them what I should do in the event Mr. Oh Nette and I conceived....

This is why Roe matters on a much, much grander scale.

vote 'em out

[SharonClark]

17. I was in college and active in the women's

movement so it was a big deal. The only person I knew personally who had an abortion shortly after was the younger sister of a high school friend. Her very Catholic, mass every morning, mother took her to get the abortion. The same mother who had disowned her eldest daughter for marrying a divorced man. Strange times.

[roamer65]

18. A lot has changed since Roe v Wade in 1973.

1). Canada fully legalized abortion in 1988.
2). Many states have codified Roe v Wade and will have clinics near their borders.

And the biggest one...

3). There are now multiple abortion drugs that can be mail ordered.

Individual states can try to outlaw it, but good luck on enforcing it.