it was 1972. i just graduated hs in a very small iowa town and i had earned a full scholarship to go off to college in the fall. i worked that summer walking beans, sick every morning. oh no. my period didn’t come! i was so fortunate to have my sister & my brother in law, who drove me to kansas city to have an abortion. i owe my oldest sister to this day for helping me pay the $400 to the clinic that was clean and safe and encouraging. there was no shame, no scorn, no guilt. it was a positive, forward-thinking decision by me, for me and my family to plan. life would have been limited to that town with the other girls who are still there bearing mundane lives and making their own daughters repeat their decisions to have children, no matter what.