a little backstory first.
since the time that i became sexually active (14 1/2) my mother was very quick to take me to planned parenthood and get me on birth control. unfortunately i had started smoking before that age as well. my father has a condition known as deep vein thrombosis, which makes him extremely prone to blood clotting. not knowing or being able to afford hereditary conditions, the doctors and my mother decided to keep me off of traditional hormone combination birth control (i.e. the pill). as many know this drastically decreases your options of safe birth control.

i had an abortion about 2 weeks after i turned 20. i'd been on the pill since i was 16, but had forgotten to take it home around spring break and skipped 2 days. my boyfriend at the time didn't wear a condom for a few sexual encounters, and even though we used the pull-out method, i became pregnant.

i was 23 when i had my abortion. my fiance and i had been together for 6 years and had a beautiful 3 year old son. we had moved in together for the second time, after i spent 2 years at home with my parents because of financial reasons. we were living in our new place for about a year when i found out i was pregnant.

i was with the man i thought i would marry and we talked about having a child. i got pregnant, he shied away. i considered the possibility of being a single mother, but knew i wasn't in a position to do that financially or otherwise. there were protesters outside when i went to have my abortion.

i am 61 years old and had an abortion when i was a young woman. it was a legal abortion, performed in a clinic, and there were no complications.

i was 20 and part of a fundamentalist christian group that worked with underprivileged children in new york city. if i had told any of the leaders, i would have been sent back to my church and family in shame. that had happened to another young woman i knew – she was thrown out of the program, and sent back home – while the young man got a stern lecture but no consequences.