Monday, January 28, 2008

20 years ago today

Thinking about what I would write in commemoration of the day abortion became legal in Canada, I googled "abortion stories", and got 250,000 hits.
That's way too many to write about, and anyway, the abortion stories I care about are the ones involving women I know who have had an abortion.
And here's my first observation. If these women hadn't had the inherent right to make their own choice about abortion, then who else would? Would a judge or a parent or a doctor or a clergyman or a husband or a boyfriend or a politician have made a better choice than the women themselves did? No, of course not -- the choice was theirs.
And here's my second observation. Each of their circumstances was unique, each had her own reasons for choosing abortion instead of continuing the pregnancy, each of their stories was a personal one. So theirs are not "abortion stories" but rather "women's stories". Sometimes women's stories include abortion.

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