Letter to the Unborn

You don’t have a father because you never existed. That is, you existed, but only as a fear. My parents missed the boat with the birds and bees. Did they think we already knew?

So, About That Time I Got Sterilized

It’s June 2018, and I’m on a quest for sterilization. Information about sterilization is like sacred text. I need to be prepared to fight, insist, again and again, about why I need to do this.

The Best Thing That Ever Happened

You can bury doubt pretty deep. But at age 57, when I buy a $90 DNA test kit, I begin to unravel the truth about my own birth. A truth that my mother might’ve taken to her grave.

The Lucky Ones: Mourka’s Story

I was 19-years-old in the fall of 1966 when my friend Barbara and I drove my two-tone 1956 Chevrolet to Baltimore, Maryland, where I was to have an illegal abortion. One afternoon, a few weeks [...]

The Lucky Ones: Betty’s Story

BY BETTY MACDONALD As an 18-year-old girl in the early fifties, I possess very little knowledge of my body or reproduction. It will be twenty years before The Supreme Court passes Roe v Wade into [...]

The Lucky Ones: Diana’s Story

BY DIANA FREID It’s 1967, I am 19 years-old, and I am pregnant. I don’t understand how this can be. I think it’s impossible to get pregnant the first time you sleep with someone. I cannot have a [...]