In 1965, I was in junior college, unmarried, and poor, with no prospects, interests in, or capabilities for, raising a child. It was a month before I admitted to myself that a rubber had to have failed during intercourse somewhere along the line. My Catholic boyfriend pretty much left things up to me, but even if he had protested or offered to marry me, my personal decision about MY pregnancy was instinctive from the first.

I wanted an abortion. I needed an abortion. And I would get myself an abortion somehow, no matter what.

I had three choices in 1965. Try to get an abortion from a local back-alley abortionist; try to find a local physician who would quietly and discreetly eliminate my problem for a very large fee; or, leave the country and get an abortion outside the U.S. also for a fee.

Actually finding someone to perform the abortion took me a second month of frantic calling, asking, and searching -- without my (disapproving) family or authorities finding out. A third month was spend accumulating and borrowing the money; connecting with a trusted friend in L.A.; and, making arrangements to drive across the border into Tijuana to have the abortion. By the time my friends and I got to the Paris Clinic, in Tijuana, Mexico I was about 14 weeks pregnant, but I wouldn't have cared if I was 20 weeks or more pregnant. If the trip to Mexico hadn't been possible, I would have resorted to a knitting needle or coat hanger. I know I would have.

Luckily for white, middle-class me, I had an expensive, ($650) very clean, safe, sterile abortion, performed by a pair of wonderful young physicians -- who I actually ran into in Matzatlan, 3 years later when I chaperoned one of my sister's friends down to Mexico for her abortion. I have never regretted chaperoning and encouraging other women to have their abortions before Roe vs. Wade either.

But most important of all, I have never ever regretted my own abortion. The sense of relief and happiness at knowing I was no longer pregnant was indescribable. Frankly, I am one of those people who not only approves of abortion, I actively support it as a back-up measure of birth control at every opportunity. I do not believe that embryos are humans, and I firmly believe it is insane that women should be expected to feel shameful or punish themselves for choosing to control their own reproductive capabilities and choices any way they choose.

I'm not sorry. I never have been. I never will be.