When I was 17, in my senior year of high school, caught up in planning for college, I got pregnant.
My best friend had set me up with her boyfriend’s buddy, and I had gone out with him for a few months. He was a bit older (22) and, I learned from my friend, a virgin. I wasn’t, and I guess – as lame as this sounds – I felt sorry for him. Anyway, we had sex, just once, we didn’t use birth control, and I got pregnant. Of course I’m sorry that I didn’t use birth control, but I guess I had that feeling of invulnerability that young people often have …
The guy was very honorable about it. He offered to marry me. I didn’t even consider the possibility. Although he was a nice enough guy, I didn’t love him, we had little in common, and I had plans for my life.
So I called Planned Parenthood, got the names of some providers, and had an early-term abortion. I ended up going out of state, driving over the border (my best friend went with me), because it was cheaper there.
And I went on, more careful from then on, and have had the life, more or less, that I wanted and planned. I am so glad that I was able to have a legal abortion (and that I was able to afford one), and I so hope that women in the U.S. never lose that right (and that women elsewhere don’t lose it or, if they don’t have it, gain it.) I had no qualms about having the abortion at the time, and I have had none since. I knew that it was the right thing for me, and that I would never regret it. And I never have.
