“The left has a lot of single-issue voters. Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women, that are like, ‘Listen, abortion’s it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.’ OK, a little crazy, by the way, but especially for women that are, like, past 50. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you.'” – Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Sept. 24, 2024.

I am an old woman (70-plus) and I will never need or feel the need to have an abortion.

I do, however, remember the world before Roe v. Wade and I do not want to go back there.

We need to understand that before there was Roe v. Wade, there was a two-tiered system of abortion. One tier, the privileged tier, had the options to utilize private physicians who routinely provided dilation and curettage (D&C) procedures or removed “healthy” appendices for their well-heeled patients. In states where abortion access was mediated by hospital committees, the well-connected gynecologist was able to help their patient to negotiate that process to acquire an abortion to save her health or her life. Some affluent families could afford to leave the U.S. and gain abortion services in other countries.

The other tier was a deadly, blood-soaked tier. Women on this tier, disconnected and underprivileged, often sought back alley abortions, abortions that led to infections, hemorrhages, infertility and death. Sometimes, in deep desperation, women and girls attempted to end pregnancies by drinking varieties of folk remedies or tossing themselves down flights of stairs in order to induce miscarriages. The coat hanger and the knitting needle are grim symbols of life on this tier. Anyone who worked in hospitals prior to the Roe v. Wade decision would throw up their hands and moan, “the blood! the blood! the blood!”

Yes, many a teenage girl would get sent to spend a year with her aunt and be forced to give up her illegitimate baby for adoption, but that was largely what social workers and adoption agencies called “the blue-ribbon baby” market – the market for healthy white infants. For a number of affluent white women, their parents forcing them to relinquish their babies remained lifelong unresolved trauma. Black women in similar situations often but not always discovered the benefit of the “informal” adoption market among parents, grandparents and extended kin. That practice was so noticeable that Urban League sociologist, Robert Hill identified that informal market as one of the “strengths” of Black families.

Before Roe v. Wade, the state of New York legalized abortion. Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, in her memoir “Unbought and Unbossed,” pointed out that an important health statistic – the gravid mother death rate – plummeted and practically disappeared once abortion in New York was legalized. That datum solidified her position as a pro-choice congresswoman and presidential candidate.

Those of us like myself who are old enough to remember the pre-Roe days know that policies that kill women create ripples of pain throughout families, communities and society.

Abortion needs to be legal, safe and private. Let us be pro-life in making sure that women survive and receive the total package of health care necessary for the quality of life that makes possible fully supported healthy parenthood by choice and the survival of every child who draws breath in this world.