Share Your Story or Your Mother's Story about the Challenges of Accessing Birth Control
It's been nearly fifty years since the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Connecticut v Griswold striking down state bans on birth control. Since then, contraception has become so central to women's lives that 98 percent of women use it at some point during our reproductive years. Yet we still see politicians re-litigating accessible, affordable contraception and other women's health needs.
Have you ever asked your mom, aunt, grandmother, or another loved one in your life what challenges she had gaining access to birth control? We want to hear the stories!
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Your Stories
Michael Toth
Treasure Coast, Florida,
This had to be back in the late 1960's. A friend of mine learned she had become pregnant. Her parents were already in their 70's and she was a teenager. Her father would have treated her cruelly, and her mother would have stood by as she had had a series of electrochock procedures that left her an acquiescent almost mute person. She had a friend who would go along to tend to her, and I and my friend Bob would take Bob's car and drive her to New York City so that she could have an abortion.This wasn't possible in Ohio either because they didn't do abortions in Ohio at that time, or because of her age she could not get one. We drove to NYC, she had her abortion and we drove back. We almost died in a car accident as we had a blow out at high speed in one of the tires of the car on the highway. My friend Bob was incredible in his handling of that situation behind the wheel. People are going to have to make trips like this, or risk back alley abortions with hangars again because of these absurd laws.
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Sandra Cole
Vancouver, WA,
My parents were married in 1946. They had 6 children in as many years because they had not knowledge or education about birth control. It wasn't talked about. I don't think any of us were planned. I know my youngest sister was born AFTER a vasectomy. (My father was complaining at work about what would he do if they had another he couldn't support, and a coworker suggested the procedure.) In earlier times women and children died at a much higher rate than adult men, partly because pregnancy and childbirth were such a serious health risk. Medicine and sanitation have advanced a lot since then, but we do NOT need to return to the time when repeated pregnancies and complications of pregnancy destroy a woman's health, and the challenge of supporting a large family impoverishes a nation.
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Linda
Sunnyvale, CA,
I was told by my mother that her mother had obtained, on several occasions, something at the drugstore to cause an abortion. They had a family with 5 children, and could barely make ends meet. There was no birth control at the time, at least not of the woman's choice or ability to obtain. I thank God for Margaret Sanger. And all the crusading, pioneer women in the pro-choice movement. No one chooses abortion lightly, like buying a new scarf or lipstick. I find it the height of hypocrisy and arrogance that, *still,* we have men leading the charge against choice. This is so reactionary and intense that it's frightening. And they're even taking on anti--contraception as a rallying standard! For shame. Once more, exploiting and blaming women alone, as though there were no males involved. Let every man who wants no children get a vasectomy. This is such a firestorm of an issue--and I'd thought it settled decades ago...
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PollyTarpley
Poulsbo, WA, Retired
After my first child was born, at Yale-New Haven Hospital in November, 1957, I went back to my OB for my 6-wks checkup. At that time, she asked if I intended to use birth control. When I said yes, she explained that, as it wasn't yet legal in Connecticut, my choices were two. I could make the trip to New York, to a Margaret Sanger clinic there, or she could phone in a prescription for a diaphragm to a friendly local pharmacy. As I opted for the second, I was sent to a specific drugstore, with instructions to go to the back, pharmacy counter, and ask for a specific person. Said person appeared, I showed my ID, and paid for and received the diaphragm. Being from the West Coast, this was a real eye-oopening experience for me, which I've never forgotten!
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