Robert's Story

I am not a woman so obviously this is not "my" abortion story. But my
mother told it to me and she is deceased and can't tell it, so I have to.

My mother was, in most respects, fairly socially conservative (though this
increasingly changed in her later years), but she was always pro-choice.
When she told this story, I knew why.

In 1938 or 1939 my mother was in college. She lived in western
Pennsylvania, and the college was in West Virginia. One of her friends at
college was a girl from her home town. The friend got pregnant, and was
terrified at this circumstance. She went to a back-alley abortionist, who
botched the procedure. The girl came to my mother, in a bad way, and asked
to be driven home so she could see her doctor. All during the
several-hours-long car trip, my mother's friend was bleeding profusely.
Mother told me that when they got home and she helped her friend out of the
car, there was blood an inch deep on the seat. The friend died soon after.
I don't think my mother ever got over this.

Robert
May 2007