Not exactly the magazine cover I dreamt about as a teenager...

Not exactly the "A-list" I dreamt about, either...

But a cover and story I'm proud to be a part of...



If not for my right to do with my body as I saw fit, my life would, most likely, have ended by my own hand 22 years ago. I questioned myself for a long time...was it really a rape? Or had I played some stupid game and come out the loser?

No.
It. Was. Rape.
And I would not let him rape me for the term of a pregnancy OR for the rest of my life. My life is MINE.

I am forever grateful that I was allowed to make things right...to continue my life the way I intended. He took a lot of things from me that night, but he couldn't take that.

I thought about typing his name. Hoping that he, or someone he knows, would see it. But its a common name. And he knows what he did. Nothing I type now will change that.

I have never felt the urge to speak or write about this before....until a few months ago, when I got an email from Ms. Magazine with a request for women who have had abortions to give their names publicly. It was an impulse. One that I couldn't deny.

I emailed them my name.

A few weeks later, I got a phonecall to confirm all the information I had provided. I told the woman on the other end..."Thanks. I feel like I can let it go now." She thought I meant guilt over the abortion, and told me I had nothing to be ahamed of...but she misunderstood. That is one decision I will NEVER regret making.

What I let go of that day was a secret. A secret, that if left untold, could put my daughter in the same postion I was in all those years ago. Alone and scared. I have to make sure that won't happen to her.

We haven't yet had the conversation...I'm still working it out in my mind, and waiting for the right time...for when she is able to wrap her mind around it. She already knows what I think of a women's right to choose, she just doesn't know that I know about tough choices, firsthand. She is smart, I imagine she has already figured it out. My hope is that she will never have to make such a choice, but that if she ever has to, she can.