I was a nursing student and then in practice in the late '50s and early '60s. I saw the ravages to health, well-being and life that came with women having NO choice but to go to some back-street abortionist or attempt to abort themselves. I saw women who were so badly infected that they nearly or did lose their lives, or at least ended up sterile.
I also saw the obscene practice of getting a "psychiatric consultation" where the result was a woman being diagnosed as having mental illness in order to have a "legal" abortion. Then, the mental illness label was on her record forever.
I saw women who were unable to terminate a pregnancy, go through with it, and end up being shunned, derided and shamed in their communities. Some of those women ended up being the ones whose babies were taken from them and adopted out with no recourse -- to a "good" family.
Women without choice are victims in so many ways; it is unconscionable.
