The news that Roe vs. Wade turned 34 years old today stopped me briefly in my tracks. It isn’t exactly a mile marker of an anniversary now, is it? The years rolled along, and the 10th anniversary passed, then the 20th, 25th, and 30th. But this year, I paused to consider what the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion has meant for me and other women of my generation.

I could start by writing that this 1973 decision, along with the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, dramatically altered my life. Both are examples of how government can shift and shape its citizens’ lives. The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, granted 18-year-olds the right to vote. I still remember at age 19, stepping into the voting booth at the Valley View 3rd LDS chapel in suburban Salt Lake City, and casting my first presidential vote. I got to do that two full years earlier than my parents did, when they each voted at age 21 for Harry Truman. I was a whole three years younger than them. I felt proud, sublime, superior.

I recall — vaguely — the heated debate over whether teenagers should be allowed to vote. Mostly I remember the thinking of the pro-amendment people, and how persuasive their arguments were. I was only 13 or 14 during the ratification process. The Vietnam War was raging. One of the strongest points for ratification went like this: If we’re old enough to fight and die in a war, we’re old enough to vote for the politicians who keep sending us there.

And so I helped elect Jimmy Carter in 1976 to the U.S. presidency.

As for the ruling that legalized abortion, I can say this: I’ve never had an abortion, and thankfully, I’ve never been in a position to even consider one. I was legally married when both my children were conceived and born. I was married to their father, and I could depend on him to help nurture and raise them. Both babies were healthy, born at full-term with beating hearts and working lungs. Prenatal tests showed nothing to worry about.

The point being, I was never forced by circumstances, poor judgment in men or the random cruelty of genetics into weighing the costs and benefits of an unintended or difficult pregnancy. My babies’ lives and long-term health were never in question. And I, fortunately, came through those nine months of pregnancy healthy as a horse.

But then I also had great luck to grow up with Roe as the backstory to my reproductive life. I was 15 years old when Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the groundbreaking majority opinion in Roe. I may have never considered having an abortion, but I do know that Roe helped generate more choices in birth control for women. It also forced men and women to talk more freely about sex and its consequences. And no matter what a person thinks about abortion, these are side benefits of a terribly difficult issue.

Tte new Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate introduced legislation on January 4 that would increase contraception options in this country. Majority Leader Harry Reid is sponsoring the “Prevention First Act.” Among other things, the bill would require insurance companies to cover all forms of FDA-approved prescription contraception for women and make the “morning after” emergency contraception pill more widely available to American women.

In the “let’s all get along” version of the 2007 Congress, Reid’s legislation is supposed to be getting bipartisan support. You gotta hope. Because why would anyone who professes to be anti-abortion not come down in every way on the side of better and more comprehensive birth control measures? Fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions, right?

I’ll be 50 next year. If I have the good fortune to survive another 50 years, I hope it’s in an atmosphere of every possible family planning option for women. I’ll be too old to worry about it myself. But still, it will matter. Having options has made all the difference in my own life.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 8:37 pm and is filed under All, Politics, Community, Family, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.