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I first became aware of abortion in the 1950s when I was 11 or 12 years old. My beloved aunt had passed away and my mother and I were on our way to her funeral.

My aunt was married to an alcoholic who occasionally worked as a handyman. Back then, particularly for women of my aunt's era, divorce was almost unheard of. A divorced woman was unlikely to find a decent job. Life was hard with the alcoholic handyman, but would have been even worse without him.

She was a very religious woman, a Christian. She believed that any church, synagogue, or mosque that had been consecrated to God was a place that she could go to and pray when she felt the need to do so. She believed that the theological differences were insignificant, and a place either was or wasn't a house of God.

She also made the best peach ice cream I've ever tasted, and it was at her table that I learned to eat, and love, fried rabbit. If she hadn't raised rabbits, there would rarely have been meat for dinner in her home.

She had one child who grew up, got married, had a son, then abandoned her son and husband, who flew the coop shortly thereafter. My aunt raised her grandson and never indicated, in my presence at least, any resentment for the extra burden that had been placed on her. She adored him and was very proud of him.

On the way to her funeral, I asked why she hadn't had other children. Mom explained that because they were so poor and my uncle could not be counted on for any help or support, if my aunt suspected she was pregnant, she got rid of the baby. When I asked how, I learned that she'd used a knitting needle or coat hanger usually. She knew that she could never provide for another child and she would not bring one into this world to starve or die of an illness that she would not be able to afford to have treated.

My aunt did not invent her methods of getting rid of unwanted pregnancies. They have been passed on from one generation to another, probably since the earliest women figured out how they got pregnant, and how they could get un-pregnant. Birth control, as we know it today, was not available and what was available in the first half of the 20th century was not reliable.

When I was a few years older, pregnant girls whose families could afford it were sent away to a "private school" a home for unwed mothers. They stayed until the baby was delivered and, usually, had been signed over for adoption. Everyone knew where she'd been and why she was there and the young mother and her family were

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