Eighteen years ago, I was pregnant with my second child. I was happily married, financially secure, and desperately wanted this child.

I went for my 20 week ultrasound and received devastating news. There was something wrong with my little boy. I transferred to the best maternal fetal hospital in the world. Our baby suffered from fetal hydrops. The battery of tests showed that he’d never make it to delivery.

I was told on Christmas Eve that I would need an abortion. My local hospital didn’t provide abortion services, so I had to go to Boston. When I arrived, I had to pass through a wall of picketers. They carried signs telling me I was a murderer and were so righteous in their condemnation.

As I sat in the prep room waiting for my turn, I could hear the doctor speaking to the ten other patients through the thin curtains. Every single one had the same story: Trisomy 18, spina bifida, and the list goes on.

None of them were carrying healthy babies. Every woman there was experiencing profound pain. Every one of them would have had to carry their dead or dying baby until natural delivery in a pre-Roe v. Wade world. Abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor. The idea that politicians could take that decision away is just so abhorrent.