Opinion

• Opinion

  In a Back Alley of Tijuana

  It was 1964 in Southern California. I was 23, in a committed relationship, and even though I was using birth control, I found myself pregnant. I had vowed I would never have an abortion. Not because of religious or moral issues but because a 15-year-old high school friend of mine had died from an illegal…

  By Nancy

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  In Brazil, Abortion Is Still Illegal

  I never again had that feeling of total integration of conscience and body as at the moment it dawned on me I was pregnant. It was eerie: I found myself standing in front of the window of a very upscale baby shop, with my head turned, observing a man holding his child up in the…

  Jun 14, 2016 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  A Masked Man at a Farm Near Baltimore, Then a Happy Ending With Boxer Shorts

  The dictionary defines regret as a sense of loss, disappointment or dissatisfaction. I do not regret my abortion, the illegal one I had shortly after my 20th birthday, seven years before Roe v. Wade became law. I didn’t regret my decision then, and I don’t regret it now. I do regret the humiliation of having…

  Jun 14, 2016 | 2 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz What I learned at a Holocaust survivors’ Purim party

  

• Rob Eshman Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews

  

• Dan Perry Marking Israel’s most joyous day with anguish over the country’s future

  

• Emily Tamkin Hungary is poised to topple an authoritarian leader. American Jews have something to learn

  

• Jay Michaelson Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it. 

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Remembering My Abortion Every Yom Kippur

  My cisgender male partner of seven years and I had sex, and the condom we were using for safer sex and birth control broke. Within the hour, we called our friend who was a nurse practitioner at the Feminist Women’s Health Clinic and got a prescription for Plan B (a prescription was needed at that…

  By Stosh Cotler Jun 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Saving Lives at the University of Florida

  In June 1969, I was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary. My first “pulpit” was rabbi of the Hillel Foundation at the University of Florida. I was 26 years old and married with a three-month-old child. I grew up in Boston, intensely aware of the ideas and thinking of the Catholic Church. In retrospect, I…

  Jun 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Law Student’s Brutal Dilemma

  I was married and in my third year of law school when I had my first abortion. I wasn’t using the pill because physicians were warning women that the pill increased a woman’s chance of having breast cancer. I was using a diaphragm and spermicide. I got pregnant in the first semester of my last…

  Jun 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Double Jeopardy for One Teenager

  I am 56 years old, a wife, mother and soon-to-be grandmother. I’ve just retired from a joyful career as a teacher’s assistant in an elementary school in Georgia. This wonderful life of mine was made possible by two abortions in my teens. My first abortion was as a ninth grader. None of the adults in…

  Jun 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Not Worth a Gamble

  What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? Those four words went around in my head in the spring of 1973. I was 28 years old, wife, mother of two sons and I was pregnant. Being an only child, my dream was having a house full of kids with all the…

  Jun 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Silent No More, Forward Readers Tell Their Abortion Stories

  Inspired by the moving teen abortion tale of 1960s Chicago, told by Larry Cohler-Esses in these pages in May, many readers wrote in to tell us how the story resonated with their own experiences. So we decided to throw open our pages to share readers’ stories of the abortions in their lives. We received dozens…

  By Laura E. Adkins Jun 14, 2016 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  From Generation to Generation

  I recall sitting on the bed next to my mother during her final days, watching the Senate confirmation hearing of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. My mom commented how happy she was that she had lived to see women in such positions of power and respect, as well as how relieved she was that in her lifetime…

  Jun 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How Orlando Can Come Together To Be Symbol of Coexistence — Not Hateful Violence

  Orlando, “the City Beautiful” as it is officially known, a city known to most around the world for Walt Disney World, Harry Potter and being the place “where dreams come true” is now on the map as the site of the single largest mass murder in U.S. history. Yesterday in Orlando, a different history was…

  By Aaron Weil Jun 13, 2016 | 4 min read