"The law claims you have the right to an abortion, but in my case, when it came right down to it, I had to prove why I should be given the right.

A couple of years ago, while taking Dilantin as a treatment for epileptic seizures, I found out that I was pregnant. My son was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which makes his bones very fragile; this may have been caused by the Dilantin. When I found out that I was pregnant again, I was told that I would need to continue taking Dilantin if I wanted to control my epilepsy. I decided that, if I had to take the medication, I wanted to terminate the pregnancy. But my doctors gave me the story that Medicaid wouldn't pay for the abortion. They told me that if I didn't want the child, I should give it up for adoption. But there was no way I could carry a child for nine months and then give it up."

"People talk about the chipping away of Roe. It's not chips, they're chunks and they've been done quietly. The states all have worked very hard and have been successful in saying who can and who can't have abortions and where you can and can't get them. I was lucky. I was able to get one in Massachusetts, but if I had been a week or two later, I would have had to go to Kansas or California. It was crazy. It is absurd that such a basic medical need is still so unattainable for many women. Can you imagine if my husband needed a vasectomy? Would we be told, "I'm sorry you can't do it in Massachusetts." When you talk about men's reproductive rights in this context, it sounds ridiculous. But if you're a woman, it's somehow okay.

The American public needs to be reminded that reproductive freedom is not just about abortion. That's a very important piece of it, unfortunately still a controversial piece of it, but it's on a very long list of issues that affect women for their lives. Reproductive freedom means access to the most personal and important portions of a woman's life-throughout her entire life. It's about whether or not a young woman is going to finish high school; whether she will have access to sex education or contraception; whether she will be free from sexual assault and discrimination; whether or not she will have access to emergency contraception if her partner forgets to use a condom. It's about if she has access to a reputable fertility clinic if she is having problems getting pregnant; providing her with reliable information about breast cancer and cervical cancer-and affordable medical screening; it's about if her insurance company will pay for her health needs. Reproductive freedom is a continuum that starts before a woman gets her first menstrual period and continues later in life to when she may be worried about cancer or osteoporosis.

I was raised, like many Irish Catholic parochial school girls to believe that 'abortion' is not a word you say, let alone do. There's only a certain type of woman that has an abortion and that's all I really knew. When I was about 16 years old, a Planned Parenthood clinic opened up in our town. I was part of the Catholic opposition prayer group who would chant the rosary outside the clinic. I specifically remember thinking to myself back then, 'What if I had to walk through this? What would that have done for me, seeing my fellow Catholics doing that to me?' I was so bigoted back then that, after one of my closest friends in the world told me that she had an abortion, I didn't want to talk with her anymore. I just thought, 'She's so evil.'

Then reality struck my life. I realized that abortion happens to everyone, all classes, across ages, across religions, across socioeconomic lines, abortion affects women across the board in the U.S. and there is not one 'type' of woman who has an abortion. I would love to find my childhood friend now and say, 'Hey, we've got something in common. Lo and behold, you and I are alike.' We are like so many millions of women across the country who don't fit into one stereotype. We are just like your mother, daughter, sister, neighbor, or cousin. We are the human face of abortion rights. We are every woman.

As long as you can get on a plane, abortion for you will never truly be illegal. But what about the woman who lives in a trailer somewhere out in middle America, with no abortion provider for hundreds of miles, who is 17 ½ years old and wants to finish high school, who can't tell her mom, who has to go before a judge and try to get judicial bypass of the parental involvement law, who has no money to pay for an abortion, because if her dad has insurance, he's going to find out, and if he doesn't, or you don't want him to find out, you got to raise your own money. It's the folks like her who are in the middle and below the middle. They are the ones who are losing right now and who will continue to feel the true effects of the chipping away of Roe."

Monica Navarette (continued)

"For me, it was a hard decision because I wanted the child, but I was concerned with my health and the health of the fetus. I was upset and offended because it seemed as if the state was trying to make me have a baby no matter what it might do to my health or the health of my baby or my family.

I hope my case has helped make a difference, I really do. If it made a difference to change it just a little bit for somebody else down the line that is in a similar situation. Maybe it's somebody that I know, maybe somebody that I don't know. But if it makes a difference, that's what's important.

My whole ordeal has made me stronger and wiser, and more affirmative than what I was before. Affirmative in not being afraid of looking forward and to keep going and to have that motive, that initiative, to want to get through it until I get what I need done. You just have to keep knocking on doors even though they keep closing, keep knocking and keep knocking until one opens."