In 1955, struck with polio while pregnant, Mother was finally admitted to a polio ward to give birth. Whether she or the unborn child would survive was unknown. Father, young at the time, struggled with medical quandaries such as who is more important to save, Mother or child – a philosophical problem that followed him from his childhood. His mother and two of her three sisters each adopted one boy, a whole generation of foundlings absorbed into the family. I had many conversations with Father about women’s right to choose. He was grateful for his birth mother and adopted mother’s decisions. Despite this history, Father always took the position that an abortion option was between a woman and her spirituality.

As this fundamental right has been overturned, coupled with the other health and legal ramifications of the decision, it is up to us as citizens to make our belief of self determination known in one of the most profound and simple ways – by voting.