The Very Personal Reason I've Started This Substack on Abortion

I am starting this Substack in honor of my mother, Tanya. My mother, who was full of energy and a proud feminist passed away 16 years ago, long before her time after a fierce battle with cancer.

My Mother Tanya

She fought to live every single day and I know that she would want me to be fighting every day now for the reproductive rights of my daughters and for the women of this country. 

That’s because she knew how necessary it was for women to have the right to control their own reproductive functions in order to be equal members of society.

She knew, because she grew up in an era when she and every other female on the planet was a second class citizen or worse. 

She was born in 1935, the 2nd of three children. Her siblings were boys and she had a father who didn’t believe that girls should go to college. She pleaded with him but my grandfather was adamant - girls didn’t go to college though her brothers could.

She was stuck in a 1950s box. The only acceptable career options for women were teacher, secretary or nurse. She chose Teacher’s College.

She married at 19 - to escape her father’s house she once confided in me. However, since there was no reliable birth control she accidentally became pregnant while my dad was still in law school. I was that unexpected baby.

She was furious when the school principal forced her to quit her teaching job once her pregnancy began to show. But that’s what happened to female teachers in the 1950’s. It was considered ‘unseemly’ for students to see their teacher with a visible bump.

Of course, effective birth control wasn’t the only thing unavailable to women at that time. 

Abortions were illegal.

And  - god forbid - if an unmarried woman accidentally became pregnant. Her ‘reputation’ was ruined. She was ‘used’,’ soiled goods’,’a tramp’, with little possibility of ever being able to “find” a husband.

That’s why so many women desperately sought dangerous, illegal ‘back alley’ abortions in order to end their ‘life ruining’ pregnancies. My mother knew young women who died from infections that raged through their bodies because they were too terrified to tell their parents or doctors about what they had resorted to doing.

She knew others who were brave or lucky enough to get to a ‘real’ doctor in time after an illegal or botched abortion, and their lives were saved, but not their fertility.

They would never be able to bear children.

No surprise that my mother celebrated when the pill first became available in 1960. I was just a toddler but I remember as a teenager she talked about how it had changed her life and the lives of her friends. Finally, they had effective control over whether they would have another baby. I remember seeing the round silver pill packs in her bathroom and how she carefully remembered taking her cherished birth control every day.

That pill represented freedom to her.. It gave my mother an agency over her life that she had never had before with a controlling father and a husband who could live his own best life outside of the home with a successful career and girlfriends on the side.

When Roe v Wade made abortion legal in the US in 1973, she was vocally excited but so frustrated that it was still a crime to terminate a pregnancy in Canada where we lived. Abortion finally became legal in my native country in 1988 after a battle which courageous OBGYN Dr Henry Morgentaler fought all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court on behalf of his patients. His efforts, at last, forced the justices to rule that abortion was a Canadian woman’s Constitutional right.

Literally, the whole country was dancing in the streets after that long -awaited ruling.

That’s why my mother would be horrified and devastated by Donald Trump’s Supreme Court slamming the door on women again after 50 years of reproductive choice, when they overturned Roe V Wade in June 2022.

But that shocking ruling was just the start of this new assault on women’s reproductive freedom in America, where I have now lived for decades and where three of my mother’s granddaughters are citizens.

It’s time to say it clearly and simply  - we are in the midst of a full fledged multi - front war on women.

When women once again don’t have the same decision making rights over their bodily functions as men, they are not equal.

When Republican legislators can force women to carry doomed pregnancies to term, when they can mandate that incest, rape victims and children must continue their pregnancies, when they can dictate that an until - then healthy woman must be close to death to get a legal abortion  and whoops, if she doesn’t make it, then - oh well - we are not equal.

When women suffering miscarriages are turned away from hospital care while they bleed out in parking lots or develop life threatening sepsis infections, we are no longer equal citizens in America.

Twenty-one ‘Red’ states are now dictating to American women that they can not have abortions - they must carry government - mandated pregnancies to term. Fertilized eggs have gained equal rights.

Women have lost theirs. 

Got that - American women in 21 states are no longer equal citizens. They have second class status. They have lost decision - making control over their bodies.

But worse - If Donald Trump is elected president, there is no question that abortion will end in every single state - Red or Blue.. Every single one of us women will be second class again, after just 50 odd years as equals.

Considering all of this,  my mom would say to the women of this country - ‘wake up. You are under attack.’

And it’s not just about having forced births. That’s just the start.

They want to put you back in ‘your place’.

The ‘place’ that women were in for centuries - with no control over their bodies, their finances, their hopes and dreams - any of it.

Since the 1960’s women have liberated themselves from ‘that place’ after hard won fights. Now we go to college, we have our own bank accounts, we enjoy careers, we buy homes, we start businesses ( all of which my mom couldn’t do)  and until 2 years ago WE all decided when we were ready to get pregnant and have a family.

But there are powerful people in this country that don’t like our liberation one bit and they have the full force of the Republican party behind them.

My mom always told me that the reason that men- and some women - opposed abortion, and even birth control - was not about concern for tiny embryos. That was only an excuse.

Their real agenda was to control women. If women couldn’t decide when or whether they would bear children, then how could they build careers and lives outside of the home. And if they couldn’t have jobs, then they couldn’t have their own independent sources of income.

And if you don’t have your own money - you are trapped.

She hated as a housewife having to ask my father for money for everything she needed - whether it was to buy groceries, get shoes for the kids or buy a dress. She finally negotiated to get a small ‘allowance’ from him, as if she were a child.

Of course, he had a dashing Mercedes 450 SL to tool around town while she had to justify every dollar to run the family household and take care of us. 

Now, I ask all of today’s modern young women bemoaning the difficulties of juggling careers and kids and longing to be “trad wives”, take a moment to appreciate that you still have the choice now to have that career or to be a stay-at-home mom. 

But you can’t take that choice for granted.

Just as it took 50 years for the anti abortion crowd to chip away at legal abortion and to get a compliant president - Trump - to put enough right wing justices on the Supreme Court to” kill” Roe, they will keep taking aim at rights that you thought were guaranteed.

And they are so emboldened and euphoric over their abortion success, that they are done with ‘chipping.” They are ready to shred your rights with a jackhammer.

Contraception - which anti abortionists now claim causes abortions - is next on the chopping block.

Just recently, Donald Trump announced that if elected as president he’ll look at policies that will restrict access to contraception.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have already hinted that they are drooling at the prospect of ending the right to contraception.

And yes, I can guarantee you that they are coming for IVF after that. 

Alabama already tried it and failed for the moment. But GOP Senators Ted Cruz and Katie Britt have now introduced a misleading ‘IVF Protection Act’, which doesn’t actually protect it. In reality, it provides cover to states so they can virtually ban IVF under the guise of ‘health and safety’ measures. 

Trump bragged repeatedly during his 2024 campaign about how proud he is of  ending Roe V Wade.

Now he’s itching to do more. He’s said that he is absolutely fine with states tracking women’s pregnancies in their databases and he’s A OK with states prosecuting women who have abortions.

In fact, he is giving the green light to states that want to keep criminalizing every single aspect of abortion that they can think of.

All of this is why my mom would want me to launch this SubStack - to join with others who have been raising the red alarm about what abortion bans mean and what they are doing to all of us.

She herself would have fought back kicking and screaming if she was being forced back into the Dark Ages for women.

I refuse to go silent and sit silently while Republicans in state legislatures act like rabid dogs with the bone of abortion in their teeth.

These Republican state legislators haven’t just banned abortions and threatened doctors with jail terms of up to 99 years in prison, they have deliberately written their bans so vaguely that physicians don’t know at what point they can even legally intervene to save the life of a pregnant woman who desperately needs an abortion .

So they have to sit and wait until she is dying.

I interviewed Texan tech exec Amanda Zurawski, who almost died twice after doctors refused to remove her non viable fetus from her uterus, after her water broke at 18 weeks. She was forced to go home until her body was ravaged by sepsis before doctors believed they could legally save her with an abortion.

Tragically by then, so much damage had been done to her reproductive organs - her uterus had collapsed and her fallopian tubes were closed from scarring caused by sepsis - that she will never be able to bear a child again. 

A child that she desperately wants. Had desperately wanted. 

I’ve been in touch in the past couple of days with a husband whose wife miscarried in Texas after the end of her first trimester. The couple was distraught that they were losing a baby they were thrilled to be having.

But as his wife suffered from horrendous cramping and bleeding she was refused care at two hospitals, even after doctors confirmed that her fetus was dead.

Only when she ended up bleeding and unconscious on the family’s bathroom floor, could get  the healthcare she needed in Texas. 

And that’s because the ER doctors she saw, feared they would be arrested and lose their medical licences for helping her.

You can’t tell me that either of these women had ‘equal rights’ anymore. No, they are casualties of this vicious American war on women.

And these are just two examples of what is happening all over Red states.

Want more?

Republicans in states from Tennessee to Indiana have refused to allow abortions for rape and incest victims, even when the victims are children as young as 10 years-old.

They have passed laws making it a crime to provide information to women on how to access an abortion in a non ‘restricted’ state. They have passed laws making it a crime to assist a pregnant minor who has to leave an abortion ban state to access the procedure, unless it’s a parent who accompanies them.

Too bad if the minor has unsympathetic or abusive parents or parents who believe she should be punished for her transgression, even if she was raped.

Republican Attorney Generals are licking their lips trying to find ways to track and prosecute women who leave their states to get an abortion. They then want to charge abortion providers in Blue states with felonies for providing abortions to their own Red state residents.

They have asked the Supreme Court to ban mifepristone - one of the two currently legal abortion pills, which are used in 63 % of abortions in America today.

The Republican governor of Louisiana has signed legislation classifying both abortion drugs - mifepristone and misoprostol, as controlled substances with jail time as a penalty for possessing them without a valid prescription.

No word yet on what exactly will be considered a valid prescription ie whether an out of state doctor’s prescription is ‘valid’.

And FYI - both drugs are extraordinarily safe. They are not narcotics or addictive.

It sure makes you wonder why Republican state Attorney Generals and state legislators have so much time to spend scheming on how they can potentially jail doctors or women in their states if they dare to terminate a pregnancy. 

Don’t they have any actual crime in their states? No burglars? No murders? to keep them busy. Oh, they have non existent voter fraud to endlessly investigate, but that’s a story for someone else’s Substack.

My mother would tell you that the abortion situation in America today is actually far worse than when it used to be illegal in her day. That’s because prosecutors weren’t hellbent on finding and jailing every single doctor who provided an abortion to save the health of the mother. 

There were doctors in the 1940’s and ‘50s who would do that… quietly.

She also wasn’t living in a time where a 50 year established right was taken away.

But that’s where we are today.

So please don’t stick your heads in the sand.

A warning -  if Donald Trump is elected, the lives of every person capable of getting pregnant will be endangered. Actually, even women in menopause will need to fear for their health and lives too.

Trump has a plan for governing and it’s called Project 2025. It details how he will be able to unilaterally end abortion just by enforcing an 1873 law called The Comstock Act, which is still on the books. Using The Comstock Act, he’ll be able to ban the distribution of abortion pills plus any surgical equipment used in abortions and also in miscarriages, throughout the US. 

This is surgical equipment that is also used in routine gynecological exams that all of us women get every year to check for cancers, cysts and fibroids.

We’ll all be in trouble.

So don’t think you are safe in a Blue state if he’s elected.

That’s why I’ll be writing this Substack to spread the word about the threat to every woman’s reproductive freedom and health. My mom would want me too.

Today, about 25 million women of child- bearing age live in the 21 abortion ban states. Millions more mothers, sisters, husbands, boyfriends, brothers, partners, grandparents and friends love and care about these women.

After November, it could be 100% of us deprived of reproductive healthcare. 100% of us will be second class citizens.

In this Substack, I will be telling the stories of women who had to flee their states for abortions and shared their experiences with me. I will also be posting interviews I’ve conducted with political leaders and candidates who are speaking out on reproductive rights.

I will be sharing news and my opinions with you.

Mostly, I’ll be focused on reproductive freedom, but because the assaults on abortion are so linked to the issue of democracy today here in America, I will sometimes write about the huge looming threat to many freedoms and to democracy itself, that Trump and his MAGA Republican party present.

I know that many women and men don’t think they will be ‘affected’ by either the abortion bans or GOP plans to trade in our democracy for a MAGA dictatorship.

They aren’t paying any attention at all to what has transpired and how their American Dream will be dust if they choose Trump on their ballot.

So that’s why I’ll be writing  and kicking and screaming - to add one more voice to those who are alerting you to the very real danger.

My mom would approve.

I hope that you will subscribe, ‘Like’ and share some of the stories I post. This will be a free Substack and I will contribute weekly.

I look forward to any and all of your comments and feedback.

Thank you for reading some or all of this.

Bonnie