In 1979, abortions had been legal for six years. I was 19 and at college 1200 miles from my mother and baby sister. They were barely surviving. I had not seen my father for four years.

My boyfriend graduated and moved to Huntsville, Alabama. On a return visit, my birth control failed. He sent me a check for half the cost of the abortion.

In the darkness I drive to the doctor's office wondering again why the appointment had to be made after office hours. I am told to bring cash. The staff is gone and I enter the exam room. The doctor arrives and completes the procedure. Pain is there and something else. Shame enters. It enters in the words of the nurse scolding me for having sex before marriage. Shame enters again as I hand the doctor cash. He counts it to be sure I haven't cheated him and puts it in his top drawer.

"You have someone to drive you home, correct?"

"Yes," I say and walk out to my empty car.

Two days in bed. With rest, shame, and relief, I am back at work on Monday for five hours, school for five hours, homework for five hours and my day repeats. My roommate is silent. But she knows.

"Please don't tell anyone,” I ask.

I am silent. Next exam. "How many pregnancies have you had?"

"None," I lie.

Shame.

My sister knows every secret, but not this one.

Dreams fulfilled. Money flows, I buy my first house in a place I call home. It's here that I ski, swim, ride bikes, and fall in love. I'm aching to have my babies now. But first I am called to make peace. On my knees, I ask her to forgive me. I tell her it was not the right time. She understands and I am forgiven.

Our country is not a welcoming place for women who have no means, no healthcare, no family, no savings, no education. My birth control failed and I was lucky that I was able to make a legal, safe choice. But can you really call it a choice? There was no healthcare, childcare, or programs of support. Arizona was a no-choice state in 1979. No real choice to keep an unplanned baby if you were young and alone.

Today, Idaho is a forced birth, forced poverty, forced homelessness, and forced shame state. Women will continue to get abortions because they have to "figure it out by themselves." Idaho is a no-choice state.

I have thrown off my shame. I did what I had to do to survive and live the life of my choosing. Without that choice, I would have been a slave to my circumstances. A slave to the rules of society. A slave to the state. When we lose the free will of our lives, we lose our freedom. When we lose our freedom we have lost everything.