"A woman's decision about when and under what circumstances to bear a child is the most personal and private of matters and should be free from government intrusion.”

I wrote those words forty years ago for the Seattle Times when I was the Times' editorial page editor. The occasion was the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which preserved Roe v. Wade, but endorsed government intrusions, including lectures, and waiting periods, into a woman's decision-making process.

I had first-hand understanding of that process. Early in my newspaper career I had an abortion, which I publicly exposed for the first time in that column. It was a time when abortion was still a hush-hush matter and seldom written about openly. I knew the power of personal stories and was ready to field whatever reader reaction would follow.

My own story was a common one. I was just starting a promising career in Boise, Idaho, was recently divorced and mother of two young sons. I went to Planned Parenthood to confirm my suspicions and to get a recommendation for a doctor. I confided in two friends who loaned me $100 each for the $300 procedure. Afterward I was relieved.

Back then I never imagined that a different U.S. Supreme Court would do the unthinkable and erase the liberties promised by Roe v. Wade.

I saved readers' comments. It was before the internet and email, so my file of reader reaction is fat with hundreds of cards, letters, notes, names of callers, more than I received in a decade-plus of opinion writing in Seattle. They came from all over the country because women have always shared these stories in hushed tones or by mailing newspaper clippings to friends. My column was also picked up by newspaper editors and published in a variety of papers across the country.

Now, many years later, my reader reaction file seems once again timely. The overwhelming sentiment of readers was gratitude, thanks for shedding light on a private, yet widely shared experience. Many readers divulged their own story. A small minority decried my "selfish act." A writer who often disagreed with my opinions, wrote that my "indignant righteousness would have been better kept private." How wrong he was.

Here are a few of the readers' stories:

One wrote about a "friend's agony as she searched for a lead to a back-alley abortion." The friend got a tip "who happened to be a police officer." The letter writer accompanied her friend and described the "filth, the stench, the doctor's dirty nails." When he insisted on pre-payment, she grabbed her friend's hand and "pulled her out of there." A relative guessed at the friend's predicament and told her about the place the "wealthy women used" across the street from Frederick & Nelson. The relative wrote a check for the abortion that was four times the cost of the back-alley provider.

Another reader said my column prompted her to imagine what growing up would have been like if her mother's health "had not been ruined by a botched abortion."

I heard about a 1938 abortion in a back-alley abortion mill crowded with desperate women

A woman who worked for another newspaper said she had a similar story to tell but hadn't yet decided to "come out.

In the 40 years since I "came out," countless women have added their voices and their stories to the timeless and tiresome abortion debate. We know from the long history of abortion in America that there will always be unwanted pregnancies and women will always have abortions.

Our challenge now, in Idaho and in other states where lawmakers are determined to force women to continue unwanted pregnancies, is to tell our truths and to make our voices heard.