Three stories about abortion:

My parents listened to the news on the radio during breakfast and read the morning paper. I remember hearing reports of women found dead in hotel rooms, and reading about them, victims of botched abortions. Abortion was illegal, hence a lucrative sideline for organized crime, for doctors who had lost their license to practice medicine, for amateurs in need of cash.

In college, I remember a popular young woman, a sister in the best sorority and a fixture on the patio of a building bordering “The Quad.” One week, she was not there. I asked a friend where she had gone. He said, “She’s in Sweden for two weeks. Her parents said she was studying too hard.” I said, “Studying too hard?” And a stranger turned to me and said, “She’s getting an abortion.”

A couple had been a fixture in picketing Planned Parenthood. And then, one day when there were no pickets, they brought their teenage daughter in for an abortion. The women volunteering there said, “Well, at least we won’t see them again.” And they didn’t, for three weeks. And then they were back on the picket line. I wondered how they could do that. And then I realized they would have received telephone calls from the other pro-lifers, saying, “We didn’t see you last week.” And they didn’t have the courage to tell them why. So back they went.

And so it will always be. The poor die in hotel rooms. The rich get a vacation in Sweden. Pro-lifers become secretly pro-choice when it’s their daughter.

Now abortion can now be illegal again. But it won’t end. The men of our nation, who share in 100% of unwanted pregnancies, are not suddenly going to take responsibility for birth control. Teenagers are not going to stop having sex. And parents will find they will not only lose their 13-year-old daughter’s unborn child, but also their 13-year-old daughter.