Roe at 40: Judging a Mother's Choice It began with a knock at the door. An old friend had popped in to visit and told me out of the blue that she was pregnant. I played my giddy role and jumped up to offer her a congratulatory hug. She didn't return my embrace. This pregnancy was not welcome. She and her husband already had more children than they'd planned to have, she said. Supporting their family was a struggle. Her husband did not know that she was pregnant. He never would. I imagine that she chose me as her confidante because I openly, and outspokenly, support abortion rights - I always have. As a teenager, I signed petitions and admired friends who had the courage to go to abortion clinics and escort women through lines of protestors. I vote for political candidates who pose no threat to Roe v. Wade. But something changed once I became a mother. Pregnancy went from Scarlet Letter to Holy Grail - something deeply desired and no longer feared. Abortions seemed more something in a campaign platform. What felt most real was the fact that my husband and I wanted another child. I've had friends tell me about abortions before, but on that day, as that friend sat beside me and planned to terminate her pregnancy, my reaction was more gut-wrenching than sympathetic. She would use my phone number as an emergency contact in case something went wrong. I agreed to this plan but felt duplicitous. Part of me wanted to say: "Don't do this. Please. A bigger part of me knew that I wouldn't. I didn't. But I'm still wrestling with how much I wanted to. It was an eerie moment of déjà vu when, the next month, a second friend called me to say that she and her husband were sitting together in a clinic, waiting to terminate a pregnancy. "I'm done," she said more than once. She ticked off the their reasons, some financial and others emotional. They did not want more children. Yet there they were - birth control's statistical anomaly. They went to their appointment together. My friend did not seek my approval, but she said she wanted to explain this decision to her closest friends. After hanging up with me, she called two other friends. She told me later that their disapproval was fierce, and those friendships are damaged. The women she called were, like me, mothers with liberal social and political leanings. Still, they could not reconcile the fact that a mother would choose to terminate a pregnancy. Somehow, motherhood had slyly changed us. We went from basking in the rights that feminism had afforded us to silently pledging never to exercise them. Nice mommies don't talk about abortion - it is relegated to the dark and dirty corners of our conscious, only to emerge favorably in the voting booth. Yes, we believe in a woman's right to choose. No, we don't actually believe she should use it in the face of women choosing to have their children. This is the feminist mother's greatest taboo. My choice was either to be true to myself and my politics supporting women, or give in to my emotions as my friends described their choice. More than anything, I wanted another baby. I wanted what they had, and didn't want. The following month, I was pregnant. Then I wasn't. Just like that. Because that really is how it happens sometimes. Women can go from feeling exuberant and full to empty and exhausted in a matter of days. My doctor called it a "lost pregnancy" rather than miscarriage, and that helped. That felt less threatening. I was sad and disappointed; both of those friends comforted and reassured me, as women always do. We tacitly ignored any irony. Part of me still wants to avoid the truth that my friends are mothers who sometimes have abortions. Do I support them or not? Can I live with myself if I don't? As with so many aspects of parenting, we make decisions now and are haunted by them for the rest of our lives. I am a woman who supports abortion rights. Before having children, I would have said that reflexively. As a mother, I no longer can.