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you and start well and nothing is so difficult is not saving himself. twenty years ago, i attended a party of which it was offered to analyze my name. after what what appeared comical matfield mathematical formulas the message will be number 11. this is strange to my site. this is the first time i have never seen us. what is this? i asked with genuine concern. your numbers tell me that you will make money for more. i met her gaze steadily as i replied, i do. as an only child, growing up in the 1950s philadelphia, i occupied my self.

my imagination soared with images of knights and kings and queens from english history books ever get from the library. mr. mattock tales of battle, driven by focused energy and heightened energy excited me. it was the warriors extraordinary sense of mission. i was moved by a connection with the horrible and unimpressed. i wanted to challenge great evil powers to lead troops into battle to the most noble causes. unfortunately come the world in which i was living aloud for a few grand heroics. rather than the battleground, it was a special kind of wasteland. i grew up at a time when one's work and acceptance as a female was not typical. when little girls dreams revolved around their weddings

and watching the queen for a day's ritual and domestic conveniences. it was a vast wilderness of mothers, teachers and friends. creating a suffocating loneliness that i could not name or understand. i felt powerless to change my fate until queen elizabeth the i finally broke that silence. for its survival skills, her mother was beheaded when she was three years old, her stepmother executed when she was nine, she was sexually molested a 15 and spent two months in prison, a hairs breadth away from execution herself. she learned to carefully scan the political and emotional landscape for signs of potential danger. she ruled 16th century england by herself.

refusing to marry or to bear children. the androgynous strategy that this woman he wanted to be both king and queen of england were unheard of for a monarch of her time. i kept the lesson i learned from elizabeth close to my heart when i came to new york city in the 1960s. i became a child of one of the greatest social revolutions in history. at a time when it became politically possible for women to legally gain and exercise reproductive choice. the power of life and death. a time when the right to choose became the fundamental premise of the moment is for women's liberation. when that expression of that truth was every woman's entitlement. in 1971, two years before rosie

way, i opened one of the first legal abortion clinics in the country. and i thrust myself into a world that had salsify, replete with invasions, death threats and killings, opportunities for courage and heroism and a necessity for bold readership, strategic aching, philosophical debate, and entrepreneurial skills. there were barbarians at the gate. self identified as well right to life people, i call them anti-choice people. sometimes hiding bombs under their coat. my sword was a coathanger the coathanger held over my head as i declared my sisters would never return to back alley butchery. i raised the bullhorn to rally fellow soldiers in the violence that swept the nation. this was my historic day.

it was a war, and i felt that i was living my destiny. i helped midwife in an era in which women came closer to sexual freedom in history. the idea that women could rise up and act in their own best interest electrified women. the feminist inspired millions of my peers. but my feminism did not come from books. or theoretical discussions. it came in the shape of individual women, presenting themselves for services each day. i began to understand the core principle of feminism as i held hands of thousands of women during their most powerful and vulnerable moments. their abortions. i wasn't immune to the physicality of abortion. the blood and tissue and observable body parts.

my political and moral judgment on the nature of abortion evolved throughout the years. but i quickly came to realize that delivering abortion services had not only the power to give women control over their bodies and lives, but also the power and responsibility of taking life in order to do that. indeed, acknowledgment of that truth is the foundation for all the political and personal work necessary to maintain women's reproductive freedom. my story is the women's struggle for freedom in the 20th century. it is also a personal story. obstacles, survivals and triumphs. like elizabeth, i did not want to give birth to my successor. i never dreamed up nursing a child in shaping a life. i wanted and needed to give birth to myself.

in the arms of the women's movement, my delivery was aggressive, even violent at times. crushing and battering me as i reached for the freedom to become. the most painful of all, where my terrifying glimpse of being alone. whatever he person can say, it cannot be denied. access cannot be denied. it is a solo journey. thomas jefferson saw three areas of life. this book is the story of my next life. i am an activist, philosopher, transgressor of boundaries. i strive to intrude or perhaps i

have not escaped this world unscathed. like all women who have gone into battle, i am scarred. perhaps that is the definition of wisdom. perhaps the crevices and cracks of our perceptions that come as the price of experience are marks of understanding. i have let them continue to lead an extraordinarily singular light. my journey started in a very different place. i got her almost serendipitously. i studied to be a concert pianist. i have positions in my family, my entire adolescence was spent practicing three or four or five hours a day or for reading philosophy or history books. i never intended to go to college, because it was irrelevant to me.

a great artist did not mean need that. i graduated in music and art and studied and starved because it was necessary for my romantic self-image in paris. i worked in practice. i realized that music was basically to fanatic for me. i wanted to engage more in the world but i didn't know what i wanted or could do. so i came back to new york. and realized that i should go to school. i haven't taken the sats, but when i was 22 i decided well, i should and i got into nyu and then i matriculated and became a social psychologist. during this time, my father died. and i have no money to continue at nyu. so i took two or three jobs, part-time jobs to put myself through school. one of them was for a physician,

doctor martin park, and i worked a few hours of medical assistance. this was in 1970. i would take blood pressures and do all the things that medical assistance to you. at that time, the abortion law changed. the law changed in 1970, three years before the supreme court decision in 1973. he wanted to provide abortion services for which rp subscribers. i was totally political. i had not been aware of the feminism and struggle for abortion, my head was in philosophy and psychology. but i thought to myself, this is very interesting.

it is pioneering and, you know, it is working with women and perhaps psychological, it could be helpful. so i said yes, i am in. so at that time, we started very small service. the first patient i saw came from new jersey. and she came from new jersey because abortion was illegal in that state. prior to 1973. she was white, she was married, she had a child. and she was totally incapable of having another. that economic issue is one that has stayed constant as a variable.

someone said go in and talk to her and counsel her. you have just understand that there is no such thing as counseling. the world turned upside down. prior to 1970 in new york, abortion was a crime and sin and terrible horrible thing. after 1970, women were lining up to have legal procedures. it was a radical redefinition of reality. and i thought to myself, what do i say to her and what do i do? and all of the theories that i have came flooding into my mind. but they ran out as soon as i sat next to her and i started to talk to her. i don't remember what i said, but i do remember that i stayed with her throughout her abortion. i held her hand. i will always remember her hand because it was that intimate personal connection that move me so profoundly and catalyzed my

entire life in that field. euphrates has a quote that says a woman is a woman's natural ally. that is how i felt. the power, the vulnerability, and the responsibility. so that was my first patient. legal abortion open up women's eyes. my heart was expanding to embrace others. there were four women of every race, many who had numerous children. there were patients as young as 11 years old. patience is so much wanted to keep the pregnancy but could not. russian immigrant women with a history of multiple abortions. college students and middle class married women who never

told their husbands. they all needed my help. the general ignorance regarding women's bodies health and was astounding. many patients never had a gynecological exam. our bodies themselves, the book and women's health collective had not yet been published. the working and middle class women i work with often believed all of the old wives tales about how one could get pregnant. can i get pregnant again after this abortion, they asked me? will i still have sexual feelings? i would keep a plastic uterus on my desk to show them how abortion was done specifically. i wanted to women to know what was happening. as the months and years came by, my eyes were opened to how difficult this was from

bartender. the father of planned parenthood sat on the board of the health insurance plans and teaching them to observe women and wanted to as urban abortion and see how the counseling was he could report back to the regulators at hiv. and he came down. i was about 26 and 27 years old. and he said this is very nice. all very good. you're doing very work on 10 good work. but they are already there getting an abortion, why don't you put in an ied. and i said, they haven't even come out of the procedure. we have them back after two weeks. we give them information. we want to counsel them and talk to them. it's not like birth control would work. oh, no, but in the iud. okay, then i heard other stories

from when he would come in and they were pregnant and didn't want to be. and my doctor told me to go off the pill and i got pregnant. my doctor told me i didn't have to insert my diaphragm after i had my last delivery. this and that. i begin to see this yatra genic pregnancy. it was the misinformation of physicians. so i knew that doctors had indeed committed to women and their reproductive health. most knew that whether abortion was legal or not, many would move heaven and earth to have one, whether it was legal or not. but sometimes it was the physicians who are most

misogynistic. though they never thought that way themselves. they were just doing what they had been taught. at that time, being a male doctor meant being in charge. in control of the interaction and the procedure. i begin to grasp that many of the goodhearted male doctors supporting the clinic did not see abortion in the context of a woman's right to control reproduction. it was more of a way for them to control women's messy complicated bodies. often this problem started early. women were examined by doctors as soon as they got their periods. they had an examination often before they had intercourse. even in that time, there was a great deal of shame and fear that was held over from the previous generation. secs, matt pregnancy, everything had to be explained by doctors.

we need a reformation. a way to translate the language of medicine so that women would be able to make choices about their own health. power concedes nothing without demand. women had to begin to demand. women needed rights. after one of these awful stories i went back to my office and i pulled out my pen and began to write patients have rights. the right to question your doctor. the right to know the background of your doctor. the right to be advised of your medical treatments. the right not to be intimidated by fancy offices. and the right to know that rarely is there a single

unchanging medical choice. i still remember when the word patient power came to me. for once, i was one on the exam table. i was having a routine gynecological exam where i was feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable. my legs spread, the paper just barely covering my breasts as i breathed deeply in and out. just be relaxed and be patient. while his gloved hand searched inside me, be patient he said. i have never had much patience. as a child, woman or patient and never wanted to wait for anything. the modern patient has to suffer and endure. i was beginning to understand that women have always been the

ultimate patient in the sense of the word. during centuries of injustice as we have waited for equal rights, economic polity, legal abortion. there has always been something else, one more thing to be accomplished, a war to end animal action to win before the legal and political and social days can be turned towards women. the days and years go by and i write that i can't remember how many hands i held. how many heads i caressed, how many times i whispered it will be all right, just breed slowly. i felt so much vulnerability. the always trembling thighs.

it was a very young girl that moved me most. i felt so much rage against those who impregnated these women. some young boy, husbands, lovers, sisters and mothers who were fury at their daughter's the trail needed a kind of comfort i couldn't give. let her really feel the pain so she knows never do it again. the daughters heads lay on my table, releasing tears of relief and regret and sharing life. i wanted to keep his pregnancy if only. i learned that it -- if the

reality of abortion resides, it is there in the vast expanse of a lived life and experience. if only the theme of a thousand variations, if only i wasn't 14, if only my husband had a job, if only i had a job. if only if i wasn't 42, if only i wasn't 15. if only, if only. but if the people who came to choices found a redemption at a clinic. facilitated by people who supported them and did not value them. redemption in the form of a pregnancy that they could not have, and acceptance. but during all this time, i was still not political. in the sense of the word with no me yesterday. i was doing the work and just

being with the women everyday. until 1976. when i became political. and i remember very distinctly. it was a sunday morning and i was in bed a little longer. i heard something on the radio about the republican, henry hyde, who passed a law against medicaid coverage for women who were having abortions. he said well, if we can't save all the babies, we can release save the babies of the poor. >> these were the women i work with every day. these are the women whose hands i held and stories i heard. and this man was saying no medicaid funding for abortion. fend for yourself. i was amazed. i believe all political

resistance starts without one feeling that this is unfair. this is not right. so i felt that very power and again, i ran up and i took out my paper in my pen, and i said well i will write something. and i wrote a one-page pamphlet about what medical content medicaid funds would mean for poor women. what i did is i went to queens college where i graduated after i left nyu. i walked down the hall and had my templates. i was just knocking on the door and the professor would open say may i help you when i said yes, my name is merle hoffman and i want to come in and addressed the students. and they said fine. i stood there and i said to them, this is egregious what republican congressman henry hyde has done. it will result in the death of women. poor women were suffering. poor women will die. this was college in the 70s.

they were mainly might -- white middle-class kids. if they cut off abortion now, i've always manage. it was such an extraordinary life of political empathy. it was amazing to me. what happens to the poor happens to all of us. i again said what can i do. and i said that i can debate. i learned that very well. i learned that at the parents dinner table. i can debate and i can talk. i actually got myself somebody who helped me on multiple different ways and i went around the country announced itself against these anti-choices. my favorite one, of course, and my favorite story to share is

the reverend -- what's his name? jerry falwell. and this was in detroit. and at one point he looked at me and he said ms. merle hoffman, how many abortions at your facility due luster. i looked at him very proudly and i said reverend, we did 9000 procedures. in my mind, that was a sign of all the good work that i was doing. but in his mind, it was mass murder. and he said, 9000, you are saying they did 9000 abortions? and i said yes. he said how will you feel when you meet your maker with the blood of 9000 babies on her hands. and i said reverend, when i meet her, i will be proud to tell her that i thought were riven country and women's rights.

i was proud to fight for women's rights. and he said her? he said do you think god is a woman? and i said no, reverend, i think god is beyond gender. i had many debates and they all come down to a very similar argument were very many of the anti-choice people will say that women don't know what abortion is, they really don't know. this old feeling of women not being able to have this moral agency, and of course, women know very well read and they make their decisions and i am reminded of a 19-year-old

patient who came in and it was her first abortion, and she said to me, you know, the mother in me wanted so much to have this. to love it, to see it grow. but the other part of me knew it was impossible. i thought about it very deeply. the other mother, and i came to the conclusion that that profoundly, deeply, it is a the mothers act. it is a mothers act. one of deep moral significance. one that i myself made. i return to new york for a nationally televised debate with a prominent anti-taurus leader. i was anxious, tremendously concerned that i should win. i understood that one could never really convert the other side. it re-articulated the issues on an ever higher level.

my debate was on a friday. i had taken a pregnancy test that morning. leaving my urine to choices. my. was a couple of weeks late and i was worried. i was always so careful. no method of birth control is perfect. as the debate progressed, i experienced the splitting off. i responded to the judge with questions of my opponents, all the while thinking that i could be pregnant. i felt removed enough to appreciate the irony of my situation, a battle being waged on multiple tracks, i was performing politically for the cameras and debating emotionally with myself. my opponent asked me how i could call myself a feminist and support supports abortion rights would have to fetuses being aborted were female. there was not any argument. none of it was. but it made me this time think of my mother. my mother was a dream deferred

and nine. in the closing argument they made a passionate plea for the importance of women's lives, for remembering that the abortion issue was ultimately about that, thousands of individual stories, thousands of different reasons all culminating in one shared reality that i was entering. my diary entry from that night reads, for one night, i am a mother. i don't remember whether or not i slept. i only remember my exhaustion and an overriding sense of inevitability. the next morning i just carefully in a red and white suit, what does one wear to an abortion. there were no traditional costumes. like funerals or weddings. they're was no ritual of one generation from another look to or to guide them. there are only functional considerations.

after my abortion, as i slowly awoke from anesthesia, i became conscious of immense and overwhelming feelings, nonspecific, nondirected, love released, and sadness. a few days later, walking down the hallway i heard loud sobs coming from the recovery room or it a woman was waking and crying for her mother. i went to her bed, lowered the whales and tried to see her. ..

and he says if we got into this sin that judgment of god is going to fall on this nation. a lead that coalition and a strong offensive for the march. women's rights are going to be protected. there was a problem. always a problem with the media.

this seems that we couldn't get our message across. so i and members of the coalition decided that we would do an action that was spread all over the country, perhaps the world. there will really going to make the point and make it at st. patrick's cathedral because cardinal o'connor who was the cardinal at that time actually met with randall terry and we felt that he give support to the terrorist tactics. we created a wonderful apartment , held it up on the doors to my read it aloud, people across the street came across to the steps, sat down, refused to move when the police came, and nine people were arrested. this was the first pro-torras civil disobedience in history. on the papers it claimed, the movement has shifted. and it direction for the pro-choice forces. at that, yes, this is it.

but, unfortunately that did not happen at that time. but i do want to read and share with you what we said in that proclamation and the points that we made. i consider it a woman's bill of reproductive rights. the first thing we said, women are full moral agents with the right and ability to choose when and whether or not there will be mothers. abortion is the choice made by each individual for profound personal reasons that no man or state should judge. the right to make reproductive choices is women's legacy throughout history and belongs to every woman regardless of age, class, race car religion, or sexual preference. abortion is a life affirming act, chosen within the context of women's reality, women's lives, and women's sexuality. abortion is often the most moral

choice in the world that frequently denies health care, housing, education and economic survival. now, in the 90's i started to see a great many russian women. i mentioned them before. at that time there was absolutely no birth control available in the former soviet union. women were coming in with five, six, seven abortions. very little shocks me, as you can imagine, and the work that i do. i see very much a reality and the hard side of reality. it shocked me. one of the counselors can up and said, there is a woman here for her 305th abortion. and i found that absolutely extraordinary. but this was a very understandable situation in an environment where any birth control was impossible.

they had very heavy condoms which actually the population called galoshes. there were no pills. the only way to control one's fertility was by having multiple abortions. so, once again, i go up to my office and say, i've got to do something about it. i have to say that i had my most intents fantasy at this point in time. and decided i was going to save all of russian women. i was going to save them from this of oppression be is obviously joyce was not what we were talking about when there are no options and the only option available to control security -- fertility is abortion. were talking at oppression of the most terrible kind. i managed to get an invitation to a moscow hospital number 53, and i went over with 11 of my staff.

i took a lot of birth control and attempted to end almost got to the point where i was going to start choices east, this great venture to finally have a feminist center in moscow. unfortunately because of the criminal activity and what happened with the difficulty with the negotiations, we did not really get to be able to open, but the seeds were planted. so that was an extra very thing. i was also attacked by a head operative of the kgb in the papers. i found that, you know, very, very pleasing. i've always said that one must be judged by the power of your enemies. i at the cardinal, not somebody from the kgb. my list was grilling. my list was grilling. really, that experience in russia taught me was that the

comparative history of abortion is really the history of our relations between the state and their female population. when installing made abortion illegal, you did that to populate russia to fight the germans. meanwhile, arian women would start to have aborted fetuses and could be punished with the death penalty. the battlefield is different, but the war is always the same. so my next-to-last chapter was entitled to a loaded gun. i started with, if you put a gun on the wall in the first act you must use it by the third. dr. david gunn was shot three times in the back by pro-life for michael griffin as he was arriving at a pensacola florida abortion clinic in march of

1993. he yelled to my don't kill any more babies, before ending the doctor down as he stepped out of his car. he was the first provider to be killed in the war against abortion. when i heard that the national coalition of abortion providers was arranging a memorial service in his honor, i knew i had to be there. the service was held in an amphitheater opposite the clinic. given the sunny florida weather i found it odd that she was wearing a turtleneck sweater with a long, dark blue raincoat. only after a few minutes of looking at her carefully and noticing that she appeared rather boxy did it occur to me that she was wearing a bulletproof vest. upon my return to new york and learned that rachael shannon and anti-abortion activist, had been convicted of attempted murder in wichita kansas.

pillared was a friend of mine. for many years, he always wore a bulletproof vest and drove to work in an armored car. he survived that attack. he would not be so lucky in 2009. owner of four abortion clinics, one of the few physicians to perform abortions in the pensacola area was killed as he returned to his car. on july 29 the rev. pont three shotgun blasts into the head of dr. john bayard killing both he and his clinic escort and wounding his wife. six months later to a clinic workers were murdered in brookline, massachusetts. this was a tremendously different situation.

people, doctors to my clinic workers were being killed. doctors have not signed up for this. when they first began to perform abortions that were viewed as progressive or mavericks. now they were living in a constant state of posttraumatic stress. in the attack on another provider struck fear and terror which is exactly what the anti's wanted. so the gun was on the wall. were we ready to use it? i purchased a 20-gauge pump pump-action mossberg at a small shop to keep at home for some protection. i shot at cans in the woods behind my home to practice my name. long before i got good and neighbor noticed the noise and called the police. the daily news journalist at one of my purchase from the police

chatter and road under the headline maker day. he noticed the right-to-life crowd sitting in front of tresses women's medical center, maybe it's because the abortion clinic president just purchased a shotgun. there was a negative reaction from some of my feminist colleagues, especially some of my anderson said, gloria will be very upset. a feminist with a gun. it was politically incorrect. well, the years went on. the battle still wages. last year there were over 110 anti chores legislative attempts a friend of mine was on the verge of losing her clinic in mississippi which will be no prize i would assume, the first on abortion or abortion-free state. i would call it the first slave state and as a war because of

women cannot control their reproduction they are not full citizens. i do want to end with the way i've began, with the first patient with another patient that i write about. a hindu woman 18 weeks pregnant came into choices with her husband and two young sons teaching -- seeking an abortion. she had amniocentesis to ensure there were no fetal abnormalities and found there was nothing wrong with her fetus why was she here? what was her reason for wanting this abortion? it is a grow, she told me. i can't have a girl. liabilities. with in her, the private -- the perfect. i looked at her two sons holding on to her with unyielding, demanding hands. i felt raise that it was my gender that was least wanted to and despair over the reality

that within this act was a total denigration, denial, and evaluation of the female principle, the female self. i so much wanted to say, no, stop. you should not. not you cannot, but he should not. yet, even as i raged against her chores i understood why she had to make it. she had left india, but india was where she lived in her heart and head. the decision to make what in her mind was the only rational intelligent choice resulted in an ambivalent type of freedom, freedom that said, in order for a woman to have more than a minimal chance of survival and actualization she must and i and a gator on gender. but it is with this very fundamental civil right of reproductive freedom that i have put my life on the line many times.

without it we would never have a world were being pinot was not considered the birth defect and when did not have to have 36 abortions or forbidden from having one. how long will women have to wait. he will have to wait as long as it takes to bring about women's equality. we will have to wait for people of conscience to create a society where charas truly acis, not one where economic deprivation, racism, sexism, or despair dictates the outcome of pregnancy. thank you. [applause] >> i would love to take questions, comments, debates.

>> i think you have to get -- >> okay. >> thank you so much for being here. my question is, your thoughts? >> well, a necessary option. it should be available. it should be legal. it should be available to women. this is the morning after. so, again, i think it is important for morning after, people here and listening and watching to understand that the attack on women's reproductive freedom is not only about abortion. it really is about birth control. it is about a woman's sexuality and how and why and when we use and how we use our bodies and our -- and tied to either has been a great deal of funding cut for contraception.

planned parenthood has been under severe attack, and in a paper that i wrote a few years back and that every issued and discussed at the national press club recently called abortion genomics, i talked about how the recession is impacting so heavily on women, middle-class and poor women on their reproductive tauruses, so many women don't even have the funds available to get contraceptives. to plan their family. so it is really the situation. very perinatal. people who say that babies live. very pro natal. don't let birth control. it is important -- it is impossible. it becomes impossible. that is why it is so important to have patient power, women power, women rise up and to demand the services. [inaudible question]

there was a story about abortion. there was a young girl who somehow became pregnant at the age of 16, and she wanted to get a high-school diploma and that think on to college. she stayed home. she had no money to come to new york. so she had it. i don't know whether it was wisconsin or wyoming or what. and she is now being charged with murder and facing ten years in jail unless she writes -- >> she took are you 486 over the internet, medical abortion over the internet. this is a complicated case, but it is good that you bring it up because it is quite extraordinary. this is a woman who tried to sell off a board because she could not access an abortion

provider where she lived. she is being charged for criminal homicide. so, yes. and i wants to really make clear that abortion is still legal everywhere in this country. but what is happening, it is becoming and has become impossible for almost the majority of women living in the majority of states. 93 percent of counties in this country have no abortion provider at all. >> according to that article it was illegal to have an abortion and that -- >> yes. it was illegal to go over 20 weeks. you see, these are some of the restrictions. the abortion was legal, illegal to do it to market the drug over the internet to take it herself and to do it and a second trimester. so that is all of the nuances that you find. that is why i say, you know,

this state's are where the battle is now. the states. >> we have never had a conversation about this subject at all. i feel like i'm one of the luckiest people in the world because of the work you're doing . i grew up in new york. i graduated from high school in 1969 at 15 years old. and i was 15 a black friend of mine got pregnant. that did not want -- know what to do to help. i once and asked for help. he had a friend who was a physician in new york and to arrange an abortion for her. that was 1968. in 1969 and graduated high-school. i had a boyfriend and was sleeping with him. we were using condoms and thankfully and did not get pregnant. my mother went to bat for me. i went to a plan to ask for

birth control pills and they were denied because i was too young. of course, my boyfriend was over agent could have been prosecuted for statutory rape, but that did not know that the time. and my mother sign the documents . i never got pregnant except when i wanted to. i have two children. i women's counselor at a free clinic in cleveland. women were being raped on the street. live in cleveland in the mid-70s i went to some kind of women group where we were investigating each other's with janice. i saw. >> there was a self-help group around this time. very, very powerful theoretical idea that women in order to control our own reproduction and

bodies have to know ourselves first. there was the idea of looking at one vagina. that word. suppose to be said. but looking at the ones with china, understanding one's reproduction, even perhaps doing what was called at that point in time menstrual extraction. so it is very important that we have these abilities. it is good that you had a mother like that. not all mothers are like that. speaking of being a mother, i do want to say that i had my abortion at 32. when i was 58 and decided to adopt a child. and it was the best decision i made. my daughter is here tonight, sasha. and it actually to my an abortion committee be even deeper to this issue because i realize that being a mother is a very profound and wonderful thing if you wanted to and if you are ready.

>> can i quickly finish the story. i have two beautiful children with a terrible man. i went through a horrible custody litigation and they're not speaking to me at the moment. i get pregnant about ten years later with a man who had a 10 percent live sperm count here had been agent orange in vietnam, graduated 556 of the 557 in my high-school class. i was the third in my class. he had been honorably discharged as a vietnam veteran because a posttraumatic stress disorder. i got pregnant. i immediately went to have an abortion. no questions asked. did not bat an eyelash. i knew how much i had wanted children and how beautiful it was to have a child. that meant, and i was on medicaid at the time. medicated not pay for the abortion, but i got a private abortion in a physician's office. the man was a decent enough man that he wrote the check for the abortion.

>> thank you for that story. >> thank you. >> thank you for your work. >> in queue for that story. >> anybody else have any comments or questions? >> as, in the? >> what he did to protect themselves. what kind of protection to you feel you have to have against the and in? >> i think everybody is aware that when you -- when you fight for social justice and particularly for women's rights and particularly for abortion rights in this country at this time you are stepping on to a dangerous ground. i am not saying that the entire anti-choice movement is a terrorist or radical in that sense. far from it, but a lot of the language, a lot of what is said

does exacerbate and activate people who can become violent. indeed, there are people outside, and ties outside of choices, every saturday his scream at women who enter, you are murdering your baby. it's there but there's a you're a desecrated and the legacy of martin luther king. what do you do? well, i keep working, keep going i'm vigilance, but i am aware that at any point in time something can happen. that is the risk that we all have to take. one has to live with courage. >> i do have a question. over the lifetime. >> oh, yes. i mean, there is a lot of -- you see, abortion became a narrative

in the beginning women told their own stories. they experienced what it was to terminate a pregnancy within their own experience a lives. as time went on, the narrative started to codify. there was pro-life and pro-choice. and this anti, i've won't even call it anti, but this anti narrative barely had power, and it was good number of @booktv mothers don't kill their babies. abortion is murder cajon you don't have to have this abortion. all of this propaganda, and i call it propaganda, has sifted into women's heads. now, what is abortion? it is a moral decision. you cannot say that the choice is wonderful or horrible. it is a choice that each individual woman makes within her own mind and her own heart within her family and her life circumstances. but that guilt is to a great

extent culturally conditioned to i will not say that women to not feel guilty, that women don't feel regret. you know, but women do have the right to make the wrong choice. regret is part of life. many women, myself included, feel very good about their abortions and don't have any guilt at all. >> well, that, you know, if one wants to get into friday in psychology, that is a different -- in other words, if i say i have made a moral choice, which i feel firm and strong and to have this abortion, you're saying, you're really denying your psychological issues because you feel very guilty. is that what you're telling me? >> you know, -- [inaudible question]

>> he has so much experience with this. [inaudible question] >> okay. well, you know, some bright lights burn out. >> i just wanted to say, in relation, in fact to my right now abortion became legal. i was living in new york at that time. california. the overwhelming sentiment of women who can now for the first time control their own

reproduction cannot even control their own lives, release that they can get their life back. note what it's like to have a child. they wanted to get on with the life that they had. that starts something that the anti-abortion is still not consider. then never consider the life of the woman. i want to ask you. there are too few people who bravely and unequivocally support women's rights to make their own practice choices. in the face of the tremendous opposition and taking your look right into your hands. let's be clear. that without providers there is no choice. without providers, without the people, how did you come on

going to come back to a question that i think you addressed. kiev these people who want to totally control and limit women's lives. >> i is so profoundly believe that it is so unfair that it is an egregious that it is not right that women's lives matter, that women have a moral ability to choose what is best for them and the children that they have and the children that they will have. ..

he

>> works on this situation frequently. >> [inaudible question] >> this has to do with the funding. >> [inaudible question] experience trumps real life. that is why i have said that my politics come from the ground up. it comes from the patients that i have served, then i have lived with and listen to for over 40 years. there is a coldness in this

theology and in the politics that says no, a group of cells, no matter what their gestation really has to take priority over living, breathing, a woman's life. there is something in my mind that is radically wrong with that. that is why have to continue to say no, it won't. >> i have another question. >> [inaudible question] >> yes, a lot of my patients come in with their partners or husbands or lovers. i would really help that any woman who is considering having a termination would discuss it with the man who she was involved with. i would hope that their intimacy went further than the sexuality and that they talk to each other. yes, honestly i would think that they should be involved.

but never to have veto power. to talk about it, supported, debate it, but ultimately it has to be our choice. >> [inaudible question] >> the question was how safe is that? abortion is done in the safest way possible. the mortality morbidity rate is minimal compared to other out of out outpatient procedures. you don't see the anti-people going out and screaming let's get% of consent for anyone who wants to have a child. they don't say that.

abortion is done in the legal, safe, sterile environment. it is an extremely quick manner. it can be done in an alley and a hangar and a back alley and be terrible. that is why i always have that hangar and i said i'm looking at my future and the future of american women. these laws and obstruction laws are passed. >> many of the battles that they have rightfully raised over the years, intend to be, you know, [inaudible question]

women have the right to have health care. >> it just gets sadder and more dangerous. you see, people talk about having more women in politics. it is not just gender, his consciousness. it is very sad when i have to debate so many women. i respect them. i know what they believe and that they are standing up for their principles. but i find it really egregious that women would actually want to criminalize a procedure for other women. you can be really antiabortion. you can stand and say i would never have one. that's okay. that is a pro-choice position. you don't have to. you see, the problem comes when you want to criminalize your beliefs for the rest of the female population. that is the problem.

>> have you thought of running for politics? >> yes, i have thought of it,. [laughter] i have thought about it and i absolutely, unfortunately, maybe for some people, i would not want to even consider it. because of what i consider the corruption the money, the fact that i don't believe that i could be true to my principles and compromise in a way that would be productive for the country. i think that the partisanship has become toxic at this point in time. and i think that being in a social movement and writing and speaking like this, has influence in other ways. and i hope that i have moved all as you have listened. as you try to become active in any way that you can. it is very critical to do something to act. because we are in a dangerous point in the history of the

struggle. >> [inaudible question] we have a very visually address it antidepressants out there standing out there on saturday mornings, and that would be a great way to be a foot soldier and a warrior in this battle. >> aside from that, i know that everybody can get up at 6:00 o'clock on the morning of saturday. but i really think another thing that is important is for women to own this issue. there are so many women who have had abortions who are unable to say it. they are unable to talk about it. unable to accept an element, so i think that is also a very

courageous. i would ask you all to think about that, too. >> you talked about the rights of providers [inaudible question] >> recruit doctors? or were you talking about? many of the doctors who started in the early days of what they are calling dinosaurs. a lot of them are retiring. they are giving a lot older. and the medical schools are not teaching either contraception or abortion. there is a group called medical students for choice that was very well to train young people to go into the reproductive health field. but there are very few providers. the anti-choice movement has been very successful in minimizing the amount of providers available. because they have made it seem

that providing abortion, having abortion, thinking about an abortion, saying that you have had an abortion, it is something very morally egregious. and this is something that i really always talk about and want to stress tonight. that the decision is a moral decision and that women are moral agents. >> no other questions? >> at what age do you think girls should be exposed to understanding what abortion is, i hear there is education in

kindergarten in some places. >> this becomes a personal issue for me because i have a child. you know, and the issue of yap, there is an issue of ed vacation. i like to see intimacy education. i would like to see love education. and you know, i think there is far too much secs education in the culture as it is. i think it is important for children and parents to be open. i try to be open with my children. i think the ages right when a child asks the question. that is the point in time they are ready to hear the answer. and that varies with each child. >> [inaudible question]

>> well, yes, how do you say the word abortion and not have a crushing historical and current religious go graham fall on your head? it is difficult. it is difficult come you are very correct that the anti-choice movement has basically dropped to the language. why is that? because the pro-choice movement has not been as respected and is proactive as they need to be in as they should be. you know, abortion is a terrible thing and then someone will say yes, nobody really likes abortion or would want to have an abortion. >> sometimes you do want to have a abortion and sometimes it is necessary. >> i just want to address a

question, because i felt so guilty after i had an abortion. the man who had never been able to impregnate anybody ever in his life because he had been agent orange, i felt guilty that he wasn't able to have a child. i felt the guilt go away when he paid for the abortion thank you matt guilt is a great motivator and greet for many women. we feel guilty about not being thin enough and bright enough and not being guilty. women are indeed with guilt. when it comes to being mothers and what a good mother is and what a good mother should be, it comes on in stages. i think it is important to deconstruct and critically look at this language and what the messages are.

>> [inaudible question] >> well, there is a historic organization, you have planned parenthood, but these are institutions. they have been around a great many years. and they function sometimes as bureaucratic institutions. i am an activist and i like the creative activity. i like to see us occupy the abortion debate. occupy the language. occupy the thinking. and this is not going to be happening through organizations or institutions. this has to happen with each and every one of us.

>> [inaudible question] >> i think they have started a feminist discussion. the laws have passed as women are criminally prosecuted, doing anything really has to grow up to be doing everything. we have to do everything in our power to stop this relentless attack. we have to do everything we can. >> and that you are. [laughter] >> i am just one person. [applause] >> the question as have i ever encountered someone who was ambivalent. and yes, very often. which is why choices are that i have had prenatal services. i did not want to just have a facility that only gave

abortions. i didn't want to say that there's only one choice you can make here. so every patient is counseled. we have a very well-trained and compassion and and feminine social worker who speak to the women and if somebody is ambivalent, we can definitely just say you can have your prenatal care. you can have your baby. you know, i am not selling abortions. i am not pushing abortion. i am talking about deeply, deeply talking about choice and moral agency and women's fundamental rights. so in my own clinic and work, i have both options. we also work with women who want to place their children up for adoption. whatever their choice, we are there to help them. >> who will speak for the fetus.

>> would you? >> yes, i would. >> go ahead and. >> i don't want to be compared with your eloquence, but i think the fetus is lowlight. women when they have abortions, they are attacking themselves. and she's endangering her health. she is not doing a good thing for herself, and a lot of us wouldn't be here if our parents had aborted us. there is also the chance that leonardo da vinci was awarded. >> i wish that hitler was awarded. >> this is an existential question. it is very dangerous and italy suffers now because they don't have enough people.

>> server, you know who is speaking for the fetus? the entire republican party speaks for the fetus. the entire anti-choice movement speaks to the fetus. the fetus has a good constituency and advocate out there. and the point of the matter is that the woman has to make that choice. it is a life in a potential like yes, but the woman's life takes precedence always. the woman's life takes precedence. >> the woman can abstain from having intercourse. you don't anything about that. why not? >> well, i am not talking about abstinence. that is a birth control method. >> a lot of people have no, you know, 16-year-old girls, 15-year-old girls, unmarried girls, you know, [bleep] around.

[inaudible conversations] >> you have a very specific philosophy about sex and the role of women and the role of reproduction. i respected and you may have it, but you are not going to lay that on me or any other american woman and i will do everything in my power to make sure that you don't. [applause] >> shelley and on this? [applause] >> we shall end on this. >> we would like to hear from you. tweet our feedback. twitter.com/booktv. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> i think there have been some

wonderful political books. what i do is look at history and the things that have happened. robert caro's book, the third in his series about lbj, it is worth the read. it is a big read, but this one document seized years as vice president, when he was running against president kennedy for the nomination, and president kennedy tapped him for vice president and we all know that that was a troubled time for both lyndon johnson and president kennedy. they were certainly different in just about every aspect. it was a time of trials, certainly in lyndon johnson's life. as he is passing into the

presidency. this is one of the more interesting times to see this from the back -- the background. i have to say that i think that robert caro does an incredible job. having looked at his other books and heard him talk about both this book and the others, he is so nonjudgmental. he tells the good and the bad and let people decide for themselves what they think is important. and i think that he has captured so much and done so much research. he went down and lived around johnson city in the early growing up years, what lyndon johnson's life would've been like. each time he has gone further, he has done detailed research. an amazing amount of research.

i think he is an excellent writer. and i was privileged to invite him to speak to a group of republican senators at one point. we had a very interesting back-and-forth. back and forth. the senators, of course, were interested. and the experiences that lyndon johnson had as a majority leader and the tactics he used, which is very different from leadership tactics he would be able to talk about or actually do today. it is a different world, he was very much a strong leader and also very demanding. i would certainly recommend robert caro's book, and i know that his research is so good. that you would enjoy reading that. another book that i have been beginning to read is the book by douglas brinkley about walter

cronkite. there was not a more well-known and loved person in american news lower than walter cronkite. we love him in texas. he went to the university of texas. he grew up in houston. and then he was a foreign correspondent for united press international d have a lot of reporter experience. he wasn't just a kind of a face guy. but then when "cbs evening news" became more important all the three major in it networks have them, walter cronkite started as the anchor in the 60s for 20 years into the early '80s. and i just think that his time, he said he covered a precedence and his time covering is

certainly fascinating. and he was a fascinating person as well because he was so thoughtful. i think the douglas brinkley is a wonderful historian. he is a history professor at rice university, he has always taught at the naval academy in princeton, and he also does detailed comprehensive research in his writing. the biography of cronkite that he wrote up will be the definitive biography of walter cronkite. and i think both the fact that douglas brinkley wrote it and my high regard for him, and the fact that walter cronkite, of course, is so well known and loved in our country, having this kind of a biography is an excellent thing for us to have towards documentation in the

future. the last book, i have a chapter in this book, it is vital voices. it is an organization that was formed with then senator hillary clinton and myself as the honorary cochairs. i relate to this and put a chapter in, as did secretary of state quinten, because i have been so impressed by the role that women have taken throughout the world, particularly in countries that are in trouble. the women leaders have emerged to create peace or create honesty and integrity, just to fight for human rights in these countries where it is still

lacking. all of us were taken with the treatment of women in afghanistan and what they endured. the treatment that they received has some of them emerged even in the face of torture and death to say that we can create a society here and fight for education for girls since in afghanistan we have tried to help these people of the taliban and al qaeda, we have insisted that all of the aid that america puts forward, be for girls and women. that is where all of our boys have went. vital voices is an organization that came from these experiences

where the voices are honoring each year the women who have led in these countries and made a difference. and every year that secretary of state quinten and i have been the honorary cochairs, we have come to be awarded grants held at the county center. and these women get a validation that helps them pursue what they are doing in their countries. in some cases it is the women who are building an economy, giving women micro opportunities for micro businesses. and letting them earn for their families. in some cases it is just standing up. we have had we have a village in

pakistan who pursue justice. and she got justice. she turned back to create schools for both boys and girls in her village. she was a woman -- i will never forget. she was so magnificent, even though she was illiterate, but she had a wisdom that was so far beyond her experience or her education. it was within her, and it was women like that there were honored by vital voices in the book that i think is a wonderful book for the summer. it just came out. it talks about some of these great stories and what women coming together in honoring these great leaders can deal to begin