This is such a divisive issue. I have read both sides here, yours and your detractor's.

I have crossed picket lines to have abortions, a terrified child. I still associate fig newtons and apple juice with comfort, nausea, and guilt. I have shared a room and spoken with an older mother whose teenage daughter (then my age) would not speak to her because she decided not to keep the unintended pregnancy when she was 40.

I have stood before a state senate, arguing in favor of a waiting period and informed consent, confessing the actual number of abortions that I had had, and the ages. I was 7 months pregnant with my first child at that time. I saw my name plastered across the headlines on the front page the next day, my secrets no longer secret.

I often say that I believe that things happen for a reason. I believe there is a reason that I ended up with 5 children, the last of them twins. Penance or forgiveness? Or simply irony?

It's true that your grandmother's story is yours, and a poignant one, too. Many women of her time still died in childbirth, even. Her choices were not easy then. A woman's choices are not easy now. At least the choice to have a child outside of marraige is more viable. And a man can be held responsible (often) for his share in the matter. But the choices are no easier.

Every where I go, I find this issue to be polarizing. It's something I can and cannot understand. I have travelled to both ends. No one I meet there seems to think that there is a middle ground.

But I stand in the middle. It's the only place I feel safe.