We who believe in freedom will protect women's right to an abortion

I can’t stop the tears.

Tears of sadness for my four daughters who will not have the same voting and reproductive rights I had at their age. Tears for the 65 million American women of childbearing age who just lost control of their right to an abortion. Tears of anger that the great country I immigrated to in 1977 keeps chopping away at the rights of everyone — except wealthy white men.

I used to believe the world was getting better with each generation, but I see the hands of time reversing in the last decade. We cannot isolate ourselves into simple boxes of white people and Black people. Or men and women. Or the middle class and people living in poverty. All of us who believe in freedom must unite and work together to restore a woman’s right to control her body.

How would the trajectory of my life been different if Roe v. Wade was not the law of the land in 1980 when I was raped and impregnated during my senior year of high school by a college student whom I dated?

Would I have tried to self-perform an abortion?

Would my elder sister with whom I shared the secret accompany me to a back alley “clinic”?

Would I have become a mother at age 17, and forego my studies at the University of Florida?

Or, would I have asked a family member to keep the baby while I go off to college for four years?

Would I be able to fully love a child whose father had raped me?

Would I have pressed charges against my child’s father?

I’m not sure how my life would be different; however, I sure am glad I had the choice of how to handle the unwanted pregnancy.

The June 24, 2022, Supreme Court’s 5-4 vote to overturn Roe v. Wade takes me back to 2013 when the Court, with another 5-4 vote, overturned a key provision of the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act that required federal oversight for changes in voting procedures in jurisdictions, like Alabama, with a history of discrimination.

Listening to the chorus from Bernice Johnson Reagon’s acapella anthem, “Ella’s Song,” is invoking more tears, yet also giving me the strength to take on this fight for reproductive rights:

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Adeyela Albury Bennett is the CEO of Women in Training, Inc., a youth empowerment organization in Montgomery that advocates for menstrual equity.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: We who believe in freedom will protect women's right to an abortion