Mother’s Eyes

Abstract

This autoethnography pays homage to my mother and all the women who supported each other through the act of abortion. Coming of age in the era of Roe v. Wade, I accessed a legal and safe abortion with my mother’s help. My mother who became a nurse during the era of illegal abortions witnessed young women dying at the hands of the state. My mother, like many women before her, acted to help another woman terminate an unwanted pregnancy, an act of resistance to a system that devalues women by privileging the fetus over the body that supports its existence.