I had my first abortion when I was 22 in Berkeley CA in 1973. I was on SSI for depression and my 19-year-old boyfriend had already made his other girlfriend pregnant the month before.

Even though I was on Medical (state paid health care), the abortion was in a private OB/GYN’s office and I was treated with dignity and respect.

I had another abortion five years later, I was still on SSI and my then boyfriend was a Viet-Nam vet with disabling PTSD. It was with the same doctor, the same positive experience.

I later got training as a programmer through the federal CITA program. CITA was a very successful program to get people off welfare by paying them to go through training and then paying half their salary for the first year to their employer. I was hired as a computer programmer with a major construction company, and have been employed as computer programming and systems analyst ever since. I was happily married and had a wonderful son who was only born after I could afford to give him a good life.