Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Dana, United States

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My pope-loving catholic mom who relied on the rhythm method for contraception always told my 6 brothers and sisters and I that if we had sex before marriage we were going to hell. If she had known that I had sex in college I would have been disowned! My father was abusive and my mother finally divorced him after he sexually molested one of my sisters. After living through much physical abuse with my father, and through poverty after the divorce, I found that college was not only an opportunity to live a better life, but that more importantly it was a chance to escape.

When I was in college, I was in a long-term relationship with a man who was emotionally abusive. Not a big surprise when the man I looked up to in life, my father, was emotionally and physically abusive. During the fall of my final year in college, after practicing safe sex with this boyfriend, we had an accident (the condom broke) and I knew I had to get the morning after pill.

I had to wait through the weekend to get EC from the campus health center, and I didn't know that the later I took these pills the less effective it was. I was horrified when I found out that I was pregnant, not only because I knew it would make my pursuit of a college education come to a screeching halt, but that I could possibly be forced to marry a man that made me miserable. I went to the clinic, walked passed a handful of old white women protesting with hideous signs, and spoke to a woman through a bullet proof window. I put my abortion on a credit card and put my life back on track.

I couldn't possibly imagine myself at 25, with the job I have now, without a college degree and with a 5-year-old child.

updated: 7/2/2004