Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy! I’m Amy McPhie Allebest. Today is Part 2 of our discussion on the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe vs. Wade. Last time we introduced this landmark document, and we covered about half of the points of the case. And today we will share our thoughts on some of the key points from the second half of the text. And again I’m joined by my reading partner, Lindsay McPhie Hickok. Hi, Lindsay! Lindsay: Hi, Amy! Amy: We ended our previous episode with the story of Mehnaz in Pakistan. And after we recorded that episode I was thinking that I would like to share another story, this time about someone I know. This is a story of a very, very dear friend of mine, so I won’t say her name to protect the anonymity of her family. But Lindsay you remember her.  Lindsay: Yes I do When I was a new mom with just Baby Lindsay, I had a neighbor who had a baby just Lindsay’s age, and we became friends. We took turns watching each other’s babies so we could exercise and then we would eat lunch together, we kept our own food at each other’s houses because we were together so often. We served in church together, spending hours and hours outside of church in planning meetings and doing service for a congregation that had a lot of needs. We got pregnant with our second babies at the exact same time, so we went through the pregnancies together and then had our babies within a week of each other. We shared a lot of really deep conversations - she had a masters degree in social work and we both loved learning about psychology - she was a really curious person and a deep thinker, and she was also really fun. She was one of the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. Eventually she and her husband moved to a different state so that he could go to law school, and I was devastated that she moved, but we talked on the phone sometimes. We weren’t great about keeping in touch - that was before texting and neither of us were really phone talkers… but she did reach out and said “Hey, I just want you to know I just got diagnosed with melanoma. I’m near one of the best cancer hospitals in the country, but it’s complicated because I’m pregnant so they can’t treat it aggressively.” So she and her husband had to make the choice of what to do. She chose to keep the pregnancy and do a very complicated and difficult balancing act of doing what they could to treat the cancer without hurting the baby. She carried the baby as long as she could, and then when the doctors decided the baby was healthy enough, they delivered the baby by C-section. The plan had been to battle the cancer as soon as the baby was out, but it was too late, and Erin died 6 days after her baby was born, leaving her husband with their two little boys and a newborn in the NICU.

Obviously this is really hard for me to talk about - it’s been almost 14 years and I still can’t say her name without crying - but what I want to say is that my friend was a smart person. My friend was a courageous person. My friend was a moral person and a wise person, and she happened to be a spiritual person too. When I think of her being in that agonizing, excruciating situation, I have two really strong urges: the first is that I want to hug her and tell her she is good and brave and that I love her. And the second very strong urge I have is that I want to clear the room to protect her from anybody who thinks they know what is best for her, and just tell them to go home and keep their opinions to themselves. I know that in this moment of anguish my friend brought in her husband and her family and a team of doctors, and she was a person of faith, so I know she prayed every second of that time while she made the decision… and I don’t think it’s anybody’s right to judge her or tell her what was right for HER LIFE and HER FAMILY. That was nobody’s right but hers. 

And as I’ve read more and more stories of girls and women - and you can go on the website if you want to read some -...