Supreme Reasoning: "... Three generations of women... believe, or pretend to believe, that having a living person torn out of their bodies is a form of self-control.".

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.

MY PUBLISHER reached out the day the Supreme Court negated Roe v. Wade and asked if I had thoughts. (He is mischievous; knows me well; and fully expected my, oh, yes, a lot of thoughts!)

I could take the personal route on this one: I was a mom at 17 and, while my family, across generations, was loving and supportive, albeit disappointed in timing, not everyone in that time and place was so encouraging. Let's just say more than one person kept pointing out how much "better" my life would have been if I would have an abortion. That seemed crazy then and even crazier now. That baby is a woman whom I love, a daughter, friend, and colleague. She has been a blessing for more people than I can count. There is nothing in my life that would have been better without her, and I say that with logic, not just my heart. Anecdotes, however, are not evidence, so let us continue.

On an impersonal level, with the limited space available here, I invite you to step back with me and see the question of abortion as part of a panorama, one in which the last 60 years can be seen as a remarkably orchestrated process. Birth control pills, hormone implants, and injections carry profound risks; the research is very often clear, and remarkably well-hidden. Yet, three generations of women have been convinced that ingesting poison is a form of freedom. They believe, or pretend to believe, that having a living person torn out of their bodies is a form of self-control. The self-control could have kicked in earlier vis-a-vis keeping their knickers on and using better judgment in picking a partner, and yes, I am aware there are horrible situations of rape and incest. As a victim of violence, I will never blame those who have evil inflicted on them.

Can we stick to the bigger picture, please? Simultaneous with the normalization of poison and infanticide, the forms of sexuality displayed in public and glamorized by the media have become progressively more debased. The process has produced many young women who assume sex with relative strangers, often involving being hit and choked, is just what happens. Shrug. Thoughts of commitment and babies are so . . . weird. It is a sociopathic playboy's dream and ought to be a nightmare for the parents of girls.

Stepping back further, more than 200 years prior to my little tale, in the 1770s, King George of England had more than a bit of trouble with some of the colonies. Note the plural noun, colonies. The original 13 colonies...