“Because I grew up in Chile, I wasn’t aware of social services in the U.S. It was just my boyfriend and I and a little baby living in rural Arkansas.

“There were times we didn’t have food. We didn’t even have a phone to be able to call our parents in South America and ask for help.

“It’s important for folks to know that even those of us in situations where it would have been easier to choose an abortion, but did not, can still be pro-choice.”

“Some 25 years ago I went in for a routine checkup at 17 weeks of pregnancy and found out the baby I was carrying was dead. The baby had likely died a week or two earlier, but my body didn’t expel it.

“I had a D&E, and it went fine. A year later I had a beautiful, healthy, much-wanted and beloved baby girl.

“It’s not about saving the lives of unborn children. It’s about power and a blatant disregard for the physical, emotional, and psychological well-being of more than half of American citizens.”

“My mother was barely 22 when she immigrated to the U.S. She spoke some but not a lot of English. She had a controlling boyfriend who impregnated her and then left her. She had a job with meager pay, no family, and no one to help her raise a child.

“If she had been denied access to an abortion, she would have been a struggling single mother of one the rest of her life, unable to have the healthy, happy, secure family she eventually had. And I would not be here today.”