Lisa Nowak James

I remember being carried from the treatment room to a pleasant, sun-filled living room as I regained consciousness. The doctor carefully tucked a blanket around me and presented me with a smile and a cup of tea and asked how I felt.

I could hardly believe that I’d just had an abortion and remember the multiple crash of feelings I experienced at that moment—relief, tenderness, despair. The relief was due to the fact that it was over and that I was free again to make plans, to take up my life where I had left it, and that through the whole thing I had been treated with simple human dignity.

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You know what, J.L., you’re right. Now is a great time to be a woman, but make no mistake about it, we see right through your plastic sales pitch. The soft music and cellophane baubles, the WOMAN NOW placards and flower emblems, the buttons, bumper stickers and billboards don’t fool us. We see right past that phony Frenchman on the first floor, painting women’s faces in his own image. We see right through the come-ons and not-so-hidden persuaders in every ad and in every corner of your store.

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