Joyce’s Story
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Transcript
Dear Amy,
So my abortion took place in 1957 or 1958. I don’t know the exact date, I was 22 or 23. And you know, I vaguely knew that if you had sex you could get pregnant, I didn’t know anything about birth control. And I guess we were just winging it you know, just winging it. And I'm thinking also now about how the times have changed. My mother never talked to me about birth control because at that time it was considered that you would not have sex until you were married. But we know a lot of people did. But my granddaughter got a boyfriend and my daughter put condoms in her car. I sent her a little email saying you might be interested in having sex one of these days, just remember, I didn’t even say if you get pregnant I just said, it’s often more satisfying for men than for women so just make sure you really want to do this.
I was in a relationship with a man who was 4 years older than I was and he was definitely more sophisticated, he had a PhD in physical chemistry. At that time I had an AA degree. And we met. After I got my AA degree I went to work for TWA as an airline hostess as they called us and he was one of my passengers. And there was an empty seat next to him and seems like he just exuded a certain charm so I sat down next to him and chatted a little bit and I liked what I saw. I was stationed in Newark, New Jersey at that time. He was living in Philadelphia and I figured who would want to come to Newark. But anyway, I said if you are ever in NY and you aren’t married call me up. So he did.
And that was the beginning of a relationship. We never married, he never married, I married twice after that. He died about a month ago at 91. But when we realized I was pregnant, I don’t remember if he had told me this before, he might have, but he knew he did not want children. I wasn’t clear on that at all but at that point I had gone back to school and was working on a BA at Berkeley. And so it didn’t seem like it felt, even if I had felt strongly about keeping that child, it didn’t fit into my life at that time and as I say he had strong feelings that he did not want children and he was older and more sophisticated than I was. And we knew that abortions were not legal in the United States at that time. So he figured out that we could go to Tijuana to get an abortion. And I don’t remember the details of that. I do think I was aware that things might not be as safe in Mexico as medical procedures in the United States. But anyway he set everything up and we went to Tijuana and got the abortion. And when we came back he said “Joyce we got to go to Planned Parenthood.” and we did and I got a diaphragm.
Sometime after that, I don’t think it had anything to do with the abortion but as relations often do, it wasn’t feeling so good to me anymore. And that was just when Kennedy was announcing the Peace Corps. And I was very inspired by that and I had just finished my BA in English and I wanted to do something other than study study, read books and stuff so they were just setting up at that time so they didn't say “Joyce, we have a program here and a program here” they said, “how would you like to go to Nigeria?”. And so I did. And one reason I did it was because I knew it wouldn’t be a confrontation with Mike, this is something really important to do. And I didn’t take my diaphragm. I wasn’t planning on it and it was so yucky and I got pregnant again but I had that child, her father and I got married.