I don’t feel very brave when I talk about my abortion. I feel small and scared.

But I don’t like staying silent out of fear. I don’t think that’s how anyone has ever gone about winning civil rights. And we have a lot of work to do.

So let’s talk about our abortions. Everyone who is able to, everyone who is ready–let’s speak out. Let’s treat them the way we’d treat, say, a root canal.

Our health care system walls reproductive care off into its own domain: treating birth control differently than other prescriptions, insisting that women obtain abortion care at special clinics rather than undergoing this simple outpatient surgery at the gynecologist’s office.

Let’s push back by treating it like it’s just another extremely common medical procedure.

And whether or not we disclose our abortions, whether or not we’ve even had them, let’s talk as though having an abortion is a perfectly okay option to consider when you’re very unhappy about being pregnant. Let’s act like women have a choice.

Let’s tell our friends that there is nothing wrong with ending an unwanted, life-disrupting, economically catastrophic pregnancy, and let’s listen to what they say and support them in whatever decisions they make….