For people living in poverty, getting an abortion is hard. It’s about to get harder
When Aida Peery decided to get an abortion at 18, she felt scared and confused. It was a few years after the historic Roe V. Wade ruling, the 1973 landmark case protecting a person’s right to an abortion. But Peery was unsure how she could access the procedure.
At the time, her home state of Illinois required unmarried people 18 and under to first obtain parental consent to undergo an abortion. Peery, nervous but committed to her decision, enlisted the help of a family friend to pose as her mother at a clinic in Chicago. She felt like she couldn’t be honest with her family about the situation
“I was scared to talk to my family about it,” Peery said. “They instilled a lot of fear in me.”