To the editor: In 1962, I was a sophomore at Newcomb College, the women's college of Tulane University in New Orleans.
I lived in a female dorm where one day confusion in the hall drew me to my door to observe what was happening. I saw a female on a gurney being removed by the emergency medical team. Her face still haunts me today as it was without color, totally white.
I later learned that this 19-year-old student and her boyfriend discovered that she was pregnant. Together, they found someone to perform an abortion, one that was illegal at the time. She returned to the dorm and began to hemorrhage. Apparently, as she knew she had done something illegal, she did not seek help but placed herself in a bathtub. By the time she was discovered and provided medical aid, she lost so much blood that she died.
Her boyfriend went on to become an attorney, marry, have children and continues to live a long life.
If you support the Supreme Court's apparent radical shift in constitutional law overturning Roe v. Wade, remember the powerful lesson I learned as an innocent 19-year-old who didn't even know what abortion was at the time. Women have had abortions for centuries and will continue to have abortions whether they are legal or not and, if they are not legal, more women will die.
Judith Kazer Lamet, Pittsfield
