I call my child a miracle. Born unexpectedly in India at 26.5 weeks, shortly before I was due to come back to the United States, and weighing only 1 pound 14 ounces, Janak survived against all odds.

Their early months were spent in Mumbai, in a neonatal intensive care unit that had only just opened. Many of their medications were too expensive and rare for the hospital to stock and had to be procured, by Janak’s father and me, from pharmacies around the city, whenever needed, often in the middle of the night.

In those early months, Janak went through multiple blood transfusions and was unable to eat because their internal organs were not developed enough to take in or process milk. They had complications related to undeveloped lungs and water in the brain. They were kept in a small translucent box in the neonatal intensive care unit and were stuck with needles constantly, each time emitting a painful bleating sound because their vocal cords were simply not developed. I, too, was physically and emotionally weak, having gone through an emergency cesarean section, with concerns about infection that threatened my own life. The worries didn’t end when we left Mumbai: In the ensuing years, we faced endless trips to the emergency room because of weak lungs and repeated pneumonia, a seizure and delays in speaking that made us worry about the future.

The fact that Janak survived this extraordinarily dangerous birth and thrived (indeed, just graduated from college!) is something for which I give endless thanks to the remarkable doctors, nurses and caregivers — in India and later at Seattle Children’s Hospital — who took such good care of this fragile being. I prayed multiple times a day to any being above that was listening that my child would live. And by all measures, we were incredibly fortunate.

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I have never spoken publicly about my abortion. In some ways, I have felt I should not have to, because it is an intensely personal decision. But I have decided to speak about it now because I am deeply concerned about the intensified efforts to strip choice and constitutional rights away from pregnant people and the simplistic ways of trying to criminalize abortion. There are so many stories that are far more traumatic than mine — low-income pregnant people, including people of color and rape victims who face untenable choices. There are also stories that are not traumatic at all — just the free exercise of a protected constitutional right. I am grateful to those across the country who are speaking out about the tremendous diversity of experiences and what it truly means to be empowered, even as I respect the choices of those who keep their stories private.

To this day, 22 years later, I think about those moments on the table in the doctor’s office. Circumstances prevented me from giving birth again, though I am blessed with a wonderful stepson. To this day, I have deep emotions about all the events of my life. For me, terminating my pregnancy was not an easy choice, but it was my choice. That is the single thing that has allowed me to live with the consequences of my decisions. And that is what must be preserved, for every pregnant person.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/opinion/pramila-jayapal-abortion.html#click=https://t.co/AjBxRLtBet