Roe v. Wade was struck down because my generation dropped the ball

I’m feeling a lot of generational guilt right now.

Growing up in the 1980s, the first time I heard about abortion, I was on a bus with my mother heading to a rally in Washington, D.C. At first, I was conflicted. A person can decide to end a pregnancy? And when abortion wasn’t legal, some people resorted to dangerous tactics with hangers or illegal procedures that sometimes killed them? It was a lot for my teenage brain to take in.

But for my mother and the women of her generation on that bus, their opinion was clear. People had the right to choose abortion, for whatever reason, they believed, and they were going to fight to make sure their children had that right as well.

» READ MORE: Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, imperiling abortion access nationwide

I don’t remember much about my teenage years, but I remember that day. There were hundreds of thousands of people, carrying signs and yelling slogans. We got yelled at, too, by people who believed abortion was wrong, but we kept walking and chanting. I remember hearing Helen Reddy’s echoing voice projected over the crowd as she sang “I Am Woman” from the stage. The weather was beautiful.

What I remember most was the fierce determination I saw in the women around me. I could feel the fight in them: the drive to protect each other and their children. I could feel that they were fighting for me and my friends, to protect us from ever having to risk our lives to terminate a pregnancy. I was inspired and grateful.

It was because of them that I spent my 20s and 30s knowing that my life didn’t have to be derailed by an unwanted pregnancy. I never wanted to have an abortion (and thankfully never needed to), but I was relieved to know it was an option. It meant that I could build the life I wanted for myself, on my own terms.

Our parents’ fight to give me that right meant more than just abortion, too. I could see that previous generations of people had suffered, but now I didn’t have to. The message was that progress was possible, and the inequities we were facing today could one day be a thing of the past, too, if we fought hard enough.

Now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, I’m losing the hope for better days that was a feature of my growing up. And I feel like my generation has let everyone down: All that work our parents did to give us more opportunities than they had is now being washed away. It’s possible that our society is moving in a direction that’s worse than even my parents had it, with state surveillance and risks of criminal charges for anyone involved with a pregnancy that doesn’t result in a healthy birth.

I feel embarrassed and scared for our future.

I am sure if my mother were alive, she would tell me it wasn’t all our fault; the Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday was decades in the making and a result of tireless efforts on the part of people who dedicated themselves to overturning a law they vehemently opposed.

But still, I can’t help asking myself: Why didn’t we fight harder? We knew that opponents of abortion were working hard to achieve this moment — why didn’t we stop it from happening?

“Why didn’t we fight harder?”

I don’t just feel this way about abortion. In recent years, I’ve watched so many rights my parents’ generation fought hard for to give their children better lives come under threat. I’ve worried more and more that my daughter, now 8 years old, will grow up in a less tolerant world than the one I grew up in. Book bans, Pennsylvania versions of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and any number of upcoming Supreme Court decisions could give her a future where she is less able to build the life she wants to have for herself.

I feel so awful about that. And guilty.

So I’m thinking more and more about the people of the 1960s and 1970s, about their anger and determination that changed the nation. So many of them knew that the rights they fought for wouldn’t appear in their lifetimes, but they did the work anyway, with the hope that my generation would have it better than theirs did.

So to all you millennials and Gen Xers, let’s get to work. Our daughters are counting on us.

Alison McCook is an associate opinion editor at The Inquirer.