Can’t hit ‘like’ for this. Wish there was a ‘recommend reading’ or ‘pay attention’ button. So I will leave a few words behind.

I had 4 pregnancies, 4 live-births and have 3 surviving children. I wanted a ‘large’ family despite coming from a nuclear family, or maybe because of it, in India, the country with the largest population in the world. Raising children, along with my career, takes a lot of my time, energy and resources. As a family, we make some sacrifices. I would have resented all that if I had been forced to do so, by someone else, just as some disenfranchised women in India struggle and resent when it is not their choice, but the choice of their in-laws and families.

Why are American women becoming so unfree and unempowered as to give strangers power over their bodies, minds and lives when the norm here, relatively and generally speaking, is to be less weighed down by family expectations? Why are they putting themselves in a position to give up their hard-won rights to have control over their own lives?

I want better for my own American daughters just as my Indian ancestors, neighbors, friends, family, leaders, wanted for me and our planet.