Roe v. Wade, 35 years later

When I was about 12 years old, I remember borrowing from my uncle's library a book that talked about a group of young students in communist Albania during the 1970s.
In one of the chapters, the main female character gets pregnant and it is the most devastating thing ever. Mind you, I doubt it they had contraceptive pills or even condoms.
Anyway, it was worse than being dead as it meant social death and punishment.
In an attempt to "save" herself, she has an abortion done at a "nurse's" apartment as abortions were illegal. She bleeds to death in an attempt to save herself from a social death.

I recall being completely disgusted by the cruelty in which the abortion was performed and feeling a complete, utter anger about why could not this young, smart, beautiful woman, full of life go to the hospital and at least survive death. (Well, now I know that she could not because she would have to go to jail for attempting to have an abortion to begin with.)

I felt that I could not ask my mom as I would have to explain why was I reading a book that I obviously was not allowed to. Years later when I found out that actually my mom and the author were friends, I did talk to my mom about the book and felt so lucky that in any given circumstance, women of my generation would not have to go through such pain. Abortion in Albania and most of Europe is fully legal and set to stay so.

As I moved to study in the US, it always came as a shock to me that there is always a constant conversation about making abortion illegal. It always brings me back to that book and that young woman's story, and in a way I get very confused. There was an explanation for what happened to her, she was living under a regime that had no respect for human rights and freedom. But now, here in the US, the same conversation? Have we all not learned?

Please do read this article from the Salon magazine. It does put Roe v. Wade very much in perspective.