Ideology aside, abortion is a fact of women's lives: every year, 46 million women have abortions, including 1.3 million women in the United States. Journalists, judges, politicians, clergymen, and activists spend a lot of time telling women how they should feel about the issue of abortion. But how much time do we spend talking about the complexity of abortion as it is lived and experienced by real people, for example, the one in three American women who have had or will have abortions, not to mention the countless men and women who our experiences will touch?

I'll start by speaking for myself, as I wish our elected officials would. I'm a 29-year-old heterosexual woman, and I've been sexually active for 10 years. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a dozen women I know-currently ranging in age from under 18 to over 60-who have had abortions, both legal and illegal, for all kinds of reasons. Although I've never been pregnant-thanks to sex-positive parenting; comprehensive sex ed; conscientious condom use; fierce life plans; and dumb luck-I'm hard pressed to remember a time in the last 15 years when abortion wasn't in my thoughts.

In 15 years, those thoughts have changed a lot. If I'd gotten pregnant in high school, in college, or in my early 20s-when motherhood was unthinkable for me-a safe, legal abortion would have been a godsend, a lifesaver, a tremendous relief. I wouldn't have thought twice. Today, it's a different story. I'm still not ready to be a mom, I'm without healthcare, and I'm in no financial position to have a child-but I'm also in a stable relationship, and I'm old enough to be able to imagine myself as a mother. If I had an abortion today, it would be a decidedly different experience.

Does this erode my unequivocal support for safe, legal abortion? Absolutely not. But it's a good reminder that there is no single abortion experience, even within the span of one woman's reproductive lifetime. As midterm elections grow near, I'm sure we'll be hearing more and more about the "issue" of abortion, and less and less about its countless realities. In response, here are some resources that put women's experiences back where they should be-at the center of the discussion:

• Abortion Conversation Project seeks to create new ways and opportunities for providers and women to talk about abortion honestly and publicly. Striving for a world where "abortion is affirmed as a moral decision without stigma," is their goal.

• Project Voice compiles anonymous abortion stories from women experiencing a full range of emotions following abortion, including relief, regret, strength, grief, clarity, confusion, guilt, and freedom.

• Exhale is a "pro-voice" after-abortion hotline, created by and for women who have had abortions, that provides an alternative to politically motivated counseling agencies and creates awareness that abortion, and having feelings afterward, is normal in the reproductive lives of women and girls.

• Our Truths/Nuestras Verdades is a bilingual English/Spanish zine that seeks to capture the diversity of abortion experiences faced by people of all genders.

• Speak Out: I Had an Abortion is a documentary that features 11 women, ages 21 to 85, talking about their abortion experiences.

• I'm Not Sorry is a site where women can share their positive experiences with abortion.