Detail from Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (1801) | Marie Denise Villers / Public Domain
In 1969, Honor Moore was a 23-year-old graduate student at Yale School of Drama when she made the profound decision to end an unintended pregnancy—an experience that would shape her life and work. In her memoir A Termination (Public Space Books), Moore reflects on this pivotal moment while embarking on dual paths: radical activism and a quieter yearning to write. Set against the vivid backdrops of New York, the New Haven of Yale University, and the Berkshires between 1967 and 1970, her narrative intertwines personal struggles, artistic ambition, and sweeping social change.
In an interview with Elide Vincenti, Moore delves into how memory, identity, and the choices we make define us over time.
Elide Vincenti: Why publish the book now, after all these years?
Honor Moore: I began writing the book in late 2020 and finished the book following the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, just one week before the announcement of the Thomas E. Dobbs decision, which removed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. There wasn’t an intentional connection between my writing and these events, but the timing ultimately created a link. As to “why now,” I had my own reasons. I recount in the book how a reviewer once commented on another work of mine, that I had “glossed over” my abortion, “which is troubling.” My initial reaction was, “That’s none of her business.” But I had written a memoir, so it was, arguably, every reader’s business. I looked her up—she was 13 years younger than me and had come of age before the right wing had seized the discourse around abortion. My decision was simple.
Before Roe, if you had an abortion, it was illegal, against the law—you could be arrested and thrown in jail. And this is happening again now in this country, which is terrifying and devastating to women’s reproductive health.
Vincenti: How would you describe the environment in 1969, given that abortion was illegal?
Moore: When I had my abortion, I was not aware of any movement for abortion—I was alone. When I moved to New York in 1969, months after my abortion, I became aware of women’s liberation. Our fight was for the repeal of all abortion laws, including those that allowed for exceptions like rape or incest, and even those that made termination of a pregnancy legal. e focused on the principle that no one else should have the power to make decisions about women’s bodies. This was before the the word choice came into use, before the anti-choice movement heavily burdened a woman’s decision with layers of moral, religious, and philosophical rhetoric—amplified by media—which led women to believe they needed an extreme justification not to have a child, rather than choosing not to be a mother right then, simply wanting the freedom to live our own lives. You have to remember there was no internet, no email, only underground women’s newspapers. Sure, the Jane Collective [which provided safe abortion assistance] existed, but that was in Chicago, and I didn’t know about it.
I was very fortunate to have the money for the procedure, and it was done in a hospital. Despite that, it wasn’t pleasant; I had no support, and the doctor told me I couldn’t tell anyone, which made the whole experience feel more frightening because I was alone. Connecticut was a very Roman Catholic, conservative state when it came to reproductive freedom. Nationally, birth control for married people had only been legal since 1965. Before that, you could be arrested for buying a diaphragm without a doctor’s prescription. Birth control pills, when they came into use in 1966, were very expensive, and there was no morning-after pill. My doctor was probably scared. He may have feared arrest even though my abortion was legal—I’d obtained the therapeutic abortion exception, which allowed abortions if a psychiatrist approved it.
Vincenti: You wrote about women who faced similar challenges, as well as more traditional women, like your mother, and later, your sisters. How did you feel in relation to them?
Moore: I was the oldest, and none of my sisters were married or mothers at that time. My mother chose to have nine children and was active in Planned Parenthood, though we never discussed abortion. I had no idea how she would respond to my situation. Also, I’d been told not to tell anyone. But remember, in my generation, every woman I knew who got pregnant and wasn’t ready to have a child wanted an abortion.
Vincenti: Your writing reveals some conflict between wanting autonomy and wanting an emotional connection. Did you ever feel that your lovers were obstacles to your freedom, or did they offer something else?
Moore: One of my lovers, who could have been the father of the pregnancy, actively obstructed my writing. It wasn’t until after I made the decision to have the abortion, which was truly a decision for my own independence, that I began to understand the idea of independence, what we now might call an autonomous life. That transformation for me happened within the context of the women’s movement. I joined a consciousness raising group in 1970. We learned to support each other; we had a real aim, that women no longer be driven by rivalry for men, that we become sisters in struggle.
Vincenti: Has your personal experience helped define your political and artistic identity? Or do you feel that you would have become who you are, regardless of that experience?
Moore: I don’t think there’s such a thing as “meant to be,” because it all depends on the context. For example, you could say I was meant to be a housewife with five children, but I went against that. Or you could say I was meant to be an artist, and despite the struggle, I became one. But that idea doesn’t apply universally. There are many women from my generation and those before me who may have been meant to be artists but, for various reasons—getting pregnant, being unable to access abortion, or lacking the strength or privilege to carve out their own paths—never became who they might have been. This is exactly the point of Virginia Woolf’s essay “A Room of One’s Own,” where she imagines Shakespeare having a sister with equal talent, but whose life led her away from writing—not because of a lack of ability, but because of the constraints placed on her. That sister was just as “meant to be” an artist as her brother. So, there’s no such thing as “meant to be” in a universal sense. There are still women, people of color, and those who are poor all over the world who are meant to be artists, but the circumstances often prevent them from achieving that dream. So, what does “meant to be” really mean?
Vincenti: Without the abortion, your life would have been totally different …
Moore: I don’t know if I’d use the word “totally,” but yes, I probably would have been a mother.
Vincenti: There’s a part of your book in the chapter “Mama” where you say, “I never wanted to be a mother,” distinct from “I didn’t want a child.” I think this is a powerful distinction. What does it mean to you?
Moore: Given feminism and the women’s movement, it would have been much more possible for me to have children and still become a writer. But my life would have been very different. I was interested in being someone who wrote books and poems. With second-wave feminism, we started to read about the lives of women who lived solo. I remember hearing Adrienne Rich, in her essay “Vesuvius at Home,” talk about Emily Dickinson and how Dickinson wanted to and chose to become an artist— which is not how she has been depicted, as a girl who couldn’t find a husband and wrote little poems instead. Feminism inspired the reframing of these kinds of choices.
I set out to write the book because I wanted to revisit who I was at 23, when I made that decision. At the time, I didn’t have the language for what I did. It wasn’t like, “Oh my God, I know I want to be a writer, so I don’t want to get pregnant.” It was more like, “I don’t want to be pregnant right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to have my own life.”
Read an excerpt of A Termination, courtesy of Honor Moore and A Public Space.
