HELENA, Mont. — A handful of people recently gathered in the shade of a large pine tree for a going-away party of sorts. Their friend, Dani Marietti, was going to have her fallopian tubes removed, a decision she made after a leaked draft of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion was published in May.
The small group kicked off the “sterilization shower” for the 25-year-old by laying out chalk-written signs that said “See Ya Later Ovulater” and “I got 99 problems but tubes ain’t one.” And they munched on cookies that had abortion-rights slogans, such as “My Body, My Choice,” written on them in frosting.
“Cheers to Dani and her choice to get sterilized,” Kristina McGee-Kompel said.
Marietti is a full-time graduate student in Helena working toward becoming a therapist. She doesn’t want kids to get in the way of her career, she said. She had considered permanent sterilization before, but the possibility that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade pushed her to seek out an OB-GYN who would help her with a permanent method of contraception.
“‘I want to do this as soon as possible,’” she recalled telling the doctor.
“I always knew I didn’t want children, and of course when you say that as a younger person, everyone is like, ‘Oh, you’ll change your mind,’ or, ‘Just wait until you find the one,’” she said. “I always kind of ignored that.”
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