At age 18, Nelly Roach sat in a Planned Parenthood clinic with $246 to pay for an abortion.
“I found myself there, as many many people find themselves, in a place where they don’t feel that they have any options,” Roach says.
Roach was born into a Catholic family on the small island nation of Palau in the Pacific Ocean. When she was 13, her family moved to Missouri so she could receive a better education. She says she was raised with a sense of cultural responsibility to help and serve her family and her people, known as Palauans.
Waiting in the Planned Parenthood, Roach recalls, her mind raced. She felt she had to have the abortion for “the great good” of being able to help fellow Palauans one day, but also that what she was about to do was “wrong, but maybe I don’t care.”
When her name was called, Roach stood up. “Had I turned left…
