“Here is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trap—I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you—because you know how to perform them—have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice—and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you.”

American and Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter

John Winslow Irving is an American and Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He is known for fiction that moves between the two countries and for a body of work that has reached readers beyond the page through film and adaptation. Irving writes across novels, short fiction, and screenplays, with a career shaped by both American and Canadian identity. His work is closely associated with storytelling that is broad in scope and attentive to character, family, and the often complicated turns of ordinary life.