By **Katherine Dykstra**

From the stark lines that close its opening paragraph: “I used the pink foam. My period was late,” I knew Bridget Potter’s “Lucky Girl” was perfect for Guernica. The story of her unplanned pregnancy and subsequent search for a safe, affordable abortion in the years before the passage of Roe v. Wade made my pulse quicken in the way it always does when I realize I’m reading something I want to share with everyone I know. I am now thrilled to announce that Edwidge Danticat, guest editor of The Best American Essays 2011, has chosen “Lucky Girl” to be included in this year’s anthology, out in the fall from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Brought to us by Brenda Wineapple, who guest-edited the nonfiction section in the March 2010 issue, Potter’s piece describes her tedious, increasingly desperate, search, all in frank, spare prose. In an era during which women’s rights once again hang in the balance, how important for us to remember what it was like before women had the freedom to choose. And how exciting that now Potter’s affecting piece will get an even broader readership.

Copyright 2011 Katherine Dykstra

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Katherine Dykstra is a senior editor at Guernica. Read her interview with Sheryl WuDunn On the Emancipation of Women here.