Note—A version this first appeared on my blog back in its relative infancy in 2007. And I have re-run it
when the simple right of meaningful reproductive
choice has seemed particularly threatened.
The post was drafted in response to an appeal from NARAL Pro-Choice America for stories about life before Roe V. Wade for use in a new campaign
in defense of women’s right to choose,
which back then unexpectedly seemed
under attack again.
Back in 2007 we were in shock that rights
considered firmly and irrevocably
won were once again under attack. Fifteen
years later that attack has become a tsunami. Numerous attempts to sharply curtail
abortion in several states were routinely over-turned in Federal Courts. But now with a Supreme Court majority
packed by the former serial-abuser-in-chief, word leaked out early
this month that Roe v. Wade is about to be overturned.
The Roe v Wade decision did not come out of thin air--it was the result of prolonged and militant action by feminists--a victory hard won and not just benevolently granted.
That is the desperate situation women—and men
who truly love and respect women—find themselves in today in the
United States. But they are not taking
the attacks lying down. From mass
Handmaidens demonstrations to marches, rallies, and organizing at the polls
new resistance is rising.
We will not return to the conditions described in this old
blog post.
It was 1971 in Chicago. We’ll call her Ellen. She was a friend from
college, tall and willowy with Italian Renaissance brown hair. She had a chorus part in an experimental
rock cantata by night and waited
tables by day. She was not my girlfriend. I wished she was. I was a forlorn looking hippy in a cowboy hat and bright orange
goatee, the dopey/quirky best pal in a romantic comedy—the guy who moons around and ends up
helping the bad boy with the megawatt smile get the girl. We met for dinner about once a week and sometimes went out for a drink after her show on a Saturday night.
I came over to her place for dinner one night, Liebfraumilch
in a stone bottle in hand. She was
crying. “I’m pregnant. I don’t know what
to do.” I held her and comforted
her. I didn’t ask who the father was. She didn’t volunteer. It was, after all, the lingering twilight of
the ‘60’s.
But I was on the staff of the old Seed,
the Chicago underground
newspaper. I had connections. I knew people who knew people.
Those people were the
Jane Collective, a semi-secret action group of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union who defied Illinois law and arranged safe abortions. In later years I got to know names and
faces of some of them. They were
true heroes in a desperate time.
I helped Ellen get in contact with Jane. They arranged for her to
see a cooperating doctor. She had to go alone to the appointment, where she was given a chemical abortifacient. I waited for her at her apartment.
The procedure was as safe as possible, but the cramping and pain from the induced miscarriage was serious in
Ellen’s case. It lasted three days. I stayed with her the whole time. We were afraid to seek further medical help. Other women had been arrested in hospital
emergency rooms.
In the end, the procedure was effective. Ellen
recovered. She got on with her
life. She went off the next summer on
some high adventure and I never saw her again. I got on with my life.
Within a few years, Illinois revised its laws in response to
Roe
v. Wade and safe abortions in clinical settings became
available. Jane dissolved. But I will
always remember Ellen’s needless ordeal and will never knowingly allow
another woman to suffer so.
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