Life Before Roe v. Wade (a must read for young women)

[donsu]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/31049/


More than thirty years later, three people who helped provide abortions before Roe tell their stories.
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On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court voted by a margin of 7-2 that a woman had a constiutional right to an abortion. On the 33rd anniversary of that decision, the Senate Judiciary Committee is contemplating the nomination of Samuel Alito, a man who is on record opposing abortion rights. Here are the brief stories of three people who helped provide abortion before 1973. They are members of Voices of Choice, a multi-media project with two dozen physicians and social activists who helped provide safe,illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade was decided. Their voices are a reminder that outlawing abortion doesn't make it go away; it just makes it less safe.

-snip=

Mildred Hanson, M.D.

-snip-

"In 1935, when I was 11 years old, my mother left our Wisconsin house on a bitter February night and dashed to the farm next door to help an ailing woman who'd had an illegal abortion. Our neighbor was writhing in pain so severe that she was having convulsions and was chewing her lip raw. It took her two days to die of blood poisoning. She left six children behind - and left me with firsthand knowledge of the injustice of illegal abortion.

-snip-

Jane Hodgson, M.D.

-snip-

"Over the course of my 60-year career, I've done a lot of volunteer work overseas in countries where abortion is illegal. I've seen women who had botched procedures soak their mattresses through with blood. I've seen countless other women die.

"People in the United States don't know about these horrors. Nor do they remember what women's lives were like here before abortion became legal. Before 1973, single women who got pregnant were fired from their jobs. Younger ones were sent to maternity homes for unwed mothers and their children were put up for adoption. Married women who got pregnant were forced to carry pregnancies to term regardless of their circumstances - even if they had so many children that they couldn't afford to feed another one; even if they had metastasized cancer; even if their fetuses couldn't live outside the womb because these fetuses had developed without a heart or brain.

-snip-

The Reverend Howard Moody

-snip-

"To get an abortion before it was legal, a woman had to meet someone in a parking lot late at night and be taken to some unknown place. She had no idea whose hands she was in -- or if she would even survive. To provide safety and support to women in this horrible situation, we formed a coalition of 26 clergy members to counsel women considering abortion and refer them to doctors we knew were safe. Most clergy at that time would not condone abortion. In fact, they wouldn't even discuss it. But our members -- Baptist, Episcopal, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian -- saw this as part of their ministry.
-snip-
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I wish there was a god that would help us women, but there is not, and we have to fight tooth and nail for our justice. our lives and the lives of our daughters and granddaughters depend on our good fight.

[madaboutharry]

1. Sad times ahead unless

those who say the abortion issue is too good a magnet for the right wing to ever allow it to go away. Some say, like Randi Rhodes, that the republicans get too much mileage out of the abortion issue to ever actually overturn Roe v. Wade. I don't know, maybe. But, I do think that there could be so many restrictions placed on access to abortion that Roe v. Wade could become meaningless. My mother has a dear friend whose aunt, a woman in her early 20's back in the 1940's, committed suicide over an unwanted pregnancy. It is very disturbing to think we could ever go back in time to that awful place.

[Hugin]

2. Some research for you to do...

If you're interested.

Due to the stigma of unwed or "illegitimate" motherhood there was an
entire industry of "Baby Mills". Places where mothers (who feared being
seen as such) would place their baby.

The racket of these places was to extort money from the mother for the
care of the baby. (Which rarely benefited from such care and in many
instances would die.)

The serial killer files are full of stories of such places.

Share this story with those who would stigmatize motherhood and claim
they're interested in the baby. Because they were responsible for this
outrage by coupling stigma with desperation.

[channa18]

3. A M U S T read.....THANKS

the lying alito will turn women into possessions ....

in essence PUNISH women for...<<gasp>>> "FORNICATING"

make coat hangers makers happy....

and will be a full employment act for BACK ALLEY BUTCHERS.


Heaven help us.

[supernova]

4. Must read and recommended

People who only read the front page, especially young women, need to see this!

[channa18]

5. I'm surprised more havent responded.....

this is sooooo important to read.

[Midlodemocrat]

6. Thank you, donsu for posting this. A must read

for all of us. We must protect a woman's right to choose the course of her own life.

[Cleita]

7. I remember those days and women friends who had

to endure those conditions. One thing that I learned for sure was that there was no stopping a woman determined to end a pregnancy no matter how risky it might be.

What should have been a simple surgical procedure, became a matter of life and death, not to mention very expensive.

[enough]

8. I too remember those days.

What nightmares women were plunged into.

[davidinalameda]

9. kick

[jillan]

10. There was a movie I once saw

Someone help me remember the name so we can provide a link.

It was about 3 different women, 3 different decades.
They all had abortions before Roe v Wade.

It was a horrible movie. Heart wrenching. Suffering. Abortions on the kitchen table by bogus doctors. Made me sick, unable to sleep peacefully. But every woman should see it.

Someone in DU-land has had to see this besides me.

It doesn't matter if you are for or against abortion.
The truth is that women are still going to have them.
Women do not deserve to go back to those days.

[jillan]

11. If These Walls Could Talk

that was the movie...

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=136782



incredible film.
Abortion must stay legal!