General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMy Abortion Story
While on my first real job after high school in Memphis, Tennessee, I was asked to do a favor for my supervisor, a woman in her early thirties who had become a mentor and friend. The favor she asked was that I accompany her to get an abortion. She had become pregnant by her own boss, the married Vice President of the company. This woman, Ill call her Martha, was going through a divorce at the time and was terrified of losing custody of her two young children. I believe this was 1970. Abortions were legal in some states but not anywhere in the Mississippi Delta.
On a Friday after work I accompanied Martha across the Tennessee state line into rural Mississippi. I have no idea where we actually were, but I recall our driving down a long unpaved road, deep in woods, to a small frame house. We were met by a bent old lady (straight out of Disney casting for witches) who immediately asked for money and then told Martha to take off her underwear and get up on the table. It was white. Enamel. Dents and rust around the edges. I was told to wait in a back room. In perhaps half an hour I was called. Martha was a little ashen, but standing, dressed, ready to go. She got into the back seat of her car. (I remember it as a Cadillac; it probably wasnt.) I began to drive us back to Memphis.
Before wed been too long on the road Martha became very irritable, complaining about my driving, even swearingsomething Id never heard her do. By the time wed arrived back at her house, this had become moaning and sobbing. Somehow, I got her into the house, into a nightgown, and into her own bed. She wanted coffee. I went to make it. When I returned I found her white as a ghost and almost the entire bed soaked in blood.
I called an ambulance, even while she cried and begged me not to, and Martha was taken to the hospital. She was there slightly under a week and recovered with the exception that she was rendered permanently sterile by whatever that old witch had done to her. About two weeks after she returned to work she was dismissed by the company. Her husband, of course, learned the details of her hospitalization. She lost custody of her kids. I lost touch with Martha.
After all this time I sometimes have dreams about this incident. You cant tell me that overturning Roe wont take us back to this. For the sake of our daughters, our granddaughters, all the Marthas we might know, we CANT let that happen
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)I sincerely hope that we never return to such times.
TommyCelt
(838 posts)...by the women in my life that "hoping" isn't enough (I said almost the same sentence to my wife a week ago).
This is not fear-mongering or alarmism; they are coming after Roe, they are coming after women, they'll be coming after LGBTQ+, minorities, poor, and before long they'll be coming for all of us; anyone who dares not walk in lockstep with this travesty.
Time to stand up. Time to take to the streets. Time to use our voices in any capacity possible.
Marthe48
(17,112 posts)and other financial tools.
It can and will happen if we don't fight them. GOTV.
And keep one eye on traitor trump, because I suspect the timing of these anti-woman laws is a diversion.
Thanks for being supportive
Faux pas
(14,706 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,512 posts)In some parts of the country, we're already there.
DownriverDem
(6,236 posts)I know a woman who went to New York from Ohio where it was legal. She had to go alone because her and her boyfriend couldn't afford for both to go and pay for the abortion. It all worked out for her. The same thing is going to happen if Roe is overturned. I'm aware of New York and California saying that abortions will continue to be legal if Roe is overturned. it won't be easy, but abortions will still be available.
wryter2000
(46,130 posts)At age 18. I got pregnant the very first time I had sex in 1967. Not only was abortion illegal, but birth control was hard to get for unmarried women.
I had excellent care and recovered completely, but that voyage wasn't something I'd wish on anyone.
rzemanfl
(29,581 posts)Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)When I was in high school, well before Roe, I knew a girl who got pregnant, aborted herself with a knitting needle, and botched it. She got a raging infection, almost died, and had to have a hysterectomy.
I keep telling those who want to make abortions illegal that they also want to return to those days. It is a well-established principle in ethics that if you choose an action, you also choose the forseeable consequences of that action. They don't like to hear this. Too bad.
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)hlthe2b
(102,509 posts)Arkansas Granny
(31,540 posts)I learned about her at around age 12 when a classmate told me about her sister requiring her services. She lived in a shack on a dirt road and didn't even have running water in the house.
Pachamama
(16,887 posts)I am crying as I read this story you just shared...
This....
Farmer-Rick
(10,235 posts)It was said that everyone alive in the 1970s, knew someone who had died or was horribly injured in the Vietnam war.
You can add to that. Everyone knew of someone who had died or was horribly injured due to a botched abortion.
rzemanfl
(29,581 posts)DownriverDem
(6,236 posts)Abortions became legal in 1973 country wide.
Farmer-Rick
(10,235 posts)I had several horror stories about friends and abortion back then already, also injured friends from Vietnam.
It took a few years before actual access to abortions became possible. Even two years later, otherwise liberal states didn't offer abortions in many hospitals and there were few clinics. Women in one state would regularly go to another state to exercise their constitutional rights.
Now it is all unwinding and going back to the horrors of bloody coat hangers in an age were a pill could easily take care of the problem.
CountAllVotes
(20,882 posts)With my one hand that can still barely type with, I say what pill? No pill works 100% of the time.
Till my dying day it shall be my wish that the males that impregnate the females take responsibility for their actions!
Till death do us part indeed!
Farmer-Rick
(10,235 posts)True nothing works 100% except the actual procedure. It also works on later pregnancies but is less effective.
Mifepristone and misoprostol, or RU-486 or Plan C can be bought over the counter in India, China, Nepal and Bangladesh. Most European countries offer it by prescription from a doctor. I suspect there will be a huge underground black market in the pills here in the US.
Here's a link to planned parenthood that talks about it. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/the-abortion-pill
CountAllVotes
(20,882 posts)I was thinking you were referring to "The Pill" as in birth control.
Misunderstanding.
Sorry about that.
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)abortions technically became legal, but it was some time before they were widely available. And the "legality" of the thing, (see integration) didn't mean much for many, many years in the Deep South.
yellowdogintexas
(22,292 posts)Mexico was the closest place. So she and the mom went to Mexico City. Procedure was in a hospital but the daughter was raped by the doctor and another man in the OR (probably the Anesthesiologist). Handy rape victim because well, she was already pregnant.
She did not have the usual complications but it was still a trauma for other reasons
calimary
(81,594 posts)He was a doctor - the kind that made you think of TVs kindly old Marcus Welby decades ago. Even kinda looked like him.
He told a story about being out driving somewhere locally when he spotted a girl slumped on the sidewalk. He went to check on her and found she was hemorrhaging right there on the pavement. He quickly assessed that shed had a back alley abortion and was literally bleeding to death. He gathered her up and put her in the back of his car and drive her straight to the hospital.
He didnt say what happened to her but what he did say was the clincher. This distinguished city elder who was politically conservative and voted Republican had a change of heart, having seen her plight. He said that incident convinced him that abortion should be safe and legal. And done in a certified medical facility.
I had a rather remarkable father-in-law.
Desert_Leslie
(131 posts)In the pre-legal-abortion 1950s, my mom and her best friend, both in their early twenties, were living in an apartment.
My mom went on a 10-day trip. On the day she returned, she found her roommate Mary in bed, high-high fever, and shaking. She told my mom that she had gotten "jumped" by a date some weeks back and as a result got pregnant. Then she had a back-alley abortion.
She said, "You know my parents are immigrants. You know my father. If he finds out that I got pregnant, he will beat me to death." And she was stone-cold serious.
My mom immediately got a doctor to come. The doctor said it was a very close thing -- a few more hours and Mary would have died.
So in Alabama and like states, the entitled country club set will fly THEIR daughters to other states or countries for abortions ... but the poor and working class will resort to these back-alley abortions. Or the home abortion -- shudder -- which someone I know resorted to in the pre-legal-abortion time period.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)So many people don't realize what it was like before Roe vs. Wade.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)We can never go back to this! I hate these men with a passion for what they are trying to force the women of this country to endure. They don't care. I actually believe that this is what they want for women. They want us to suffer and die. They want to punish us. I am so angry I can barely see straight.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your story Leslie and welcome to DU!
ariadne0614
(1,746 posts)In my case, the location was a cheap, depressing apartment in late 60s Wisconsin. I was 19, terrified, yet determined. The woman who performed the abortion didnt speak English. The process was a painful, humiliating, dehumanizing nightmare.
I ended up with an infection, which was treated by my family doctor. He told me the abortion hadnt worked, but couldnt help (other than prescribe an antibiotic), or give me any advice. I went back to the same woman. This time it worked, but I ended up in the hospital and almost died. When I regained consciousness, there was an Assistant D.A. standing at the foot of my bed interrogating me. I was hallucinating from whatever drug they had given me for pain. The short and long term impact on my life would take too long to explain.
Desperate women will never stop seeking abortions, for a myriad of agonizing, deeply personal reasons. For the next five decades, I rarely spoke of my experience. People knew, but I dont remember personally speaking about it to anyone but my sisters. Now Im 70 and seething with rage over the fact that were being dragged back there again. The only difference this time is that women will not be shamed and terrorized into silence.
yellowdogintexas
(22,292 posts)they figured out it could be done.
The reasons varied but the process usually involved an old woman in the swamps or deep in the woods.
Women died, lost future fertility and otherwise suffered. We are headed back there.
Farmer-Rick
(10,235 posts)So sorry you had to go to hell just to get a medical procedure.
cyclonefence
(4,483 posts)is nothing like this.
Back in the 60s, in Colorado, she found herself pregnant by a ski instructor. She returned to Philadelphia, where her family was among the founders and where her grandfather sat on the board of one of the medical schools, and had an "appendectomy" in the hospital, under sterile conditions, with nurses and anesthetist and experienced surgeon, a couple of days in the hospital to recuperate, then back to school in Colorado.
Rich women will always be able to get safe abortions, illegal or not.
CountAllVotes
(20,882 posts)n/t !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lunasun
(21,646 posts)yellowdogintexas
(22,292 posts)She was somewhere between 12 and 16 weeks and did not know for sure because she recently had a D & C for purely medical reasons. Her worthless except for money husband had come home for a long weekend (he worked a day's drive away) and they had sex before the D & C which was scheduled for Monday morning.
She then couldn't get here cycle restored, and the dr who did the D & C gave her all sorts of heavy duty hormones to jumpstart her cycle. Nothing worked, so when she went in for the next exam, he told her she was pregnant. She was in no position financially to have a third child, her youngest was 9, and she was terrified by what the drugs could have done to the fetus.
We found out Louisville was our best bet so we went up there to get the procedure. She was scheduled to have a procedure using an herbal vaginal pack which would dilate her cervix because she was past 12 weeks. Her hypertension excluded her from this procedure.
SO the closest place she could go for a post 16 week procedure was Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta! She had to have an induced labor and was in a ward with other women, some of whom had never been pregnant, were very young, and had no idea what they were in for. All the more mature women, most of whom were mothers, bonded together to comfort these girls and help them get through the day. It was a nightmare but at least it was clean, properly staffed and available.
Now Look at what just happened in Georgia! No question about it, they are coming after us.
demigoddess
(6,645 posts)has told me of being raped/molested by family members. This kind of law would make women not only have the babies of rapists but the babies of incest. But then I guess republicans would like that. And would blame it on the little girls.
calimary
(81,594 posts)I think it was called His Way. Shes an author and biographer (still living) who really dished serious dirt about her subjects. Frank Sinatra was apparently unable to stop publication. One of the reasons along with all the Mafia stuff and Hollywood dirt, was her research on his mother. Turns out Sinatras mom was one of those women you went to when you needed a back alley abortion. Thats evidently how she made her living.
ffr
(22,677 posts)They are the evil in this world.
Tragic story.
erronis
(15,460 posts)vlyons
(10,252 posts)There is no law that will prevent women from terminating unwanted pregnancies. For thousands of years, women have jumped out,of windows, fallen down stairs, fallen off galloping horses, wrecked autos, drank poison, eaten poison, and visited Cot-hanger Katie and Hatpin Hattie.
There is only one thing that will irrevocably give women complete control over their bodies, and that is a constitutional amendment.
CountAllVotes
(20,882 posts)My father had a vasectomy in 1958 or so as my mother wanted no more children. It was a new procedure at this time.
She had MS and was pushing 40 and was physically shot.
My father was embarrassed to get a follow-up on this new "vasectomy" procedure and assumed it worked.
WRONG.
My mother got pregnant again and asked my father to find her a way to get a legal abortion. He went to his mother to seek money for one but grandma was a Catholic and she just cried and cried and offered no help.
Mother tried everything to abort but none of her efforts worked.
In early 1960 she gave birth to my brother she never wanted. I remember picking her up at the hospital and she was in a wheelchiar with both legs wrapped in bandages. She was in intense pain from having both legs stripped of varicose veins and had a bundle in her arms and was not happy at all.
My brother grew up hearing this story every day of his life and he had major problems (deemed to be mentally retarded).
Both my mother and my brother are both dead today but I grew up knowing how important it is for a woman to have the right to choose what is best for HER.
Sad story yes.
Better question is, how in the hell did we get here?
StevieM
(10,500 posts)DENVERPOPS
(8,893 posts)Too bad Ronald Reagan's mother didn't believe in abortion......she and a few hundred other Republican's mothers since he was in office......(Mrs. HW Bush's wife comes to mind)
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)more so because I know it's true. How different things might have been for your family, for so many, had women simply had warrant over their own bodies, and their own futures.
CountAllVotes
(20,882 posts)It was very sad.
My mother died of cancer in 2001 and the following year said brother died of cancer as well. He thought only old people died, not young people like himself!
I have often wondered if some of the things she tried to abort may have had an effect of him en utero, thus the condition of him being deemed a "mental retard".
She tried everything short of attempting to dislodge the fetus from her body herself, that is how badly she did not want another child.
To grow up knowing you were not wanted is a damned curse IMO.
I know what she would have said had he gone first and that would have been, "I never wanted that child. He ruined the family!".
After seeing what an unwanted pregnancy did to her it made me never want a child out of sheer fear if nothing else.
Sickening situation at best.
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)had to be dragged upstairs by your post. You're right! As far as this country is concerned, and in regard to how we lead by example, only a constitutional amendment will do it! I'm not very hopeful of that in my lifetime. But the very idea! A supposedly already "free" country declaring that women are equal and autonomous citizens. What a concept!
stopwastingmymoney
(2,043 posts)Im too young for this kind of story, but Im
dchill
(38,609 posts)SWBTATTReg
(22,201 posts)horror stories. There are some of us DUers who aren't aware of these horror stories, prior to Roe, so these stories, as horribly painful as they are, are teachable moments. It's also terrible, that the men in these stories aren't even charged with any sort of crime or the like. Perhaps in passing these highly restrictive laws in
restricting abortions severely, why not ask these same legislators to increase the penalties that the men in these stories will suffer as a result of causing these unwanted pregnancies.
mrsadm
(1,198 posts)I have heard of stories like this, but over the years forgot, because we had Roe vs Wade.
I believe that any man who is opposed to abortion, has to be willing to pay for the birth and care of a child until they are 18; and undergo a mandatory vasectomy. Better yet, castration.
Sorry but I am SO upset about this. The right wing spent 30 years to change the courts. President Obama's Supreme Court nominee was not even allowed to be reviewed in the Senate. So now look where we are.....
IADEMO2004
(5,575 posts)no doctor abortion ended her life.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)abortion was legal. It's been a long time. Now, they're being told once again. Those of us who are old enough all remember similar stories from the past. We should be telling them again. What a shame it is on this nation that we are regressing so far in some part of the country.
My high school years were 1959-63. It was California, and contraception was difficult to obtain. Impossible if you were under 21 years of age and not married. I went to school in a class of just over 100 students. By my senior year, three of the young women in my class were already married. Several others had spent a few months "visiting their aunt." One girl died after an illegal abortion. A few more had abortions from one of the local physicians, who would do them for the daughters of close friends and associates.
And yet, high school kids still had sex. And girls got pregnant, as happens when adolescents have sex. The risk was so high of that that many kids avoided having intercourse completely, even though they were sexually active otherwise. But some kids did it anyhow, and some of them got pregnant, at a time when abortion really was not an option.
It changed their lives forever, one way or another. Just a couple of years after I graduated, the pill was available for girls, but condoms still had to be purchased from a pharmacist and could not legally be sold to anyone under 21 years of age. It was still years before safe abortions were available.
What a time that was! A dangerous time.
ariadne0614
(1,746 posts)rzemanfl
(29,581 posts)Aimee in OKC
(158 posts)Posted in 2000 -- a collection of anecdotes from physicians, clinics' staff members, counselors, etc.
http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml
Resources--
http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/links.shtml
******
Also Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Women On Waves, Women On Web, and affiliated with "Aid Access":
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Gomperts
******
Let us hope we aren't forced to re-establish multiple "Jane Collectives":
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Collective
AlexSFCA
(6,139 posts)its similar to lgbt movement when the more people are out, the more you know them, the more likely you will support them. There is absolutely nothing shameful in having an abortion. We need a movement of women coming out. Starting with those who have recognition and/or power (hollywood, CEOs, pro athletes, etc.). This needs to happen in massive numbers and now, before the cases reach SC.
I cant wrap my head around how parents (especially of young daughters) can possibly support these recent extreme anti-choice laws. These laws are based exclusively on gender and do not apply to males who got them pregnant. Not rapists who would only be facing rape charges, not murder like women who got raped by them and got rid of the fetus or cause of miscarriage.
samnsara
(17,658 posts)...and say its saved them the trouble and expense of prosecuting and jailing women. bastards.
Duppers
(28,132 posts)Horror story. I'm so sorry for Martha and for you.
There was a word-of-mouth "backstreet" network of abortion providers in Tennessee back then. Hubs & I helped finance his cousin's from Memphis in '69. Anywhere there's a med school, you could find knowledgeable, cash-needy med students willing to assist with sterile instruments.
I'm just so, so sorry.
Such tragedies should never again happen, but they certainly will, thanks the Christofascist, American Taliban party.
Ilsa
(61,712 posts)Everyone should keep these stories available to tell to others.
srobertss
(261 posts)I only listened to this podcast, but the book sounds really interesting:
https://majorityreportradio.com/2019/05/01/handbook-for-a-post-roe-america-w-robin-marty
One of the things she mentioned was that the drugs are available online and though its illegal to purchase them, there are ways to do it and there are people who monitor the sources to make sure they aren't predatory. The drugs are not a great option, because it's like having a miscarriage without any medical support, though the risks are very low. She mentioned that the drug is not detectable in the body afterwards.
Wow, so amazing we've come to this. I had an abortion in 1974 and it barely entered my consciousness then how lucky I was. I'm sure I would have had the baby otherwise and Im sure my life would have been pretty miserable as a result. I have absolutely no regrets. And now we're headed back to pre-1973.
catrose
(5,079 posts)And so sad that Martha had no one else to turn to. I wish you both peace.
extvbroadcaster
(343 posts)I am at a loss about what has happened to America. I find it very strange that something personal, a medical decision between a woman and their doctor has come to this. In many places now it is almost impossible to get a safe legal abortion. Yet these same states that restrict women's rights welcome gambling boats and liquor. The current battle over abortion is once again simply a cover for rich vs. poor. Even in Alabama, rich folks will fly to California for an abortion but the poor will be stuck in a back alley. The whole country is in a sad condition these days, and I don't know what to make of it.
panader0
(25,816 posts)with a girl I knew. She was 18. It was just fun for both of us. I broke it off because
I felt she was too young--I was a wild young guy. About 6 months later I heard a rumor
around my small town that she had become pregnant and had an abortion. The thought of
that haunted me. In the years since I was still bothered by the memory.
About two months ago, I came upon a contact for her on line. I am now 68, she is 61.
I was very nervous but emailed her and asked, after all these years, if I had made
her pregnant and caused an abortion. I had to know. The answer was no.
I can't imagine what women endure because of unwanted pregnancies.
Just thinking about it makes me filled with regret.
rzemanfl
(29,581 posts)when we were young. I'm glad you got closure. Also, she isn't too young now, just sayin'.