Has anyone had a chance to see Midwife on PBS on Sunday?

[greatlaurel]

11. My mother used to tell stories.

My beloved mother would tell us girls horror stories about all the women she knew who got pregnant and tried to get abortions. She knew dozens of women who died from botched abortions. She graduated high school in the 1930's and went to beauty school. Mother is gone now and I deeply regret not writing down all her stories. If any one knows a woman from that era, you should ask her to talk about this. Mother was, of course, unusually frank for a woman from that time, but she knew knowledge was power for her children.

One sad example was her neighbor lady who already had a large family, all of whom were nearly starving during the worst of the Depression. My mom's dad worked for the railroad and would buy the family a box of food when he could swing it. The husband was a miner and they were not paid anywhere near enough to feed the family. One more child would have sent them all over the edge to starvation. The poor woman got pregnant again and tried to abort with a knitting needle. She died in great agony and left all those poor children without a mother. So much unnecessary pain and suffering, all because a bunch of religious nuts can pass laws to force women to comply with their weird religious rules. I call them the Taliban without turbans. Although doctors have some skin in the game, by helping pass laws outlawing abortion in those days, partly because they would make more money delivering babies instead of performing abortions.

Mother could name at least two dozen women who died from back alley abortions. She knew at least another couple dozen women who ended up sterile because of botched abortions. They were all neighbors, high school or beauty school classmates, or friends of hers or her sisters' friends. Some were college classmates of her older sisters. It was a public health disaster for young women, which no one outside of Planned Parenthood ever talks about.

Women younger than 50 have no idea what a nightmare world it was for a young woman. It just goes to prove that all the blathering from the religious right about how people should not have sex unless they are having children, is complete and utter nonsense. Biology will not be denied. Even when sex often lead to death for the women from the lack of modern medical care, contraceptives and modern antibiotics, people still had sex.