Friday, December 3, 2021

Pro-choice priests and suicide girls

The Greek Slave, by Hiram Powers (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)

     Since the Supreme Court seems poised to drag America back to the past, at least when it comes to abortion, we should reacquaint ourselves with where we’re headed. Get the lay of the land, as it were.
     And no, I’m not going to scare you with horror stories of botched back-alley abortions. Nor the “Million Dollar Abortion Ring” that sent ripples of tragedy through the corrupted Chicago medical and legal communities. Been there, done that.
      Rather, I’m here to reassure. To remind you that just as Roe v. Wade did not introduce legal abortion, so its overturning, should that happen, will not slam the door completely.
     The 1973 Roe decision was not the start of legal abortion in the United States. In 1971, there were 500,000 illegal abortions, true, but also 500,000 legal abortions in the 31 states where the procedure was allowed to preserve “life and health” of the mother. Four states — New York, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska — offered abortion just because a pregnant woman wanted it, as if she were in control of her own body.
     “Health” is a rather general term, vague enough for many doctors to perform abortions. Even in Illinois, where our dusty 1872 law allowed abortion “only if necessary for the preservation of the woman’s life.”
     What a circus that was. Spend a few minutes ruffling newspapers from 1972 and you encounter situations like that of the 15-year-old referred to by one headline writer as “Suicide Girl.” Committed to the Audy Home by her mother, who could not afford the psychiatric care she needed, the teen ran away, got pregnant, then vowed she would kill herself if forced to have the baby.
     She was again a ward of Illinois, which refused to let her go to one of the several Chicago hospitals that volunteered to do an abortion. It all wound up in court and in the news.
     “I have performed abortions in similar cases at Michael Reese,” said Dr. Alex Tulsky, a gynecologist there. “This is done every day, if not at Michael Reese, then at other major Chicago hospitals.”
     He observed that whether a medical condition resulted in the girl’s death, or a psychiatric one, “she’s equally dead either way.”
     Still leeway enough to give rise to “therapeutic abortion.”

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5 comments:

  1. I remember the time before Roe.
    I also remember going to the clinic with my HS sweetheart. Soon after it was decided. Can't say I'm glad about any of it but that's what SHE CHOSE to do and I hope every other woman who finds themselves in a position where they do not want to have a child is free to make the same choice. Without having to resort to searching out an underground source for their reproductive health care needs or facing an undue burden of travel expense or abuse.

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  2. Fine historical perspective, as is frequently provided by NS. It's surely not a coincidence -- rather, it's telling how ostensibly attempting to "Make America Great Again" so often seems to require returning to policies that were more sexist, more racist and more xenophobic.

    Thanks to all the "both sides are the same" sideline-sitters and Jill Stein voters in 2016 for ushering in this Catholic-sharia version of the Supreme Court.

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  3. An issue that never seems to be addressed is how the "lawbreakers" in this instance are to be punished. I seem to recall Trump in campaign mode once saying the women should be held liable, before quickly backtracking.

    Tom

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    1. That's because it isn't an issue. Nobody seriously considers punishing women, because they have no agency, in the mindset of the anti-choicers. That's what this is all about. There are no babies, no murder. That's just words they use.

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  4. I have had a dog in this fight since the Eighties, but I'm not going to get into the messy details, or describe what the dog looked like, if you get my drift. Actually, it was not just one dog, but two.

    I feel strongly enough about this issue to have gotten, quite literally, into the faces of anti-choice protesters and to tell them "If you don't like abortion, then don't have one." The horror-stricken looks they give me are priceless, and well worth initiating a confrontation.

    Women will still have a choice, but it will be sharply restricted...to what color coat hanger they choose to use upon themselves, in these Untied Snakes of Christian Fascist America.

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