A simple, matter-of-fact article by a retired gynecologist in her 80s talking about what it was like to treat women who had tried to abort themselves or who had been worked on by an abortionist (who was not medically trained) in the days before Roe.
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Although I am against “unlimited” abortion “upon demand”, those bad old days were quite real. My cousin almost died on our kitchen table due to a botched abortion. In those days, there were no clinics. My cousin was secretly and surreptitiously brought to our house from theirs on the south side of Chicago. The illegal abortionist “sanitized” the kitchen, then tried to perform the abortion. I had already been shuttled out of the house. But when I got back the entire kitchen was flooded with blood. My cousin could not stop hemorrhaging. They had to take her to the hospital to save her life. She was sixteen.
(Lets call her) “Charlotte” survived. She was the most beautiful of all the girls in our generation and went on to a very successful life. She married a rhythm guitarist in a rock band that became a national sensation. (Rock history fans would know the name.) She traveled the world with jetsetters and even associated with Princess Diana.
But her life almost ended that summer afternoon…. and that would have been tragic.
We need to find some middle ground on abortion that prevents those bad old days but still encourages sexual responsibility.
An important article, I think, for people who have no idea what the “old days” were like.
Isn’t Waldo a man’s name, though?
You can hear about how these things were done but it’s still not the same as knowing. My grandmother, this would have been about 1940 or so, got pregnant and tried to abort herself two ways- she first drank a bottle of whiskey, and then she jumped off a roof. Neither one, needless to say, worked, and she went to some place or other and had an abortion preformed.
I do wonder on occasion under what conditions it was preformed and how much she put herself at risk when she did it.
Oh, how I’d like to send this article to my anti-abortion family members. But since I don’t want to start World War III, I suppose I won’t.
“We need to find some middle ground on abortion that prevents those bad old days but still encourages sexual responsibility”
How about something besides abstinence based sex education? How about free contraception for those who can’t afford it? That would be a good place to start…
Hi nmonster:
How about continuing to teach sexual discipline (abstinence) to teens so we don’t continue to ruin girl’s (and I do mean “girls) lives and the children they have. Illegitimate pregnancy or the emotional horrors of “legal” abortion have truly harmed the sensitivities of our culture. Bearing children at an early age or suffering from an abortion in the teens stays with a woman all her life. There is massive data and narratives on this. Certainly bearing illegitimate children at an early age condemns a woman and her child to poverty too for “all” their lives.
Sexual irresponsibility manifests tragic consequences for the women and families that practice it.
Conversely, Adriana Lima is a great role model, a Victoria Secrets model that saved herself for marriage. (Don’t know if its true though! 🙂 )
Free contraception for “minor” girls (again I do mean that word) might impose a value system that is “not” reflective of the family she is a part of. Hence, a policy that espouses unlimited contraceptives for girls without family approval for contraception appears to damage the authority and responsibility parents should have for their children. If, with parental consent, contraception is provided to low income “girls” then that would provide the family counseling needed to align with family values.
If we make contraception freely available to low income “women” that makes more sense. I do believe the USA already does that through medicaid. (Is this correct? I am not sure.)