I just turned 63, and it appears to me that my country is slipping backward to dangerous times for child-bearing women.
Back-alley abortions are so long ago that society has forgotten about the cost to the lives of desperate “good” girls. We have forgotten the deaths of married women, in their 40s, who died from botched abortions because they and their husband chose a risk over another mouth to feed. Perhaps the health of some women was unstable for pregnancy.
In the spring of 1970, I was a 16-year-old high school sophomore living in Lawrence, Mass. It was pre-Roe v. Wade, and although abortion was illegal, it was available to certain women. Abortion was not available to a 16-year-old, unmarried high school student, nor was birth control. For decades, “back-alley” and “coat-hanger” abortions had killed and maimed our daughters, our sisters and our mothers.
In those old days, fathers often threatened harm to our boyfriends and banishment to out-of-state homes, surrounded by 8-foot walls and run by nuns, if we dishonored the family. Teen girls were routinely banished, in shame, to homes for unwed mothers to await the birth and surrender to adoption.
When a 16-year old friend discovered she was pregnant, she turned to her friends, not her parents. Her folks were prominent members in our community, and they, too, had threatened banishment if she ever disgraced them. Confiding in them was out of the question, so an abortion was her only option. How to get one was the next question, not whether to have one. Her boyfriend asked around and within days he obtained a New York City phone number and came up with the $125 cash fee.
We girlfriends pooled our cash and came up with enough for one round-trip bus ticket so she would have to go alone. After telling her parents she was attending an after-school event and would be home late, she went to the bus station early one morning with $125 and a phone number in her pocket. At 16, this only child, this young girl, headed alone to New York City for an illegal abortion. She called the number upon arrival and a woman came to meet her. They went into a nearby building where the abortion was performed. She was immediately sent on her way without any counseling or further care. Her bus arrived home at 6 p.m. Fortunately for her, it worked out, and there were no complications. Two years later, they graduated, got married and had a family together.
At no time did any of her friends consider telling her parents. As teenagers, we too believed abortion was her only option. Parents often close doors of communication and underestimate what their teenagers are capable of pulling off behind their backs. Teenage boys find resources their parents would never believe possible.
In 1978, eight years later, I was a young married mother when a married friend called me about wanting to terminate an unexpected, unwanted pregnancy. She was desperate and asked me to arrange one for her. Having grown up in a very Catholic home, she struggled with her decision. However, at 25 she already had three children, and her barely employed husband was verbally and physically abusive to all of them. He had knocked her down several stairs during her third pregnancy, and she did not want to bring another child into his unstable world.
I arranged an appointment at a Boston abortion clinic, and drove her there on the day. There were about 25 women and their partners there. We sat through a discussion about birth control and methods available. Eighty-five percent of the women had been using some form of birth control to avoid pregnancy when they conceived. There was no pressure to go through with any scheduled appointments, just information and support. No one left.
I sat with my friend and held her hand during the very short procedure. At no time did she ever hesitate. She left with a prescription for a new birth control pill. It was a test of her Catholic faith.
You see, she could go forward with her secret, but she could not face the humiliation of a public divorce. She once asked me, “Where would I go and who would want a woman with three kids?” Good questions back in 1978. She chose to stay with her abuser for financial security. I fear my country is going back to when there were no options for victims of domestic violence.
Flash forward to 1995. Another Catholic friend was raising three boys and she explained to me how she had approached the topic of a potential, unexpected pregnancy. As part of their sex education, she told each of them, “If the worst thing you ever bring home to me is a baby, we don’t have any problems.” That conversation allowed for one son to open that door of communication when he was 17, and his 16-year-old girlfriend got pregnant. Ultimately it became her first grandchild. Her words made it possible for her son to talk to her and not feel desperate. Words matter.
You never want to return to the bad old days, when only wealthy women or women with connections obtained safe abortions. Abortions will always be available; they just may not be legal or safe if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
(Nancy Greenwood lives in Concord.)