Roe v Wade v the Back-Alley
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Sherry Levy-Reiner, Ph.D., is the director of development at the RAC. |
When I was a junior in college, I read War and Peace. In the book, one female character leaves town and “drinks quinine.” A student asked my professor what that meant. He asked if anyone in the class knew the answer. I raised my hand: “People drink quinine to induce labor so they will abort.”
Every eyebrow in the classroom – including my professor’s – went up. I shrugged, “That’s what you learn from living in a dormitory.” It was true: I knew students who had drunk quinine in very large quantities. It worked.
By 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision recognizing that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses the right to choose abortion, I knew a lot about abortions.
A friend with whom I went to college had an illegal abortion, not quite in a back alley (that was the standard adjective for abortions in those days, “back-alley abortions”). Those of us who were close to her didn’t know about it till after it was over. When she talked about it, her primary concern was whether the abortion itself had caused her any long-lasting physical harm; only several years later, when she gave birth to a beautiful healthy wanted daughter, were her fears finally allayed.
Another friend had an abortion in New York, which was among the first states to liberalize its abortion laws in 1970. Her procedure was in a hospital, where conditions were excellent and she was well cared for; she moved in with me briefly to look after her for a few days.
By 1975, I was living in Topeka, where the Kansas legislature tries annually to pass legislation that will reverse Roe v Wade. One year I testified before the legislature, noting that Jews were beginning to understand the great toll of Jewish genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs. I argued that no legislator should be in the room when a pregnant woman who learns she is carrying a Tay-Sachs baby has to decide what to do. The pro-choice side prevailed again that year, but Kansas is not such a great state for choice these days.
So I’ve seen it both ways, and legal is better. Just as it is difficult for people to comprehend exactly what life was like before computers or antibiotics, it is very hard for young people to grasp that the decision about whether or not to have an abortion is a right that must be protected.