What was it like before abortion was legal?

[LuckyCharms]

I have to believe that making them illegal will cause a huge uptick in deaths and injuries among women of child bearing years.

I had a relative that used to perform abortions in motels. I found a newspaper article about it when he was sent to prison for 5 years. I then started asking family members, and found out the entire story. He wasn't anything close to a medical professional. Far far from it. He was just an average criminal. And he was performing abortions on high school girls. In motels. Oh yeah, and in vehicles too. His nickname was "Doctor B". He didn't have a high school education.

Those days sound like they were pretty dark in this regard.

So, if Roe is shot down, I guess we just regress several decades. We go back to some dirtbag sticking coat hangers into frightened women?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. Women will always get abortions. But when abortion is illegal, women die. That's it.

Women will always get abortions. Always.

[smirkymonkey]

3. I think that is what they want. For women who get abortions to die.

They think they deserve it for having sex that isn't meant for procreation.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. They want to punish women, whether with death or injury, or by saddling them with a child.

It's all about punishment for them.

[workinclasszero]

32. Yeah don't think it will just end safe abortions

when Kavanaugh and the Trump packed court overturns Roe.

The Evangelical right will push hard to make any attempt at an abortion a first degree murder charge.

No exceptions for rape, incest or birth defects either.

[donkeypoofed]

2. More people wanted abortion repealed than bothered to protest to not repealt

The will of the people wins again.

[thucythucy]

7. I don't think that at all.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million, and a lot of that was due to the fact that she is pro-choice, while Trump is anti-woman.

[elleng]

12. No

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Rich women could get them, usually by going out of the country.

Poor women would go to doctors who weren't doctors, or tried to do it themselves, and sometimes they got fatal infections; or else they had babies they couldn't take care of.

[Shrike47]

6. Yep. Motel room, abortionist having a few shots of rye, barbecue skewers, blood spreading.

People had abortions then, it was just a whole lot more dangerous and nasty. Of course, the wealthy went to a foreign country where it was legal.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Hello "Barefoot and pregnant".

Who would have thought that Ireland would be more advanced on this issue than the US?

[Rhiannon12866]

17. That has crossed my mind, too!

Ireland is a pretty much universal Catholic country.

[BigmanPigman]

18. It was the older Irish citizens who voted to keep abortion illegal.

The younger citizens made change happen. We can stop Kavanaugh if we really try. Some Irish voters that were in other countries actually flew back to Ireland just to cast their vote in the historic election. I hope our country doesn't get to that point and we take action NOW! [phone] is the DC operator for the various senators' phone numbers.

[Rhiannon12866]

19. Exactly, those who would no longer be affected.

Just like the majority male Supreme Court in this country. Thanks for the post!

[jberryhill]

9. In what state?

It’s not as if there was a uniform national law. Things very much depended on what state one was in.

[J_William_Ryan]

13. Correct.

And that will be the case after Roe is overturned.

But abortion was available to many women, performed by doctors in hospitals and clinics – it simply wasn’t called ‘abortion.’

As already noted, low income women, those without means, were forced to jeopardize their health and lives.

[underthematrix]

10. Horrifying

sterility but more frequently horrific death

[elleng]

11. States will jump in,

making it tolerable in some places and very difficult in others; no uniform effect.

[J_William_Ryan]

16. True

For most states – blue states in particular – Roe being overturned will be moot, as they’ll continue to recognize a woman’s right to privacy.

States hostile to privacy rights will be at liberty to criminalize abortion, however pointless and ridiculous that might be.

[spiderpig]

14. If you had the means it was done quietly and discreetly.

I grew up in a red state, and it happened all the time.

[lunasun]

29. That's right truly affects those in poverty the most

[Rhiannon12866]

15. Women died.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. There was an underground river of information that

women tapped into. Sometimes it got them an abortion that didn't kill or maim them. Sometimes they weren't so lucky.

Desperate women did anything to abort. I remember those days.

A book that is a pretty good depiction of that time is The Afternoon Women by Lael Tucker Wertenbaker. A doctor who's daughter died from a botched abortion is some time after approached by a woman wanting to terminate her pregnancy. When he refuses, and asks her why she'd even dream he'd do such a thing, she replied, "Because of what happened to your daughter." He is stunned, and even though he doesn't give that woman an abortion, he thinks long and hard, and the next woman who approaches him, he does it. And again. Eventually his practice becomes one in which he performs abortions in the afternoons, hence the title. I read it when it first came out, which was 1970. We had no idea Roe v Wade was coming. The book is available on Amazon, but oddly enough there are no reviews.

[EffieBlack]

23. In some cities, the local mob was the conduit for illegal abortions

[leftyladyfrommo]

21. I was in college in the mid 60's. In Utah

I had a friend who went to Mexico. And I had a friend who went to Oregon.

A lot of women died. They would go to some back alley abortionist and often ended up in the hospital due to perforations or horrible infections. Often the abortions were done in filthy motel rooms. Other women tried to do it themselves with coat hangers or by drinking some awful poison. Women died agonizing deaths.

It was doubly bad then because women who got pregnant out of wedlock were made outcasts. Having a bastard child was the ultimate sin. Having an abortion was a huge sin, too.

It was ok for men to be sexually active. Boys will be boys afterall. But women who were sexually active were whores.

And then along came the feminists like Gloria Steinem and things began to change.

[Ilsa]

22. There will be a black market for mifepristone,

misoprostol, and methotrexate for early term abortions. Midterm abortions will be more dangerous and deadly since they will be surgical.

[RussBLib]

24. Like Argentina is now

Women dying daily in Argentina from botched or unsafe abortions. Scary, and I hope American women will not put up with this garbage.

Google it.

[mountain grammy]

25. I had an experience with a friend in high school

in the sixties. It was horrific. I'll never forget it. The thought of illegal abortions make me sick. Men are disgusting and depraved to do this to women and we're crazy if we allow it. It has nothing to do with killing unborn children, but everything to do with controling women. We really had no rights until Roe. And the votes of women helped make this happen. I can't even think anymore.

[DURHAM D]

26. When I was in college (early 60s) everyone knew about -

The Davalos Clinic in Juarez was a well-known and well-used abortion clinic. It was closed down in 1969. The February 13, 1969 Albuquerque News reported that a report on the Clinic prepared by five University of New Mexico Medical students says that the Clinic performed at least 60 to 80 abortions a week and that about 90% of these were on women from the United States

If you did not have the means to travel to Mexico it was back alley.

I recently mentioned the Davalos Clinic during a conversation I was having about Roe v. Wade with two women my age. One was from Michigan and the other from Illinois. They both knew what I was talking about.

[AlexSFCA]

27. Russia tried banning abortion during Soviet Union

They lost a lot of men during WWII and needed to rebuild population. Turns out, banning abortions leads to reduced birth rate. This is because women fertility health is worse due to botched abortions. Many won’t ever be able to have a child again. Even under putin abortions are legal in russia. Just think of how far back concervatives want to push America. I am not sure Roberts will be ok with overturning row v wade, I think it could be more incremental, e.g. banning late term abortions. Robers has testified on multiple ocassions that he considers roe v wade a settled law. Remember, overturning ACA was a no brainer for someone like Roberts, even Kennedy was on board.

[TreasonousBastard]

28. What was it like?

Unwanted children.

Dead, or severely injured, women.

Farms and institutions where pregnant girls were sent to have their babies out of sight from their "Christian" neighbors. Babies which were often taken from them.

And a society that happily let all of this happen while looking the other way.

[radical noodle]

30. Those who were wealthier

and who had physician friends could often get them done quietly. They weren't as safe as they are now but were safer than those who had to go to a back alley.

A few years before Roe, a woman who had taken Thalidomide got a lot of press coverage about her trip to Europe to have an abortion. I don't remember there being much discussion of abortion until the 60s when so many babies were being born with birth defects due to Thalidomide.

In the mid 60s, I had a miscarriage at 5-1/2 months and the doctor told me to just dump the fetus (we buried it in a little tin box) but the doctor said it could just be thrown in a ditch. No one then looked at pre-birth babies as having rights. That didn't come until abortion became legal.

My guess is that there will be better black market abortions now if they become illegal, but only if you have some money. For the poor, the danger would be very real.

[kskiska]

33. Sherri Finkbine from Arizona - a huge news story

I remember it well. She ended up going to Sweden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherri_Finkbine

[radical noodle]

41. Yes, thank you

I had forgotten her name.

[Cracklin Charlie]

36. My childhood doctor's daughter died from a botched abortion.

One of the wealthiest families in town. They loved their daughter and would have helped her, if only she had told them of her condition.

The family never really recovered.

[radical noodle]

42. There was a shame about unmarried pregnancy then

and the wealthiest, who might have been saved by telling her parents were victims of that shame.

I just happen to know one who was lucky enough to confide in her parents.

[Yupster]

31. I grew up in New York

Abortion was legal in New York long before Roe versus Wade and would be legal long after R vs W.

[secondwind]

34. Women will always find a way.

[eleny]

35. Doctors performed a lot more D&C procedures

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/dilation-and-curettage/about/pac-20384910

[OhioBlue]

37. My great-grandmother died from an illegal/unsafe abortion.

She had 3 small children at at the time and an alcoholic husband. I am guessing this would have been 1918-1919. I don't know what circumstances she found herself in. I don't know if she lived with family or depended on them for assistance or was working to try and keep up a home with an absentee husband....

Whatever her circumstances, she was obviously desperate to care for her 3 children and the thought of a fourth made her feel that care would be jeopardized either by another mouth to feed or her decreased ability to provide through pregnancy and nursing an infant.

After her death, my grandmother and her sister went to live with their Aunt (their mother's sister) and I believe their brother either went to live with his father or father's family.

I remember a discussion with Senator Sherrod Brown's late mother, Emily and several older Democratic ladies at a luncheon in '08 as they were discussing women they knew that had died from illegal and unsafe abortions. Some had no children, some had children that were then brought up by family members.

Looking back, it reminds me of the results of the opioid crisis of today, except that it only affected women. Young lives lost and orphaned children.

Note: I absolutely do not intend to compare addiction to abortion - just the affects of losing young lives, the sadness and devastation that it brings to family and community.

[frogmarch]

38. In my small town

some doctors did the D and C procedure (dialation and curretage) for friends of mine who wanted abortions - oops, make that, who had heavy menstrual cycles with lots of cramping.

I assumed that everyone who had their uterus scraped was actually having an abortion.

[Meadowoak]

39. What happened when the girl was very young, (like 11), was she forced carry the baby, or did they

Have a way to abort in special circumstances?

[murielm99]

40. I went to college in Northern Indiana.

Women at that time used a service called Jane Collective. It was based in Chicago. It was very quiet, using only word of mouth to help pregnant women.