Voices of Choice: Physicians Who Provided Abortions Before Roe v. Wade

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are proud to offer the documentary Voices of Choice: Physicians Who Provided Abortions Before Roe v. Wade, online, in full, for the first time.

A 25-minute film created by PRCH in 2003, Voices of Choice documents the experiences of physicians involved in abortion care and reform prior to the landmark Supreme Court Roe decision in 1973. Their stories remain fascinating, moving, and profound—a record of the horror of illegal abortion and the social and historical ramifications of a time when health care providers worked to save the lives of women who suffered needlessly.

Voices of Choice preserves the legacy of older physicians and figures in the reproductive rights movement who witnessed the effects of illegal abortion, including:

• Curtis Boyd, MD, who has provided abortions since 1965
• Bylle Avery, founder of the National Black Women’s Health Project, who prior to Roe was a leader in the underground abortion referral network
• Mildred Hanson, MD, who saw the tragic results of illegal abortion as a young gynecologist in the years before Roe
• The late Reverend Howard Moody, who helped found the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion in 1967, an extensive network of clergy members and abortion providers
• The late George Tiller, MD, who was murdered in 2009 for providing abortions

Watch the full video, and follow the links below to read transcripts from individual interviews. To request an interview with one of the physicians featured in the Voices of Choice video, please contact Alexandra Ringe at 646-649-9907 or email alexandra@prch.org.

2012 was a zipless election. Although the public was demonstrably present for the experience, somehow we didn’t feel completely engaged.

It seemed to morph into a contest between dirty tricks and voter suppression tactics on one side, countered by techno wizardry and micro-sampling of key voters in swing states on the other. As a result, while celebrating  big wins for progressives, women, and people of color, and some clear policy victories, we’re left feeling stunned as much as euphoric.

We need to find new ways to create and sustain civic engagement that cross the lines between Tahrir Square, the town hall meeting, and Twitter, to feel like we’ve won the policy debates that we actually have, on taxing the wealthy and protecting reproductive rights, and to take on the entrenched interests blocking progress on the big issues that lie ahead.

Some encouraging clues from the cyber campaign: It helped that the polling was remarkably deft. Finally, someone figured out how to frame a question about the right to abortion that gauged and activated the power of this issue to motivate women voters positively. It made sense to reach out to people in beauty parlors and barber shops as well as likely voters with landline phones.

Voters responded most to hearing directly from people they perceived as being like themselves, and who created a bond of accountability about the intention to vote. In other words, Organizing 101 still applies.  Group identity and personal relationships do influence how we think and vote, and ultimately our policies.

The Trust Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign is launching initiatives that blend cyber solidarity with our presence in the public square. For the 40th anniversary of the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S., the TWSR coalition will offer an online campaign. And on January 26, 2013, we’ll Celebrate Women, Life and Liberty in San Francisco.

For a good time, call, click or email.

– Ellen R. Shaffer

On Tuesday a fierce, medieval patriarchy, lavishly financed by corporations, lost out to our American values of democracy, independence, fairness, progress, innovation and pragmatism.

Turns out that rape is pretty unpopular with quite a wide swath of voters. In addition to women’s historic gains in representation, voters from across the spectrum defeated the two Senate candidates most visibly identified with attacks on women and on reproductive health care.  And Floridians defeated a  ballot measure that would outlaw public funding for abortions. The results suggest that healthy doses of coalition-building and organizing 101 will make a difference going  forward, even if Tea Party leaders in the majority-Republican House and many state houses choose to continue attacks on birth control, abortion and health care providers like Planned Parenthood.

While the opposition was most pronounced among women, even Republicans who voted for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney were sufficiently  unenthusiastic about two Senate candidates that the voters defeated both Todd Akin of Missouri, who suggested a “legitimate” rape would lead a woman’s body to “automatically shut down” the possibility of a pregnancy; and Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdoch, who intoned that a pregnancy resulting from rape was God’s will, and opposed the mother’s right to an abortion.

InMissouri, a disproportionate turnout by women massively deserted Akin led the charge, he was also rejected by Romney voters who were men, white, higher income, and independents.  The relatively low percentage of black voters stuck with both President Obama and incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill:

MISSOURI  – Senator Claire McCaskill vs. Todd Akin for U.S. Senate

Romney also won inIndiana.  In contrast withMissouri, turnout was even between men and women, and higher among higher income residents and suburban voters.  Women voted against Mourdoch by 12 points in the Senate race, while men split evenly, 47% to 47%, though voting for Romney by 17 points.  Younger and lower income voters went for Donnelly, but even voters over $50,000 went for Mourdoch by only 3 points, despite the 20% lead for Romney.

INDIANA – Joe Donnelly vs.  Richard Mourdoch for U.S. Senate

analysis based on exit polls: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls

The 113th Congress will have 20 female senators, the most ever in U.S. history, up from 17 presently.

Joining the Senate will be Democrats Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Republican Deb Fischer (Neb.).  6 Democratic women were reelected: Sens. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.).

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) lost her Senate race to incumbent Dean Heller.

Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) are both retiring, meaning the next Congress will have just four female Republican senators.

In the US House, women clinched a record 77 seats, a tally that could rise as high as 81 when counts are completed; when the 113th Congress convenes it will include the largest class of female newcomers since 1992.

South Carolina elected a woman to its state Senate, leaving no state legislative chamber without a woman.

In New Hampshire, joining New Hampshire Senate incumbents Jeanne Shaheen (D) and Kelly Ayotte (R) are three newly elected women: Gov. Maggie Hassan (D), who will be the only female Democratic governor in 2013, and Reps. Carol Shea-Porter (D) and Ann McLane Kuster (D).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/05/women-in-congress-female-candidates-2012_n_2005449.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women

Trust Women issued this statement today:

Trust Women is pleased to confirm the recent purchase of Dr. Tiller’s former office building.  This represents one step closer to goal of providing full-spectrum health services for area women, including abortion services. Currently, local women must travel upwards of three hours to obtain this simple medical procedure. This reestablishment of local services will alleviate burden and expense of travel.

While this is a big step, we still have a long way to go.  We will continue our work to improve access and reduce the stigma associated with abortion.  This is not about politics or ideology for us.  It is about serving the needs of women and community.

(Trust Women is a separate organization from the Trust Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign; TW is one of the many organizational partners of the Campaign.)

For a report in the media  http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Slain-doctor-s-abortion-clinic-to-reopen-3897688.php?cmpid=emailarticle&cmpid=emailarticle

Turns out, women are a key voting bloc in the upcoming election.  It’s up to us to demand credible commitments that address our concerns, as we get each other engaged and voting.

While this election offers women a clear choice, polls show the 2 parties running neck in neck. Here’s the picture heading into the political conventions:

The Republican Party is fueled with unprecedented gushers of corporate cash, and draws political life support from the medieval wing of several fundamentalist religions, whose fantastical beliefs about women’s biology are rooted in their ironclad devotion to patriarchy.  The Republican platform would make criminals of the 30% of American women who’ve had an abortion (including me, once because of a fetal anomaly diagnosed in my second trimester).

But the  Democratic Party is also overly dependent on funding fron the parasitic finance sector. It is reaching back to the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act of 2009 to symbolize its commitment to women’s economic empowerment.  It depends for political fuel in no small part on the indisputable fact that the Republicans are profoundly scary.

It’s not enough to debunk the lies of opponents of reproductive rights, or to point out that they rely on stoking fear and anger. Some recent polls of women who are not politically active show that they do react viscerally to the demeaning insults slung by decision-makers who snatch away their birth control and penalize them for their reproductive decisions. But many are living difficult lives, bounded by pressing financial hardship. One quote: “I’m happy this month that I haven’t had to sell plasma to feed my children.”

So here are some things to call for, starting in Charlotte:

1. An ironclad commitment to protecting and improving Social Security and Medicare. These two programs form the bedrock of women’s financial security as we age.  They are under attack explicitly by the Republicans. And too frequently for comfort, some prominent Dems also slide periodically into lip synching lies about the need to reform these “entitlements.”  In fact, Social Security faces no problems.  The Affordable Care Act, which Rep. Paul Ryan has voted repeatedly to repeal, extends Medicare’s financial health, in contrast to Ryan’s proposal to privatize it.  Let’s hear Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (always a stalwart) confirm that the programs are solvent, and that they will not compromise on preserving and improving these programs.

2. It’s great that Nancy Keenan of NARAL and Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood will speak. Women’s rights to make their own decisions about their reproductive health are fundamental to our economic and personal wellbeing, including access to legal, affordable birth control and abortion. Words of support from the occasionally equivocal Dept. of Health and Human Services and the Surgeon General would be significant.

3. Finally: Lots of women. On the podium, speaking, in charge, active, visible, and vocal. Women of all races, and for that matter, women contesting for many races. We know who the top ticket nominees are. Let’s call for a boost to the EMILY’s List all-star roster of pro-choice women running for governor, Congress and Senate, people like Maggie Hassan, Grace Meng, Christie Vilsack, Val Demings, and Tammy Duckworth, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin, and of course, incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill. Since Canadian-born former governor Jennifer Granholm can’t run for president, nominate her now for a Cabinet post, if she wants one, and give her air time.

Women will make the difference in this election.  We are going to write checks, emails and op eds, as well as getting out the vote. We have power. Let’s recognize and exercise it.