Our cover story on abortion is in three parts with an additional sidebar:

The Past­
abortions 1954, 1968

The Present: chipping at choice

The Future: a new kind of choice

Sidebar: abortion stats

Introduction

Audrey Jarach, pictured here holding a photo of her mother, says the secrecy required in having an illegal abortion added to her terror.

Photos:
TANISHA WALLACE-PORATH

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I had not had any success trying to find somebody who would do an abortion. I had been very careful about who I asked. I really couldn't find anybody. I didn't know who to ask or what to do. I was getting further along and they never want to take you past two weeks. I was going into 12 weeks and I was hysterical and desperate.

One day I was in the bathroom and a girl from my class came in and said, "I noticed you've been sick. Are you pregnant?" I said "Yes, yes, yes, and I'm desperately looking for an abortion." She said she knew someone. His license had been taken away for some kind of drug thing. The price was $500 and I had not a penny. She told me that he did abortions in a doctor's office on Wednesday afternoons. There would be no anesthesia because he couldn't get drugs.

I made an appointment to have the abortion. In the meantime I had to round up the money. The fellow who was involved was quite hysterical. He was 13 years older than me, and he couldn't face it. He handed over the money and was out the door. He gave me about $225, but I still needed lots more, so I told my mother.

She hid money in her underwear drawer for emergencies. She said she would give me the money and come with me. My mother was really wonderful, always open and supportive. I seriously considered keeping the child. My mother dissuaded me. She said, "Don't do that. You're young. You have your whole life ahead of you. This would change your life totally. If you can get the abortion, you should have it." She didn't apply pressure; she just didn't think it was the right time for me.

I was very frightened, because this guy didn't have a license. I didn't have a clue what would happen or any bucks. I made an appointment with a doctor who no longer took patients. He didn't charge me. I told him what I was going to do. He said, "I can't help you in any way, but if you run a fever, if you have any problems, call me and I will take care of you." He was wonderful.

When I went for the abortion, that was the horror. My mother went with me. The office was dark. My mother sat in the outside office and waited. I went in with this guy. He gave me two aspirins and put me on the table. It was visibly dirty. I couldn't imagine that anyone had been using the office. My legs were in the stirrups and my hands were restrained. Then he stuck a rag in my mouth so I couldn't scream.

It was very painful. I was making noises even though I had the rag in my mouth. This guy was such a sadist. He said, "I bet you didn't yell like that when you were having fun." He was so self-righteous.

When it was over, there was blood everywhere and all over me. We went home. My family was leaving town for a wedding, and my mother didn't want me to stay alone, so I stayed with friends. My father didn't know. Just my mom and this girl. It was a great shame in those days. I got infected, and I went to see the wonderful doctor. He gave me antibiotics and reassured me.

Birth control in those days was either a condom or a diaphragm. The idea of being fitted for a diaphragm, there was no way I could handle that. The only place to get a diaphragm was the Jewish People's Institute. I was afraid I'd bump into my mother or my aunt. I think that in my generation we always had to rationalize in some way and pretend it was spontaneous. We always had to make an excuse, such as "I had too much to drink." If you were fitted for a diaphragm you had to acknowledge that you were a bad person.

The dreadful thing is that I wasn't terribly smart. I was pregnant again in three months. I didn't tell my mother. I thought she'd been very brave for the first one, but she'd never get it why I'd be so stupid as to be pregnant again. I was very depressed. I considered suicide. I thought I couldn't do it again. I'd never be able to find the money again. My mother had wiped out her underwear drawer. I couldn't even imagine what I would do. Now I think I was unable to confront the reality of myself as a sexual being. I was bad, and I got caught twice in a short period.

My boyfriend got a doctor's name. He had a nurse and exam rooms. It was very clean. I told him I had money problems and he said to raise as much as I could. I paid him a little more than half the fee. A nurse held my hand the whole time. It was much more humane.

In my first abortion, the doctor had scraped and removed the fetus. This time, the doctor didn't tell me that he had only loosened it; I hadn't passed anything yet. I went home. It felt like a very heavy period and cramps.

That night, I went to a party. I was not feeling wonderful. I went to the bathroom and out came this fetus in the toilet. I screamed. I didn't know what it was. I was so scared. The fellow I went with came in and he saw it was a fetus. I was hysterical. I was extremely depressed. My mother arranged for me to see a psychiatrist. It took me about a year and a half to deal with it.

There was such a fear of being arrested, being set up. It was illegal. To get a legal abortion, you had to get letters from doctors. An illegal abortion was very much a secret. There was a fear of repercussion. I was forever looking over my shoulder. I had definitely done something wrong. I was careful whom I told. People were very judgmental. You were a good girl or a bad girl.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was terrified that something bad would happen to my child. I was convinced that God was going to punish me because I had been so bad. I was glad that I had the abortions once I had two children.

I was always conscious of how important a role abortion was in my life. In 1963, a young woman whose parents I knew told me she was pregnant. I sent her to someone I knew who was working at Planned Parenthood. I helped a few other young women, too. Speaking out about choice is important because it's a time past, and young people don't have a clue. They assume that it's always been there. Young women need to understand the terror of getting caught and being prosecuted. There was a terror of this, besides the terror of the procedure.

BEYOND ROE VS. WADE
the past­abortion 1968

BY KATE CLINTON

In the summer of 1968 I was a young Irish Catholic girl dating a nice Catholic boy from Queens, New York. We knew nothing about birth control but we were learning lots about sex. By fall, I was pregnant. I had just started working at a magazine in Manhattan.

That fall, when my body started doing strange things, I told my girlfriend that I might be pregnant. We checked a health handbook, and, sure enough, I had all the signs of pregnancy. Since I had never been to a gynecologist, my friend made an appointment for me with a doctor she knew.

At the office, he gave me a quick inspection, stood up, then with a perky smile announced "99 percent sure." Just like that. The words seemed out of context and I couldn't understand what he was saying. "...that you're pregnant," he added. I couldn't believe my ears. His departing barb was little comfort: "What are you crying for? You're an attractive girl. You're going to have a lovely baby."

I was in tears as I left his office. I knew my life was over, but it was just beginning. After so many years of oppressive Catholic schools and battles with my parents, I was now on the threshold of becoming an adult and it was all over!

As I sat crying in the waiting room, a young nurse approached me and asked if the bad news was true. She offered to help and asked me to call her at home that night. When I telephoned, she said she had several friends in my predicament and referred them to a man in Manhattan who arranged abortions. Several days later, I made contact with Scott. The abortion doctor he recommended lived in Alabama. This didn't sound like a feasible option; I figured I'd explore my chances locally.

My co-worker, Dorrie, seemed like a wise person. We weren't close friends, but I felt I could trust her. While the '60s were a wonderful time in many respects, being unmarried and pregnant was, even then, not a topic for open discussion.

The next day, Dorrie gave me a small scrap of paper with a doctor's name. She slipped it into my pocket as she passed by, like a gesture from a spy movie. The doctor's address was in Harlem. The note said that I needed "small bills."

The next Saturday, I drove to Harlem. I figured the location was less than desirable, but when I saw the shabby tenement, I realized that this wasn't an option either. In my head, newspaper photos were flashing, showing women's lifeless bodies in bloody sheets, found in alleys or abandoned buildings.

I was now eight weeks pregnant. I contacted Scott for details on the Birmingham doctor. Time was marching on, and this "surgery" would only cost $200. I told Scott to make arrangements. I left for Alabama alone on a rainy Thursday morning.

My instructions were to check into a motel on the outskirts of Birmingham. A woman named Sandy would find me. She showed up many hours later and we made some brief, awkward introductions. We were in the car when I asked about the arrangements. At this point I learned the man we were about to visit was not a doctor. She stopped the car. I sat in horror. My fear was paralyzing, but in a few minutes gave way to nauseating resignation. I was here now. There was nowhere else to go.

We arrived 30 minutes later in an area of newer ranch-style homes. Sandy took me inside and introduced me to two men who sat on the couch. Both stood and shook my hand. Then one asked me to follow him. We entered a bedroom a few steps away. He shut the door and asked me to lie on the bed. He lifted a miner's hat with a light in front and put it on while he explained the procedure. He would stuff cotton gauze into my uterus, yards of it. He explained that the body was a dependable organism; when it rejected the gauze, the fetus would be expelled.

The procedure took only a few minutes. He explained that he had a 16-year-old daughter who died from an illegal abortion. From that point, he vowed to help women in trouble. (I guess he offered a "safer" option?) He left the room and I dressed. As I stood there, in a dim bedroom in a house somewhere in Birmingham, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that I was still alive. There was an immediate and intense cramping in my stomach and upper legs. This wasn't unusual for me, so I still assumed the worst was over.

Sandy led me to the car and we were on our way. She dropped me off at the motel and my labor began a few minutes later. I was very sick and the room was spinning. Hours passed and I was alternating between vomiting and writhing in pain on the floor. Finally, I began making long-distance calls, trying to find someone, anyone, who could help. I reached Scott in Manhattan. He told me to call his brother who lived nearby.

The next morning, a very dear young man showed up with a friend, and together, they nursed me, brought me juice and cold water, and walked me around the room to hasten the abortion. I had begun to discharge the gauze and it needed to be cut with a scissors every few minutes. I recall these two men, each with an arm around my waist, half lifting, half dragging me around the room, forcing me to stay awake.

The gauze was still draining the next morning, but I couldn't stand this motel another minute. I begged my two new friends to take me to the airport. They did. I can't imagine what I must have looked like as I climbed the stairs to the plane. A flight attendant helped me to my seat and tried to deal with me as delicately as possible.

My boyfriend Daniel met me at the airport. He found a wheelchair and got me a taxi. We arrived at a small apartment that had been fortuitously abandoned by a friend's parents. My labor continued for another day. Then it was over. As soon as I was able, I got a ride back to the family house and pretended nothing had happened.

As I segue from my middle to my senior years, I have had lots of time to reflect on my Birmingham experience. It is as horrific as it ever was. At the 1984 Speak Out in Washington, D.C., women and men told stories that made my experience seem like a mild nightmare. At least I was not raped or tortured.

I try to imagine how Vietnam War veterans felt immersed in a horrible war for a mysterious cause. They were right to be frightened and lonely and angry at the lack of support. The men and women who experienced illegal abortion prior to Roe vs. Wade are veterans, too, and the battle was as dirty and long as any other. Support for a woman's right to choose is a moral demonstration of democracy and, ultimately, a measure of our true capacity to care for one another.