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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Women's Rights / The War On Women / Just Another Case of History Repeating

Just Another Case of History Repeating

by $8 blue check mistermix|  April 14, 20139:42 am| 43 Comments

This post is in: The War On Women

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The case of the Philadelphia abortion butcher got me thinking about the whole topic of “backroom abortions”. The anti-abortion propaganda machine would have us believe that any abortion is a horrible risk, nevermind that the maternal mortality rate in New York state declined by 45% when abortion was legalized. If we’re going to go back to the days when abortion was limited, what was it like?

Here’s on example: Jennifer Worth, the author of Call the Midwife, which was turned into a BBC TV series and also airs on PBS, wrote a scathing review of Mike Leigh’s film Vera Drake. Her take on the method portrayed in the film, published in the Guardian:

Mike Leigh is a writer and a film-maker, and can be excused for not knowing, but his medical adviser should certainly have known that Vera’s method of procuring an abortion – flushing out the uterus with soap and water – was invariably fatal. One of the most severe pains a human being can endure is the sudden distension of a hollow organ. Inflating the uterus with liquid will induce primary obstetric shock, a dramatic fall in blood pressure, and heart failure. Thousands of women have died instantly from this abortion method.

Worth writes of some of the awful things she saw as a nurse and midwife in London in the 50’s and 60’s, and she says that the doctors she worked with never reported a case of suspected abortion, because the woman involved had already suffered. She also knew of a case where the body of a prostitute “disappeared” after dying from a botched abortion. A few days later, there was a response:

[…] I had just such an abortion in March 1965, in the Notting Hill flat of a backstreet abortionist who was a retired nurse. I walked back to my flat where a day later the foetus did indeed emerge after a painful labour which lasted several hours. Though I did call out an emergency GP after the event and was given painkillers, I did not disclose the action I had taken and that was the extent of my medical treatment.

I’m sure both of these women are telling the truth of their experience. Worth would have seen the worst of it and known little of the rest, because women in her practice would not have disclosed that they’d had an illegal procedure. The anonymous Guardian correspondent, who went on to have two children, was one of who knows how many women whose lives were made better because of a secret abortion. The point is that a lot of what went on then was never recorded, just like what was going on in Philadelphia and probably a number of other places, now that we’re moving back to the days when abortion was illegal.

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Reader Interactions

43Comments

  1. 1.

    c u n d gulag

    April 14, 2013 at 10:01 am

    The same people who are screaming about this “doctor” in Philly, are the same ones who not only want to end legal and safe abortions, and send non-wealthy women back to the dimmest alleyways where greedy and filthy vermin like this guy will “operate” for whatever the woman can afford, but are also the ones who want to outlaw contraception – as if that makes any feckin’ sense in a country not occupied by religious zealots.
    “American Taliban,” indeed!

    Wealthy and powerful men will always have some doctor somewhere on call, with access to some “clinic,” where he’ll take his wife/girlfriend/daughter/sister, etc, and after some time, she’ll reappear from that clinic having ‘lost some weight.’

    In a better world, religion would be looked at, as a treatable mental disease.

  2. 2.

    f space that

    April 14, 2013 at 10:02 am

    There’s actually little logical or scientific discussion of this subject wtihin the most awesomest country on the planet. All I ever hear is how important a fetus is and how it needs to have a gun to overthrow the Gubmint.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    April 14, 2013 at 10:06 am

    The Guardian has a story about the woman who died in Ireland after being refused an abortion that could have saved her life.
    link
    This can happen here.

    mistermix, thank you for writing about this important topic

  4. 4.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    April 14, 2013 at 10:09 am

    If we’re going to go back to the days when abortion was limited, what was it like?

    Those of us who are old enough to remember what it was like would say that it was heartbreaking.

  5. 5.

    FoxinSocks

    April 14, 2013 at 10:13 am

    File under anecdata, but I’m hearing of and in one case, seeing, more cases of women doing the abortions by themselves in the privacy of their own homes. Usually through drugs obtained on-line that can trigger miscarriage, though the one person I know who did the abortion herself used an old-time herbal remedy that worked surprisingly well.

    My heart stopped when I read above that the soap and water method was always fatal, because I’ve heard of a couple of women in the pre-Roe days using that method. It was rough, but they survived.

    I’ll also note that the one woman who did it herself had good health insurance but didn’t have coverage for abortion, so despite the fact that she had a great, legal clinic 10 minutes from her, she did it herself with her husband monitoring because as she put it, they didn’t have $500 and they certainly didn’t have money for a baby.

  6. 6.

    Schlemizel

    April 14, 2013 at 10:15 am

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    I very clearly remember the adults discussing this and all the reasons it was better to have legal medical care. These were very emotional debates but both sides seemed to be more interested in what was best for the people involved. That motivation has disappeared.

    I also remember stories about the reduction in unnecessary deaths after legalization. All of that has been tossed overboard for politics.

  7. 7.

    the Conster

    April 14, 2013 at 10:18 am

    So sick of these assholes trying to frogmarch us all back to the 50s.

  8. 8.

    Mino

    April 14, 2013 at 10:26 am

    Underground abortionists are certainly organizing in states that have managed to make it near impossible to obtain a legal abortion within their artificial time frames. Bet on it. Jane is coming back.

  9. 9.

    c u n d gulag

    April 14, 2013 at 10:27 am

    @the Conster:
    Which 50’s?
    19?
    18?
    17?
    16?
    Or, 1150’s, before the Magna Carta was signed?

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 14, 2013 at 10:30 am

    @the Conster:

    So sick of these assholes trying to frogmarch us all back to the 50s.

    Without the tax rates and union jobs.

  11. 11.

    Chris

    April 14, 2013 at 10:42 am

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    I’ve read polls that show a much more divided public now than at the time of Roe v. Wade, when a majority was pro choice. I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that denial of abortion rights was widespread back then.

  12. 12.

    Mino

    April 14, 2013 at 10:51 am

    I’m only surprised they aren’t going after the women, too. It won’t be long before some DA gets that bright idea.

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 14, 2013 at 10:54 am

    @Chris:

    Amazingly, back in the 70’s, the evangelicals didn’t get all that excited about legal abortion. It was pretty much a non-issue.

    Then Jimmy Carter came along, and got the IRS to go after the “Christian Academies” that were created to keep the mud people out, and suddenly they needed allies, and Catholics seemed to be a good choice. So they forgot that “Whore of Rome” shit they’d been talking about and made allies of people like Rih Santorum.

    Then, all the sudden, in the 80’s, the two lies in two words “Moral Majority” was founded to push the agenda of the backwards barbarians.

  14. 14.

    Starfish

    April 14, 2013 at 10:54 am

    @JPL: What do you mean “can”? It does happen here.

    Here is a Huffington post link about it happening here.

  15. 15.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    April 14, 2013 at 10:57 am

    Stuck in front of an airport TV tuned to Fox on Friday (with the sound mercifully off) I watched a panel discussion of at least 45 minutes on this illegal abortionist. The theme of the Fox show seemed to be “why is the mainstream media ignoring this butcher?”.

    I would rather ask why Fox News isn’t highlighting why illegal abortions are necessary, and why access to safe abortion has declined. But I guess that’s not their wheelhouse.

  16. 16.

    tavella

    April 14, 2013 at 10:57 am

    Frankly, the whole “distension of the uterus will cause INSTANT DEATH” thing sounds whacky and urban legendy to me. Sure, if you pumped a gallon of water into an organ not set up for it it would no doubt cause problems, especially if it wasn’t saline balanced, but that’s not what is involved — only a small amount ends up in the uterus.

    Just because someone was a nurse 50 years ago doesn’t mean they have accurate or modern medical knowledge.

  17. 17.

    gelfling545

    April 14, 2013 at 11:01 am

    I was born in the 50’s and when I graduated from high school, abortion was still illegal. I grew up in a very Catholic area (and never met a Protestant – an Episcopalian, which hardly even counts – until I was 16.) Now I was the type of child who sat quietly & listened and so found out a lot of things my parents might never have told me. One thing I realized, as an adult, was that all those good Catholic wives and mothers knew or thought they knew of some folk method to terminate a pregnancy.

  18. 18.

    Mino

    April 14, 2013 at 11:10 am

    @gelfling545: They very likely did know of one. Primitive women certainly did.

  19. 19.

    Tata

    April 14, 2013 at 11:12 am

    The statistic is one woman in three will have an abortion by the end of her reproductive life. Look around the holiday dinner table at the women over 45 or 50. How many of them would you have parted with if Roe had not happened? How many of the younger ones will you lose? That is what we are talking about here.

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    April 14, 2013 at 11:20 am

    As usual, the Talibangelicals have never gotten a grip on the plot, so to speak.

    Things like divorce and abortion were legalized because people got tired of suffering and dying over stupid “rules.”

    They really really really believe in the death penalty, don’t they? For all KINDS of life decisions.

  21. 21.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    April 14, 2013 at 11:23 am

    @Chris:

    I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that denial of abortion rights was widespread back then.

    One of the interesting things about living a long life (I turned 65 this month) was the realization that the successes of things like pro-choice, the social safety net, public education, and many others, has been taken for granted (Or ignored for various rea$on$) for so long that substantial numbers of people now feel free to be actively hostile toward them.

  22. 22.

    Robert

    April 14, 2013 at 11:28 am

    I remember the freak out over Vera Drake in America. It’s a major reason why the film didn’t win any of the Oscars it was nominated for and a contributing factor in it not getting in for Best Picture that year. Mike Leigh did a whole lot of research into abortion–politically and medically–and found enough stories of back alley abortions gone wrong to know he was approaching the story from a place of truth.

    Critics gave the film good, not great, reviews by and large because it was such a controversial subject. Abortion, the central through line of the film, was left to the plot summary alone in reviews and not actually discussed. If you pretend the abortion story isn’t there, you have a 30 minutes of bland upstairs/downstairs British apartment drama and nothing else.

    Meanwhile, I saw the film and raved about it. I had people lose it on my for daring to talk about the merit of the film if I mentioned the abortion scenes and their purpose in the narrative. One side would freak out and say that stuff never happened like that and it’s just sensational anti-choice rhetoric and the other side would scream about murdered babies and how I was a monster for enjoying it. It wasn’t a matter of enjoyment or politics. It was a character study about a woman who chose to help women facing a serious crisis in their lives find some sense of peace. Her methods are clearly flawed and condemned in the film, but her attitude and her spirit are not.

  23. 23.

    Alabama Blue Dot

    April 14, 2013 at 11:36 am

    I highly recommend a film by my cousin, Jane Gillooly: “Leona’s Sister Gerri.” It is a documentary about the iconic “back alley abortion” photo, the woman slumped naked and dead from an illegal abortion. Of course, I doubt the forced birth crowd would be moved by it, any more than the gun nuts are moved by dead children.

  24. 24.

    Mino

    April 14, 2013 at 11:39 am

    @Alabama Blue Dot: Same crowd.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 14, 2013 at 11:59 am

    @Tata:

    Yet, there are those who will say, with thundering righteousness, that the sluts got what they deserved.

    With a straight face, even.

    My loathing of these “people” knows no bounds.

  26. 26.

    Maude

    April 14, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    And we can all say, Thank You Ronald Reagan.

  27. 27.

    Maude

    April 14, 2013 at 12:04 pm

    They used to be called Back Alley Abortions.
    It was an awful time before Roe.
    Now, at least you can travel to another state if you need to, then, no.
    The religious are trying to undermine secular laws.

  28. 28.

    Ruckus

    April 14, 2013 at 12:29 pm

    @c u n d gulag:
    In a better world, religion would be looked at, as a treatable mental disease.

    In a much better world, the disease would have been wiped out.

  29. 29.

    Cermet

    April 14, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    These last few generations are ignorant beyond measure relative to these issues because every major film that uses a pregnant woman deciding on the issue, always has the woman deciding to keep the child; and there is no economic issue. Rather, no further details are generally even offered to what really happens to their lives/dreamns; also, these teenage mothers arealways fairly well off with resources to draw on – none are terribly poor. Amazing how we only film well-off white girls with means. Since film/internet shows are the only media these children study, they will not realize the terrible tragedy developing until it is too late.

    Fools – it is all there in history books if one would just take the time to learn. Older woman are also failing to tell their daughters the truth of how the bigots (spelled Christians) created the world of back-alley abortions. Religion is a terrible sickness that the founding slave loving (in both senses of the word) ‘fathers’ knew was the greatest single danger to the developing democracy.

  30. 30.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 14, 2013 at 1:47 pm

    @Cermet:

    because every major film that uses a pregnant woman deciding on the issue, always has the woman deciding to keep the child; and there is no economic issue.

    Hollywood is about fantasy, at every level. Reality is boring and not entertaining, at least the nuts and bolts of reality. The economic impact of raising a child, even a wanted one, gets in the way of the fantasy, so it’s disposed of.

  31. 31.

    maurinsky

    April 14, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    It wasn’t always thus in Hollywood. Remember Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Main character has an abortion and a happy ending. Can you imagine that same movie being made today? If she did get pregnant, she would either have the baby or somehow have a miraculous miscarriage.

    I grew up in an Irish Catholic household, and I did believe for a time that abortion was possibly the most evil thing that a woman could do, and then I read The Cider House Rules by John Irving, and it completely changed my outlook.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    April 14, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    @Cermet:

    As a writer myself, I can understand why storytelling went that direction — once the abortion happens, the story is over. If the leads in Juno or Knocked Up had chosen to abort, each film would have been a 15-minute short. But that’s no excuse for stigmatizing abortion in stories or TV shows where the pregnancy is not pivotal to the plot and every woman whose life would be changed for the worse by a pregnancy just happens to have a lucky miscarriage in the nick of time.

    I think that just about the only (relatively) recent film where I’ve seen abortion treated as a plot point and not some huge pivotal moral decision was Grace of My Heart, where the lead character has an abortion after leaving her cheating husband, because she knows that there is absolutely no way she can care for her other children and a new baby on her own.

  33. 33.

    28 Percent

    April 14, 2013 at 2:24 pm

    I can’t speak to the accuracy of the rest of Worth’s statement, but having endured having my fallopian tubes flooded to check for blockages, I can agree that her contention that the sudden distension of a hollow organ = pain like you wouldn’t have thought your body was capable of registering is, if anything, understated.

  34. 34.

    Beauzeaux

    April 14, 2013 at 2:34 pm

    I had an illegal abortion in the early 1960s. I was living in Los Angeles and the co-contributor to the pregnancy found a woman (supposedly a retired nurse) in South Central LA who performed abortions. As I recall, she used the soap and water method. Not “filling the uterus” just introducing a small amount.
    A couple of days later, I passed the residue of the pregnancy with great relief and great thankfulness.
    Yes, I was fortunate enough to have had no complications but like most women who sought abortion, I was desperate and willing to take the risk. And I was more than grateful to the woman who helped me.
    More than a decade later in New York, I had another contraceptive failure. I was able to get a safe and legal abortion. The difference was that the second time I didn’t have that amazing wave of relief because this time I knew in advance that I could have the abortion when I wanted. The first time, it was in doubt until it actually happened.

  35. 35.

    Nicole

    April 14, 2013 at 4:08 pm

    The link about maternal morality goes to a review of When Abortion Was a Crime. It’s a really good book. Out of print now, but if you can find a copy at the library or used, I highly, highly recommend it.

  36. 36.

    Chris

    April 14, 2013 at 4:26 pm

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:

    I would rather ask why Fox News isn’t highlighting why illegal abortions are necessary, and why access to safe abortion has declined. But I guess that’s not their wheelhouse.

    I would like to ask how it is that neither Fox News nor any of the institutions now squealing about “liberal media bias” had a damn thing to say about this story until literally seventy-two hours ago even though it’s been going on for two years. If, you know, “liberal bias” is the explanation here.

    For all the screaming about liberal bias, this story illustrates the exact opposite phenomenon rather well, as everyone’s now demanding an explanation of institutions Fox & co labels “liberal,” while their conservative counterparts that’ve been equally asleep at the wheel this entire time get a free ride.

    Thank God for IOKIYAR, eh?

  37. 37.

    Chris

    April 14, 2013 at 4:35 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I think the Dixiecrats learned from George Wallace that Southern whites standing athwart history all by themselves weren’t likely to accomplish much. Allying with the Catholic Church gave them an ally based in urban, industrialized, immigrant-heavy areas and opened up a whole host of doors that would previously have been shut to them.

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    Very very true. Growing up in middle class suburbia like I did, you’re sheltered enough from a lot of the uglier things in life – and while you read about unions and stuff in history books, it’s easy to tell yourself that it’s all in the past (after all, everything around you looks alright, doesn’t it?)

  38. 38.

    Librarian

    April 14, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    The Propellerheads with Shirley Bassey!! I love that song.

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    April 14, 2013 at 6:27 pm

    @Nicole:

    I think it may be back in print — Amazon.com has it in both paperback and Kindle editions.

  40. 40.

    texasdem

    April 14, 2013 at 6:32 pm

    In the early 1970’s, when I lived in Pittsburgh, PA, abortions were illegal. I worked as a volunteer at a free clinic, and one of the main things we did was verify pregnancy (no home tests then) and counsel women/girls about their choices. (I add girls because the youngest one who came in pregnant was 11 years old, and had never had a menstrual period.) Those who wanted an abortion had to go to New York–obviously a significant barrier for some. We weren’t the sort of clinc where someone would go after a botched illegal abortion, but some of our doctors worked at the University of Pittsburgh hospitals, and told us about them. I can’t believe that anyone would want to go back to those times!

  41. 41.

    Dreamer

    April 15, 2013 at 1:01 am

    The Right will try and frame it as the horrifying truth of all abortion services… whereas, as far as such a tragedy needs to be discussed in wider context, it should be about how desperate people will do desperate things, and how in their vulnerable state other people can take advantage of them.

    The frustrating thing is that to the Right it’s a ‘virtuous’ cycle. Make it harder and harder to access, then once incidents like this occur use them to argue for greater restrictions, and of course the result of further restriction is more desperation and ever greater potential horrors, and on it goes until things are medieval.

  42. 42.

    Wally Ballou

    April 15, 2013 at 3:18 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: I don’t think it’s so much that the fundagelicals were “okay” with abortion as that, prior to the Carter tax imbroglio you mention, they just weren’t involved in politics at all, seeing it as part of the hopelessly fallen secular world and whatnot. (I would also maintain that this apolitical stance was, among other things, what allowed the Catholic JFK to get in the WH.) But, make no mistake, there was never a pro-choice consensus in this country either before or after Roe.

  43. 43.

    The Raven on the Hill

    April 15, 2013 at 4:55 am

    BTW, the correct link to the original review is http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/jan/06/health.healthandwellbeing.

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