I'll have to do a search and resurrect an article published 7-8 years ago in Journal of the History of Sexuality. It interviewed 3 doctors who had performed abortions in the pre-Roe days, and they explained their experiences and choices--and of course their dangers and risks. One detail stands out: one dr. explained how the turning point for him was the contrast between the mostly white, upper-middle-class women clearly in the bloom of health who would show up with the requisite physician's or psychiatrist's note authorizing the "D&C" procedure (the euphemism du jour)--and the emergency room, where he'd be trying to save the life of some working class woman (very often of color) dying of septicemia. It was just that stark, and a reminder that the wealthy and privileged have always been able to end their pregnancies safely--the burden falls on the ones who can't afford the trip to Mexico or the services (or bribe) to the doctor or shrink.

And it's not about life, and valuing life. It's about controlling women. Pure and simple.

My father was a doctor in the pre-Roe days. During his residency, he had to treat a woman that had given herself a Draino-O douche to induce an abortion. She died in terrible pain.

A friend of mine's Great-Aunt suffered complications from an illegal abotrtion. She made it to an Iowa hospital in time - but Iowa had a law making it a criminal offense to treat such women. She, too, died a terrible death.

I remember when Jerry Falwell changed the fight to overturn Roe from the "anti-abortion" movement to the "right-to-life" movement because it "sounded better." They have never cared about life other than as a cynical marketing ploy.

We don't have to look to the pre-Roe days to see the effects of illegalizing abortion. Just look at some Latin American countries, where bothced abortions account for as many as 1 in 4 hospital vists. A woman dies every minute from a pregnancy-related cause; these deaths are completely preventable through legalized abortion and access to reproductive healthcare. Illegalization doesn't stop abortion. Brazil, for example, has a higher abortion rate than the U.S., even though the procedure is illegal there. These problems are happening today, and as we celebrate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in this country, we must remember that women abroad are not so lucky. We need to collectively push the Bush administration to rescind the Global Gag Rule, which limits free speech and access to basic healthcare, and we need to push our government to increase international family planning funding and contraceptive access. We've come a long way, but we can't afford to forget about so many others.

It's not really true that middle-class white women could easily get safe legal abortions from doctors. Those middleclass women who had the right connections and got through the hospital committees were the exception--the number of legal abortions performed before roe was tiny. And many who did get them had to agree to sterilization. What is true is that by the 60s, middleclass women had SAFER illegal abortions than poor women. Still, a friend of mine remembers a (white middle class)classmate at her catholic college who died.

Maybe someone should forward this to the people who think that Roemer and Reid aren't any big deal because they wear the correctly colored team uniforms, after all... :/