I'm old enough to remember many of the horrors referred to -- and they most definitely were not rare occurrences.

One threat to Roe, I suspect, is that many younger people don't know history, don't know what back-alley abortions were like, don't know the terrible things girls and women did to their own bodies, don't know the horrors and the pain and the agony. Not knowing, they don't fully realize what would happen again if America abandons choice.

Sad and painful as it is, we need to remind people of the bad old days. To me, the memory of back then is a large part of why I am absolutely and unalterably committed to choice.

Never again!

My question regarding these sorts of articles is "whom are they trying to convince to be pro-choice?". The USA may have been a country found by rebels, but most Americans are conformists with mile wide mean-streaks (as evidenced by the callous attitude we display toward prisoners and the lack of political traction toward any form of prison reform or less than "throw the book at 'em" sentancing). I reckon that even many people who are otherwise pro-choice (in that they don't want abortion to be made illegal) would read this article and think: "before abortion was legal, women had serious health problems because they had illegal abortions? so? they shouldn't have broken the law then ... their health problems were just desserts for breaking the law".

What I think we need more of are first hand accounts of why these women broke the law and risked their lives to have abortions. Of course, some Americans believe in a twisted view of original sin that says "of course, women will have to choose between two bad choices, either of which'll cause them to go straight to hell -- but that's inevitable ... and that's why we needed Jesus to die on the cross for our sins". But others hopefully will come to better appreciate why abortion needs to remain legal.

I fear just telling people who already think that abortion is "icky" that illegal abortions had even ickier results really doesn't affect the abortion debate.

DAS: I get what you're saying.
But, when the break into their "but we want to end abortion" routine, it is nice to remind them that abortion rates aren't affected by the legal status of the procedure. The only thing that changes when you outlaw abortion is the number of serious injuries and death to the women who seek out abortions any way.

While some pro-lifers are as you describe, DAS, many of them genuinely believe that antiabortion policies save lives. They're the ones who need to be shaken awake. Unfortunately, the power of denial is strong.

It makes me sick to think that THAT is what some people want to go back to.

I know about 50 OB/GYNs, and only 3-5 will provide abortions. The others will do them for emergency reasons only.

However, all of them are pro-choice and want abortion to stay safe and legal, precisely because of the reasons the article describes and the nature of "coathanger" abortions.

One of the many mysteries of my time in family planning was that pregnant, virulently anti-choice patients would choose to have abortions. Repeatedly. My perception, based on conversations with those patients, was that they took "abortion rights" literally-- an inalienable right that they could rail against because there was no chance that it would be taken away. Some of my patients told me that they didn't know that abortion had ever been illegal in our area.

I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think some women, perhaps especially younger women, don't understand (they may know, intellectually, but they don't really understand what it meant) that there was a time when you couldn't get a legal, safe abortion. So it's easy to hem and haw and make statements like "I agree in theory that abortion should be legal, but I don't want people to use it as a form of birth control." It's easy to say that now, 30 years after Roe and 40+ after Griswold, because many of us don't understand what it was like not to have those options.

Stepping down from the soapbox now...

I know about 50 OB/GYNs, and only 3-5 will provide abortions. The others will do them for emergency reasons only.

However, all of them are pro-choice and want abortion to stay safe and legal, precisely because of the reasons the article describes and the nature of "coathanger" abortions.

I have an OB/GYN uncle who used to perform abortions in central Virginia. But then he quit offering the service sometime during the Reagan administration because he and his wife were concerned for their family's safety.

I think it's true that the existence of Roe induces complacency in young people because they've never encountered the horrors of back-alley abortions. But I think another reason support for abortion rights is relatively low is that people don't realize that Roe isn't enough. Although they haven't achieved their ultimate goal, the anti-choicers have been remarkably successful in limiting access to abortion through burdensome regulations, intimidation and murder. The situation seems to be getting worse all the time.