Historical overview of the topic of abortion and start nationally and then look at california specifically, specifically on the topics of specialized abortion or abortion specialists and decriminalization and then go back to the National Contact to look at roe v. Wade and some of the legislation thats happened since then and in some of the more recent years. So if you recall from around week 1 or 2, we did have a rebrief zrouks on the topic of abortion in the colonial period nd we talked about sarah gorspiner and her abortion in the 1940s and had a brief introduction to it but today were going to pick up around e time of the com stock act, does anyone remember of the com stock act from a couple weeks ago, can you tell us what it is . [ advertising contraceptives or information on no advertising of contraceptives and the dissemination of the stuff in the mail. So good. The comstock act effectively made it criminal to advertise these things beginning around 1873. Now, we showed you guys the political cartoon, if you recall comstock was carrying a woman and the caption was, she gave birth to a naked baby, you know. So the joke or punch line is comstock was really prude. Its important to know he doesnt oppose all methods of Birth Control but encourages couples to use methods of Birth Control he considers dignified or ethical. Those messages include abstinence and include the rhythm method where you avoid sexual intercourse at moments when a woman is more fertile. But also sleeping in different beds. So these are things that hes ok with. But he doesnt like other types of Birth Control. He doesnt like condoms, uches, or abortion because their relationship. And remember the womens Reform Movement these types of Birth Control had been linked to other industries as a matter of vocation, women who were prostitutes employed these different methods because they needed to continue working. So when were putting this again in the context, as a refresher of the 19th century, and were looking at gender ideologies and separate spheres and race suicide. If you are an educated middle and upper class white woman and want to use these types of methods, theyre at best frowned upon and again if youre married and at worse theyre immoral and if youre a single woman attempting to use any of these other methods or any of the methods you are considered immoral. So lets look at an example of a 19th century abortionist. Now, this is the example of restol. Sher was born in 1812 and she was the woman you went to if you wanted an abortion in new york city from 18371878. In 1836 she married a man named Charles Lohman and when she began to embark on this career as a professor of womens medicine, a midwife, but also an abortionist and purveyor of contraceptives and her husband supported her in this state, were in this together. They sold patent medicines that may or may not have been effective but made most their money providing abortions, illegal abortions. She became very well known and she often came under scrutiny from various different religious and moral reform groups in new york city. 1841 was the year of her first trial and she was charged with performing an abortion on a woman resulting in her death. She does have several various subsequent brushes with the law. But some of the critics against her cited the fact that she donated to political campaigns, that she had the Police Department on her payroll. She always seemed to get off easy and sometimes she even settled out of court. So in the one trial after which she is found guilty and does have to serve time in prison, that was her trial in 1847, she received such special treatment in prison the city council investigated and the warden of the prison ended up getting fired. So upon her release from prison in 1847, they continued their work and they were so profitable in this that when her step daughter got married in 1854, she actually is rumored to have given them a 50,000 wedding gift. 50,000 in 1854. And paid for their european honeymoon. They were doing quite well. They also managed to buy a four story brown stone on fifth avenue which is very prime real estate in new york city. So theyre not slumming it over there. After charles died, it looked like ann was going to retire. Ut in 1878, Anthony Comstock disguised himself as a potential customer. He approached her and he pretended to need contraceptive materials. He made a bunch of purchases and he used those to collect a search warrant and then he had her raided. And she was brought to trial for violation of the comstock act. She did try to do some legal maneuvering and had her turnover try to help her out but was to no avail. Seemed like she was actually going to do hard time for this trial. And so on april 1, 1878, the day her trial was supposed to begin, she slit her throat with a knife in her bathtub. Thats what this artist renditioning is trying to show. Now, some people did criticize comstock for entrapment but he was nonchalant about it and called it a bloody end to a bloody life. And when she actually died, her estate was valued upon a million dollars, which is over 25 million today. Uestions so far . Comstock wasnt the only person who was opposed to abortion at this time. And its important to note that the 19th century is an era of transition when were looking at the abortion business. There had been earlier arguments against abortion before this. But when you couple this with mass media, you couple this with the spread of print material, with slide dissemination of ideas and advertisement, it affords greater opportunity for this previously taboo subject to kind of become open and well known in the public and people can discuss and talk about it a little bit more. So in the 1820s and 1830s, we begin to see some territories and state actually beginning to implement some of the first abortion laws. And most of these legislators imagine that these laws are a form of consumer protection, that theyre creating these laws in order to protect women. Now since there is increased medical and Technological Advancements going on in this of you do have new methods Birth Control and new methods of abortion that are untested and that can be really crude if performed in the wrong hands. So this image, for example, is of aer isated curet, a long kind of spoonlike device. You cant tell but it is serrated and this would be used to perform an abortion and you would dilate the cervix and insert this device and scrape the uterine walls. So if you have someone who is unskilled or who is not a qualified medical professional, this could be potentially dangerous and deadly to a woman. So to an extent these laws do function to protect women because theyre trying to keep the wrong people from performing these procedures. So dr. Horatio would become the face of the Antiabortion Movement in the 18th century and he believed the medical men were the guardians of women and children. He is the quintessential example of a medical Association Member of the 19th century. Hes from new england and he went to harvard and he was really religious he was a member of one of these first generation gynecologists who are basically moving into this brandnew field. Hes a contemporary of people like Jay Marion Sims who we read about in medical bondage. Hes known for his efforts to eradicate the process of abortion. He and contemporaries are responsible for making abortion a moral issue for the first time that previously no one was really interested or invested in the moral implications of abortion. No one talks about abortion in a moral way before, at least not in relation to it being a potential person but he and others like him began to refer or bortion as infanticide prenatal infanticide or even murder and they emphasized their own education and specialization to basically argue they were the people who were best in the position to lobby the government to basically eradicate this practice. Now we talked previously about the development of the medical field and how it worked in tandem with basically delegitimatizing midwives and quack doctors and is part of this as well because its usually midwives and physicians of color who were most likely to perform abortions. So its not just about this moral thing, its also about suggesting that these other people should not be qualified to practice medicine, we are. We american medical association, a. M. A. Members are. So basically as a result of this campaign, good reputable doctors did not perform abortions unless it was absolutely necessary to protect the life of a woman. Other than that, abortions were immoral because fetuses were potential persons and eventually by 1880, all states had laws against abortion. Questions . Yeah, jillian [jillian why was the moral element added . What was the reason they had against abortion . It was more about, you know, sex being for procreation and that it should be within the confines of marriage. So it was less about the fact that this was a person and more about, well, this meant you were having, you know, immoral sex practices. Yeah, mark . Mark were they a bunch of doctors that said were the authority now . Alicia a bunch of physicians that organized themselves and said were creating standards. We are its not backed by the government, rather they kind of formed their own lobbying group that said were defining the standards of professional medicine and we are going to kind of be gatekeepers for this practice to make sure that everyone meets these standards that we have a main line position on things and they basically become a lobbying group after that. Other questions . Ok. So you have dr. Storer and other people putting force this kind of moral and Educational Campaign but another thing thats adding fuel to this movement to get rid of abortion was the proliferation of abortion stories in the press. Now, most women who acquire abortions in the late 19th and early 20th century, they do so quietly by using referrals from friends, sisters, coworkers and maybe trusted physicians and many of these women secretly have successful abortions and we dont know anything about them. But shes arent the women who become topics in conversation in popular culture, that you have the sensationalism of publicized abortion related deaths that provide fodder for reformers and for physicians and other moralists who believe that legalized abortion is gradually going to erode americas moral fabric. And in typical yellow journalism fashion, newspapers of the 19th and early 20th century broadcasted story after story of young, pretty girls who were dying as a result of illegal abortions. Undercover reporters for the New York Times actually ended essay sing a infanticide to talk about illegal abortion in new york city so in this investigation there were two journalists who went undercover pretending to be a couple and then in this long form expose they transported readers of their newspaper to the abortion underworld and they exposed physicians, midwives and Police Officers who were basically receiving bribes or somehow involved in this trade. So using abortion stories of kind of seedy Human Interest stories helped the newspapers to profit because you could spread these stories out for days at a time. You can give a little bit one day and then just drag the story out for a week or two weeks if you wanted. Now, if you recall, a couple weeks ago we saw a short clip from the 1934 film road to rouen. If you remember, they were having a party and eve and ann were taken away by a female Police Officer and then they were medically inspected and then eve had syphilis and then she reformed and changes her life and ann find out shes pregnant. So when i turned off the clip i told you anns boyfriend told her hes not going to marry her and takes her to have a illegal abortion and she dice. That was the same thing except that was a film example where you have these stories of sex and jilted lovers, coughups and death and its really titillating for whoever is reading or watching them. But its important to note that they also fit within this larger framework. Its not just about stopping abortion. Its also fitting with other terms to regulate sexuality to make sure sexuality was conforming with heterosexual normative practices, repressing homosexuality, preventing abortion, policing prostitution and preventing the dissemination of other obscene material. It is making sure womens sexuality fits within a certain framework and that that framework is marital reproductive sex. Everyone else should be shamed. So these women who died from these procedures they cant conceal their identity or practices anymore, they kind of serve as Cautionary Tales for everyone else. But even though there is this policing of abortions dont just disappear. And by the 1920s the campaign, the a. M. E. Campaign against abortion has created a more hostile environment for women. Eking these procedures women may feel harassed by their physicians or they may have given them sermons and some might have felt guilty to speak to their doctor about this. Its also harder to get an abortion if physicians are cracking down on other providers through their internal regulation but even if Law Enforcement is helping with that as well. And abortion is a illegally ambiguous procedure in the United States. I mentioned by 1980 all states have laws against it but its important to note the procedure is not so banned in and of itself. Rather the circumstances around the abortion indicate whether the procedure is legal or illegal so this means that an abortion could be legal for one woman and illegal for another or even legal for one womans pregnancy and then illegal for her next pregnancy. The same woman. This is because every state with an abortion statute has a clause that provides exceptions for when a womans life is in danger. That if a woman is likely going to die from this pregnancy, then a physician has the right and has the authority to form an abortion in that instance. But there are no clear criteria to assess whether or not the womans life is at risk. So theres no checklist to determine what constitutes a risk to a womans life. Now, since physicians typically practice independently, it is acceptable to come to their own conclusions and assess whether or not they believed an abortion was medically necessary. And this is considered a legal abortion, if a physician thinks their patient has a condition that will threaten her life with this pregnancy, he or she can just schedule the procedure and thats it. But if physicians are hard ined a. M. E. Members like horatio storer, they may be less inclined to provide the procedure. What if they, like, went to another person and was able to get an abortion and get a different opinion . Alicia the states vary in every state and they may not even have to go to another stay but maybe find another physician who they can convince that they should have a legal abortion. Thats a really interesting and good point that bianca just brought up because by the 1950s and 1960s, and well get there in a second, this legal distinction becomes incredibly amorph cities. By the time we get to the 1950s and 1960s, we have an abuse of this trust that professional a. M. E. Members have kind of given individual physicians that leads to that decision being removed from the individual physician and placed in the hands of a committee. So its no longer your individual physician who says, yep, i think that this is necessary, its now 35 physicians youve never met to determine whether or not they think you should have an abortion or not. Well get there in a little bit, though. Whats interesting, also, is that for some women it creates a space for negotiation, right . If i want this physician to continue working for me and my family, youll find a reason to justify this abortion, right . S. Its legally amorhi amorphsis. Eventually it goes out of the physicians hands. As professional medicine officially circumscribes what constitutes a legal abortion, in the 1930s its only an exception for life. Its only an exception for a womans life being in danger. So as this is a pretty hard line stance, there are other people who take advantage of this. You get the emergence of the abortion specialist in the 1930s and the abortion specialist is strictly performing illegal abortions. But theyre taking advantage of the technologies, perhaps, maybe even antibiotics and maybe trying to fill this market niche for them. So were going to talk about one of these abortion specialists in california. Its not just one, its like 30 of them. And in 1934, Reginald Rankin approached dr. George watts and he proposed to him an idea for an organized criminal Abortion Syndicate that would span the entire west coast from seattle to the u. S. Mexico border. And rankin approached watts specifically because watts was an abortion specialist. He had developed this new method for performing an ortion called the vacuole vacuum aspiration technique which sounds incredibly scary but meant that his abortions were safe. He was able to practice for four years, and he stayed under the radar. It reduced the risk of accepts and and in sepsis infection because it removed all fetal tissue from the uterus and why it worked. Rankin approached watts and watts came onboard and between 19341936 rankin brought in several other abortion specialists and even some physicians. He created new offices and by 1936, he had over 30 abortion specialists working for him. To most women who sought the services of rankin or any of the physicians working for him, rankin himself was not an abortionist or specialist. He was the genius or the master behind mastermind behind all of this. But if any woman went to one of their clinics, it would seem just like any other visit to another medical clinic, except a woman might be blindfolded, she might not see the person who is providing the procedure to her. Or she might have several doctors in the room with her at a time so that she can actually identify which one performed the procedure. But once the woman arrived for treatment, she would tell the nurse or receptionist how far along was her pregnancy and that would determine the cost. So the further along she was, the more it would cost. Ideally, they like to charge between 30 and 50 for a procedure. This is only in the first six to eight weeks. If you were to put that in modern values, the government inflation calculator only goes up to 2019, but if you put 35 to 50 in 2019 values, it would be between 650 and 950. Her firsts is only in six to eight weeks. If she was 12 weeks along, the clinic should charge between 50 to 75, maybe a hundred dollars. Beyond 12 weeks, they are supposed to collect as much money as possible. 200, 250, even 300. And i put some of those values here. 250 would be about 4700 today. Once the staff had collected forms and fees, they would escort the patient to the operating room and she would have the procedure. This is actually one of the physicians. If you want to know more, read my book. Yeah . Student this was an underground ring . Prof. Gutierrezromine yes. It is illegal. Student was it mostly for wealthy people . Prof. Gutierrezromine if we are looking at the values, 660 is a lot of money, if we are looking at the modernday equivalence. You get a lot of young working women who get these procedures. Maybe they have saved some money, maybe have taken a loan or borrowed money. We do see later that some women turned in their fur coat or Engagement Ring instead, because they may have been insured and they can say someone stole it or i lost it, and they can use those valuable possessions as a way to cover this cost. I dont cover this in the lecture, but they created their own credit arm to help finance women who couldnt afford it. They charged more for it, but it created a payment plan for some of these women who couldnt pay for it upfront. So they were very innovative. This ring, they are in operation for a few years. After some tips, theres a series of raids. It is eventually brought down by a joint task force of the lapd, San FranciscoPolice Department, and Alameda County sheriff. All of the members of the ring were arrested. It was incredibly profitable. I dont think i can stress that enough. If we are just looking at their Downtown Los Angeles office, they netted the equivalent of about 85,000 per month. Thats after all of their fees, commissions, everything, that is their profit. 85,000 per month. They also had offices in san diego, long beach, seattle, San Francisco, oakland, and more. So they are not doing too bad. The District Attorney, when they are doing the raids, they find a wealth of paperwork and documentation, they found the names of patients and coerced them to testify on the stand. This actually results in guilty verdicts for many of the conspirators. In many respects, this ring, their success was mainly because they were able to provide safe, illegal abortion, it also contributed to their demise. That in contrast to almost every other prosecuted case before this, they didnt have any fatalities. No woman died in any of their clinics, they didnt lose a single woman. And even though women were dying from a legal abortions elsewhere, they were not receiving their abortions from this clinic, or any of their clinics. This is really the antithesis of those abortion stories in the newspapers from the 1920s. For the first time, it appears that illegal abortions could be safe, that you might not end up in one of these newspaper stories about a young, dead pretty girl. Questions . Student because those women were going to the illegal clinics, were they also facing consequences . Prof. Gutierrezromine thats a good question. Technically, they could be charged, but the District Attorney often said i wont charge you if you testify against them. So they were coerced, encouraged or urged. They were basically told they could avoid criminal penalties if they were open, vocal, and told about the procedure. This is Reginald Rankin, that is mug shot. Before the rankin case, before that, successful abortions who were basically invisible from the wider public. But with scores of living witnesses, there is a mountain of evidence against these people. What this case does, i argue, is it opens for stricter enforcement of the abortion statutes in california. Fewer physicians began to risk performing the procedure unless they are sure their patient has a clear, justifiable reason. Furthermore, on top of this, in the 1930s, we begin to see more labor, delivery, and other services moving into the hospital. And legal abortions, as well. If legal abortions are moving into hospitals, whereas before they may have been performed in doctors offices, the need for some of these clinics, even their visibility, comes under greater scrutiny. So now, there is effectively a lower burden of proof that is necessary to bring an illegal abortionist to prison. If legal abortions are taking place in hospitals, clinics dont need speculums, operating tables, they dont need any of those things, because legal abortions should be taking place in a hospital. And if women are surviving illegal abortions because of antibiotics and sterilized equipment, they can be coerced into testifying against their abortionist. In court, when these women are forced to testify, the attorneys dont really make any effort to try and understand why these women wanted these procedures. Most of the time, they just asked if they had an illness or defect that would make them incapable of carrying the pregnancy to term. To this, most women usually responded no, they technically didnt have a disease or defect, they were maybe tired or previously had a difficult pregnancy, or were not ready for another child. Few of these women were given opportunities to speak for themselves or to explain themselves outside of the narrative that the District Attorney was trying to lean them towards. Some women do try to speak for themselves that they were appreciated of rankin and the doctors, but that was it. Under examination in court, these women were often forced to divulge very intimate details of their private lives, sex lives, procedures, even their bodies. Prosecutors asked about what positions they assumed on the table, whether they were naked, whether they were draped, if they felt the speculum being inserted into them. So when grace peterson, for example, took the stand to talk about her abortion, she started crying and said i told you i had it done, isnt that enough . You also have this Movement Towards surveillance. Thats what these two pictures are showing. These are women going in and out of court to testify against their abortionist. Trying to hide their face. These are actually two different surveillance operations. This is actually in ragland. This is an l. A. You have Police Officers parked across the street in cars taking pictures and watching the office and keeping track of who goes in, who comes out, how the assessor enters and exits. You see a woman in this one, and they are just watching in that one. For some of these women, instead of tolerating an invasive line of questioning after what was probably an evasive invasive abortion, other women see this and look for other options. How can they escape this torment and shame brought on by a public criminal trial . What are the options for these women after that . You can try to acquire a legal abortion in a more strict environment, or continue to try and take your chances with an illegal provider questions . An illegal provider. Questions . Student im just curious, during that time, what was the reason behind the abortion being illegal . Did it have anything to do with Eugenics Movement . Prof. Gutierrezromine that is a really great point. We will mention the Eugenics Movement in a couple of slides. I see that as more i frame it in a different way in the next couple of slides. It could be about ensuring certain people are continuing to reproduce at a higher level. Im sure that sentiment is there. It could also just be concerns about morality, that they think it is an immoral thing to do, because the ama has been successful in saying these are babies, and that these are bad women. Especially if they are married women trying to abort their pregnancies. Theyre failing at what is supposed to define a proper womans role. And this is something i dont talk about now, but about 80 of all of the women in the period of study i look at in Los Angeles County, about 80 were married women. We are primarily looking at women considered deviant because of their choice to have an abortion, even though they should fit under this umbrella of normative sexuality. So this is deviant behavior for these women. I would stress that ideologies about gender and reproduction, it is obviously less about safety in some instances. Especially as you have sterilization of instruments and antibiotics that become available widely in the 1940s. I think gender ideologies play a prominent role. Student dear their husbands do their husbands ever play a role in saying it is ok to have an abortion . Prof. Gutierrezromine husbands were it is a patchwork for that. In some instances, they are brought to court to testify, as well. In the examples of courtroom testimony i have looked at, it is one of two things, either the husband was aware and drove her there, or the husband is like i dont know, i thought she was going to the market and i didnt see her for hours. The husbands are either part of it and the Decision Making process, or oblivious. Those are the only extremes i found in the Court Records i looked at. It was either a couples decision to do this, maybe the husband wasnt there, but he was consulted. Husbands were at 80 of them. Or i dont know what she was doing, i thought she was just sick. Other questions . Moving into the 1940s and 1950s. Going back to these exceptions that remain for maternal life. Though these exceptions for maternal life existed, advances in medical Technology Made it exceedingly rare to find an illness disease in a pregnant woman that would prevent her from carrying a pregnancy to term. There is a little bit of a global context. In 1938, there is an english case. We are not going to talk about it. But this drew global attention from the entire medical community. Publications in american medical journals were reporting on this case just about every issue. What the results from the case were were they opened the door to therapeutic exceptions when the health of a woman was at risk. It no longer had to be her life. She didnt have to be on deaths door in order for an abortion to be legal, but they looked at her health at large, whether it was mental health, physical health, not necessarily something that would manifest in her death. So in that context, this therapeutic designation that had already existed becomes a little bit more amorphous in the 1940s. It becomes this valuable loophole for women seeking legal abortion. These Therapeutic Abortions required a private physician with hospital privileges, and it was a hospital procedure that often was coupled with a hospital stay. Therapeutic abortions then become a class issue, become a race issue. This effectively precludes all physicians of color. Because most physicians of color dont have hospital privileges unless it is an open hospital, an interracial hospital. Private hospitals overwhelmingly, a lot have restrictions on physicians of color. It also means because of cost, the fact that it is a hospital stay, a private physician, that the most typical recipients were nativeborn white women of need. That they have some ability to be able to afford this procedure and all of the care that went with it. And these women have some space to negotiate with their physician. Once it moved from life to health, it became much more open to interpretation. At one point, excessive vomiting is considered an appropriate reason for a Therapeutic Abortion. Or tiredness, suicidal concerns. It becomes this bigger animal that people can wrestle with. By the 1950s, especially by the 1960s, this flexibility is considered abuse. Exploitation of this loophole leads to the control of these decisions to hospital Therapeutic Abortion committees. If a woman in the 1950s and 1960s wanted a Therapeutic Abortion, she would go to her regular physician. Then her physician would have to present her case before this committee. Then that committee would deliberate and return a decision. Under this new regime, the rate of Therapeutic Abortion declines dramatically. County and state officials in california recorded the numbers of abortion cases brought before their committe. They recorded the number of cases they approved, they kept track of these numbers. And they were particularly strict in their interpretations constituted as an acceptable reason for a Therapeutic Abortion. Dr. Edmund overstreet was an ob gyn and professor of gynecology at the uc San Francisco medical school. He stated that even though the number of applications for Therapeutic Abortions increased tenfold, they had a strict limit of five abortions a week. It didnt matter how many people were applying, the only performed five a week. There were things that do begin to push back against some of these blanket restrictions. Questions . One of these things that begins to push for better abortion solidified is the disaster. It is described as one of the darkest episodes in pharmaceutical history. It was developed in the 1950s by a west german pharmaceutical company, it was an anticompulsive drug that made people feel sleepy and relaxed. During the patenting and testing of these drug, no one looked at the side effects on pregnant women. Instead, they said it was safe for anyone, even during pregnancy. The reason they said it was safe was because they couldnt find a lethal dose, a dose of thalidomide so high it killed a rat, so that assumed it was safe. This drug was licensed in 1956 for prescription and overthecounter sales in germany and over europe. And other parts of europe. Doctors later found out it helped patients reduce morning sickness, so it became a popular drug among pregnant women. Doctors in germany and other parts of europe began to notice an increase in children born with birth defects. It was not until 1961 that they recognized the link was thalidomide. Im referencing information for the National Medical library and center for technical technical information, so im going to explain in laymans terms, as best as i can, the effects of this drug. Thalidomide interferes with fetal development, especially when taken in the first eight weeks of pregnancy. This is usually when pregnant women experienced morning sickness. Thalidomide interferes with angiogenesis, the development of new blood vessels. In the first eight weeks of pregnancy is when things like limbs are beginning to develop. So the blood vessels in these limbs are relatively new, and more susceptible to toxicity of areas that can relate to structural and functional defects. The specific type associated with thalidomide is a congenital malformation where the hands and feet are attached to shorter limbs. 10,000 children are born with thalidomide related disabilities. By 1962, this drug was banned. The u. S. Doesnt see very much of this at all. The drug examiner in charge of the fda, a woman by the name of frances kelsey, rejected the application from going onto the american market. She believed the tests lacked sufficient evidence of the safety, so she prevented the drug. So we can thank her for that. There are still american women who do get their hands on this drug, but it was never legally on the american market, so we dont see it to the extent that some european nations see it. Questions . What we do see in the u. S. Is the german Measles Outbreak. By the middle of the 1960s, about 20,000 babies were born with congenital rubella syndrome. Congenital rubella syndrome is when babies are born with it, but rubella, german measles in an adult, had very minimal effects. At most it may be a rash, or people exhibit no symptoms at all. If a woman is pregnant when she has rubella, it manifests into really grave effects on the fetus. These defects, or anomalies, and omalies, cann include deafness, blindness, heart disease, muscular tightness, intellectual disabilities, and more. So this does happen in the u. S. , and we do see this in greater numbers in the United States. A vaccine for this wasnt developed until about 1970. As physicians are scrambling to figure out what to do, a lot of physicians are encouraging women exposed to rubella, pregnant women exposed to rubella, to get an abortion. Which is pushing on the limits most states have for legal abortion, because the disease itself doesnt affect the life of the woman, or even her health, except just the health of her fetus. So the thalidomide tragedy and the german Measles Outbreak manifest into calls for the relaxation of existing abortion laws in the u. S. And europe. One of the most visible cases regarding abortion and these tragedies involves this woman, she is often referred to as sherry stink fine, that was her husbands last name. I remember hearing an oral history with her, and she said she was mad people called her that. So i immediately changed my notes, because she preferred chessen. She was the host of a Public Access tv show called the romper room. She was a teacher in the tv show, there were kindergarten kids, they did the pledge of allegiance, played games. And of the tv show, she is just like their teacher. In 1962, she got a legal abortion in the hospital, because she had taken thalidomide. Her husband was a pilot and had found thalidomide when he was in europe he wasnt a pilot, he was in the military. When he was in europe, he got a hold of thalidomide and gave it to his wife at some point during her pregnancy. So she was concerned, she was aware of what was going on, she was concerned her child would be deformed. So she scheduled this abortion, but she was also concerned about other women. If she was able to get a hold of this drug, she knew there were probably other women in america who had gotten a hold of it, too. So she spoke to the press on the condition of anonymity. She wanted to make the dangers of thalidomide known to american women. But somehow, someone got a hold of the hospital, found out about her procedure, and her Hospital Physician contacted her to let her know the abortion was canceled. And this story became a sensation. She soon realized she had no prospect of getting a legal abortion in her state of arizona, so she was able to fly to sweden, where abortion was legal, and had the abortion. After the abortion was completed, they verified the fetus was affected by the thalidomide. It only had one arm and no legs. When she returned, she lost her job at the romper room. The mother of five was no longer thought to be safe around children. And her family Death Threats. People were threatening her children who were alive, even put Death Threats on their dog. This was something that generated a lot of public attention. But there were others who said we need common sense abortion legislation, we cant just have a blanket ban, we have to take some of these other things into consideration, as well. Sherri chessen and her husband werent the wealthiest people, but they had connections, thats how they were able to get this abortion in sweden. Had she not talked to the press, her abortion would have likely been carried out without a problem legally in this arizona hospital. But if we are looking at the experiences of other women, especially poor women and women of color, if these women do not have a physician acting as their advocate, they are perhaps more at risk. If we are looking at the 30s, 40s, and through the 60s, looking at things like the war on poverty, if these women had a condition that permitted a Therapeutic Abortion, they were likely to be sterilized, as well. We will talk about sterilization in the 1960s and 1970s when we look at the right to parents. But just understand this is going on in the background, as well. If a womans heredity or genetics dictate an abortion for this unborn child, why not prevent future children from being born in the first place, it is the genetics that are the problem. If a woman wants an abortion, but doesnt want to risk her odds with the committees, or if she doesnt have a condition, or maybe wants children in the future, her odds are still likely to be in the hands of an illegal abortionist. Thats where her best odds are. For getting a legal abortion. Women inany 1943, its more likely to be across the border in mexico. Women of means had been traveling for abortions for years, going to places like mexico city, japan, sweden, where these other laws were more relaxed. Again, that precludes a lot of other women. You need to be able to afford a plane ticket, you need to be able to afford a weeks stay, all of these other things. An important transformation takes place in california in the 20th century with suburbanization, Highway Infrastructure and development, the automobile becomes a very important facet of california life. More americans in the 20th century, more californians in the 20th century, began to travel and use their cars in means to go to mexico to maybe have some fun, to maybe engage in drinking in prohibition era america, or to engage in other behavior that is somehow considered improper in american society. As these inroads and travel routes develop, abortions take mobility, as well. They are using freeways, roads, and personal vehicles, and going across the border, too. Questions . Lets go back to Reginald Rankin. Because we are not done with him yet. After he served time in san quentin, he tries to create an abortion ring in reno, nevada, and he goes to prison for that one, too. He eventually makes his way back to california. He meets up with dr. Royal buffum. They initially met in the 1930s. Rankin tried to get him to join the Pacific Coast abortion ring. It is unclear how they became reacquainted, but they do become reacquainted sometime after 1950. Together, these men decided to create a new abortion business. They opened up an office in long beach, california, and they would help make arrangements for women seeking abortions. Once a woman approached them, they would take their phone number, call them, and make a designated Meeting Place where they would meet up. From that designated Meeting Place, either buffum or rank him rankin would transport women in a Station Wagon to tiajuana, mexico, where another man would perform the procedure. After the procedure, the women were driven back and went their separate ways. In the specific case that brought about their arrest, three of the four women they transported required hospitalization after their procedures. The men were initially convicted and found guilty of violating californias abortion law. But things got really interesting upon appeal. Because this involved conspiracy to commit a crime in another place. The crime did not take place in california. So you cant assume, the California Supreme Court states the california legislator attempted to regulate behavior that took place outside of the geographic bounds of the state. So the court effectively recognized the limits of its power and the conviction was overturned. So this decision basically opens the floodgate of american abortion tourism to nearby border cities. That because they won their appeal, they became singlehandedly responsible for the development of this abortion Tourism Industry in the 1950s and 1960s. Particularly in the 1960s in tijuana, ensenada, you had demands creating an opportunity for this thriving black market in Mexican Border cities. Tijuana and some of these other places, they are cheaper than maybe cost prohibitive abortions in the u. S. , and maybe a legal maybe even illegal abortions in the u. S. You dont need a plane ticket, you dont need to stay for a week. If you are a california woman using our highways and automobiles, you can take care of an abortion within a matter of a day trip. Mexican abortions effectively entered the american cultural mainstream. They are even the basis of the storyline of abortion and historical romance in 1950 six. In 1966. Women up and down the state began to take advantage of the opportunity. There are instances where women, College Students in Berkeley Charter a bus and got a group of women to go to the border to have their abortions over the course of a weekend. You have other women who meet people in parking lots and are transported. You have other women who rent a car and go over the border by themselves to take care of. To take care of this. So this decision creates this legal void, and Law Enforcement officials were trying desperately to fill it. At one point, the san diego District Attorney said Law Enforcement officials recognized this case prohibited prosecution of any case, even if they made arrangements in california, and even paid for it in california. He said it appears as long as the buffum case stands, the whole abortion mill will continue to operate in mexico. Student so it was set up in california, where they did the negotiations, then they would travel with the females to mexico and perform the procedure . And thats how they got away with it . Prof. Gutierrezromine yep. The actual abortion took place outside of california. Student wow, and this was some 20 years after rankin had been found guilty . Prof. Gutierrezromine the buffum case in 1953, and the case in california was in 1930. He did time for that, and he did some time in nevada, because he tried to do it. We are skipping over that. Then he goes back to the abortion business in california in the 1950s. He was a really interesting character that we cant spend so too much time on. Other questions . Student im trying to understand why was he so adamant is it just for the money . Prof. Gutierrezromine for rankin . Like why he keeps going back to abortion . I think he was always looking for a get rich scheme. From what ive seen. I dont know whether he was interested in womens rights, or he was simply motivated by profit. Before this, he did some nefarious tax dealings in real estate and property dealings before. Im not sure whether he realized abortion was really lucrative, and it may be the better option. But he obviously made very good the 1930s that he decides to spend the rest of his life, he dies around 1955, he spends the rest of his life trying to figure out abortion businesses. I had a very brief exchange with his daughter at some point. And she said he was a man ahead of his time. And so i dont know if she has a very kind of complicated feeling about him. So i choose maybe not to look at the moral aspect, you know, was he a good guy or a bad guy. Instead, i say, you know, he was an astute businessman at his prime and he did provide countless women with safe procedures and how i feel about his motivation, i suppose, is irrelevant to what actually happened. Yeah. Other questions . Ok. So after the buffum case, legislators in california did try to close this loophole. They did pass other legislation but it didnt do anything to stop what had already begun in california and in these Mexican Border towns. As concerns about the tijuana abortions grow and i say tijuana abortions kind of as a blanket term. This is often a term that is used to define abortions that take place in Mexican Border towns. Regardless of what city they actually take place in. But as these concerns of tijuana abortions grow, the border also becomes more visible to americans in the 1950s and 60s through increased legislation. Specifically senate committees, operation wet vac. You have drug smuggling and crime that were hotly debated in public. And in the context of the cold war period, a lot of americans feel that border towns were particularly susceptible to, you know, vice or evil or corruption or danger. So its also important to note i mean, ive been kind of like, oh, rankin, none of the people died. It is important to know that as this abortion industry on the border grows, there are more opportunities for unskilled providers to offer their services. Sometimes you do have desperate women who cross the border and they simply accept the services of the first person that they find. They dont research and do they dont search for the most qualified person. They just take the first abortion that they have. So you do have scores of unqualified abortionists who are able to operate. And they are botching these procedures. Now, its also important to note that just because an abortion is botched does not mean that its deadly or fatal. It could just mean that women arent getting hygienic that the instruments are not getting properly sterilized, that theyre not getting pain relievers, they arent getting antibiotics, and so for some of these women who have these unhygienic procedures, when they return to the United States, they often have to go to an american emergency room to either help themselves to complete the abortion sometimes the abortions are only partial on partial abortions on the border, or to even save their life. So as these county hospitals, the Los Angeles County hospitals especially, as they are treating these women, theyre basically performing dilations and curettage to complete these procedures that have been botched in mexico. So tijuana abortions come to be remembered as particularly crude. And when our last position in our long line of physicians, when he referred a woman to an abortionist, he did so because he feared she would turn to butchery in tijuana. Yeah . Student with women, if they had an abortion, were they not able to get pregnant again . Prof. Gutierrezromine i would imagine. For some women, especially if they had some kind of infection, in the most grave instances, organs are taken out to stop an infection or spread of some kind of, you know, bacteria, so there are those instances. Or if someone slips and an instrument punctured a uterus, that happened as well. So there are instances when that does happen. I dont have and its not because they dont exist, but i just dont have as many examples off the top of my head. But they do happen. In 1966, dr. Leon bellis was found guilty of conspiracy to commit abortion. He appealed. He defended his action claiming that he feared his patient would resort to butchery in tijuana and rather than see her mutilated in the hands of a greedy opportunist, he referred her to an illegal abortionist for the procedure. He referred her to an illegal abortionist that he trusted. He recognized her desperation. The court of appeals affirmed the lower courts decision. So he ends up taking his case to the California Supreme Court. In 1969. Ided in his appeal, he is challenging the constitutionality of californias abortion law. The potential butchery that he feared, he believed was sufficient to say that her life was in danger. And according to Court Records, dr. Belous claimed he was very familiar with the abortion business in tijuana and he knew that when women went to tijuana for abortions, they were taking their lives in their own hands. In fact, just weeks after the abortion of the client he referred, there was a wife of a Woodland Hills dentist who died from an illegal abortion in mexico, even though it was a physician in mexico who performed the procedure. So specifically the doctors concerns that his patient was going to seek an abortion in tijuana under substandard medical conditions. The basis of his concerns relied on several assertions, that illegal abortions were dangerous, that Mexican Border towns offered american women abortions, and that illegal abortions in mexico were more dangerous or worse than illegal or any abortions in the United States. So when this case was before the California Supreme Court, they debated tirelessly over some of the legal questions that were put forth. Courts had already rejected the interpretation of abortion laws that required certainty or immediacy of death. Two prior cases in california had already established that requiring certainty of death would abridge a womens constitutional rights, specifically her right to privacy and her right to life. Furthermore, the court did seem to recognize that abortion laws didnt reduce the number of abortions. They just reduced the number of safe abortions that took place. If we look at contemporary evidence from 1969, hygienic abortions resulted in minimal risk to women while illegal abortions were the greatest cause of Maternal Death in california. While not all illegal abortions ended in death, the rate of infection from illegal abortions was significantly higher than that of legal abortions. And in an amicus brief submitted to the courts on behalf of dr. Belous from medical schools in california, they said that the unfortunate reality was that the statutes that had been designed in 1850 to protect women had, in modern times, become a scourge. So the California Supreme Court ultimately reversed dr. Belouss conviction and stated that californias abortion law was unreasonably vague and therefore void. So california ended up decriminalizing abortion shortly before other states explicitly legalized. While other states would have followed, whether or not california was the first, californias ruling basically represents the end of this era of criminalization. In the context of the Civil Rights Movement and public sentiment on the issue of abortion, the California Supreme Court abandoned its efforts to continue criminalizing this procedure. And by 1970, a number of states had begun to push for repeals of their existing abortion laws and several legalized abortion on demand, including hawaii, alaska, new york and washington, but this had not yet been decided at the federal level. Questions . Student [indiscernible] prof. Gutierrezromine so california decriminalizes in 1969. Student and it was based on the ruling of dr. Belous . Prof. Gutierrezromine yes, it was based on he was, yes, or his conviction was overturned, yes. Other questions . So in 1969, Norma Mccorvey discovered that she was pregnant. And in order to secure a legal abortion in texas, she claims that the pregnancy was the result of a rape. However, since there were no Police Reports documenting the rape, she was unable to secure a legal abortion. So she attempted to acquire an illegal abortion, but the day she was supposed to go in, she found out that the police had already shut down the clinic. Out of options, she reached out to recent law school graduates. Mccorvey, who is pictured on the left, she took the alias jane rowe. And this photo is later, several years after the decision. She took the alias jane roe. The two attorneys argued that the texas law violated her constitutional rights. Roe claimed that her life was not in danger and that she shouldnt afford to leave the couldnt afford to leave the states but she had a right to be able to have an abortion under states clinical conditions. So like the argument in belous, roe and her attorneys claimed that the texas abortion statute violated several of her rights, including her first, fourth, fifth and ninth and 14th amendment rights. In the end of this case, we are skipping over a few things, but in the end, the court does agree to an imperfect trimester system, delineating when abortion is legal or illegal. According to the Supreme Court justices, since the medical community argued that fetuses could be viable after six months, then the state had the right or the interest to create fetal life protect fetal life after that point, of course, providing an exception for maternal life. But before viability, before six months, the court doesnt really have enough sorry the state doesnt really have enough of a conflicting interest in the fetus or the embryo to stop a woman from getting an abortion. So it is with roe vs. Wade, which is cited in 1973, that abortions become legal and protected in the United States. Now, there have been challenges to roe, basically almost immediately. Since roe, since the roe decision, the u. S. Supreme court has affirmed the right to an abortion. They have also stated that states cannot ban abortions outright before viability and that any restriction as state puts in place must contain exceptions to protect a womans life. Beganposition to roe almost immediately, once the case was decided, but it was relatively quiet. In 1977, the Hyde Amendment was passed. It essentially banned the use of federal dollars for abortion coverage for woman on medicaid. And rosie jimenez, pictured here, is often cited as the first victim of the Hyde Amendment. It was passed in september of 1976. It went into effect of august of 1977. She was 27 years old in 1977. She was a student. She was trying to become a teacher so that she could have a better life for herself and for her daughter. Abortion was legal where she lived but it was costly. She had approached one physician about a legal abortion and she was informed that it would cost about 400. She relied on welfare and a legal abortion was cost prohibitive. She did have a Financial Aid check for 700 in her purse but she wanted to use that to finish her studies. Since she was so close. So instead, she consulted an unlicensed, cheaper abortionist and she paid that person 75 and she quickly developed a bacterial infection. She was rushed to an emergency room, but the infection spread and even though doctors attempted to stop it by giving her an emergency hysterectomy, it wasnt long before she had total organ failure and died. The Hyde Amendment was challenged in court. You have attorneys for planned parenthood of new york city, of the American Civil Liberties union, the center for constitutional rights. They filed a class action suit on behalf of women on medicaid who wanted access to abortion and doctors who accepted medicaid who wanted to be able to provide abortions. However, the u. S. Supreme court ultimately decided that states were not required to pay or refund abortions for medicaid recipients and that the Hyde Amendment did not violate womens constitutional rights. As a result, many other individual states began to follow this course, and according to one report, within a year of the implementation of the Hyde Amendment, the number of federally funded abortions dropped from about 290,000 to 2,000. The centers for Disease Control even conducted an eightmonth study to determine the effects on restricting access of public funds for abortion. The study had some flaws. It was small. There were other issues that affected its interpretation but they did find that medicaid women in nonfunded states who had complications after abortions, they averaged about 1. 9 weeks later gestational age than their counter parts in states that were funded. Medicaid eligible women had a 2. 4 week mean gestational age than nonmedicaid women in the same states. What that basically means is that women who were on medicaid, who had to wait longer to save money to get an abortion, were at increased risk of death and complications. One week of delays increases complications for illegal abortion by 20 and the risk of death by 40 , so these women were already at a disadvantage. More recently, and this is related to a lot of what were seeing now, a lot of people often reference roe vs. Wade and overturning roe but some people would argue that a womans access to abortion is less protected by roe and more defined actually by planned parenthood vs. Casey. Now, in 1989, pennsylvania governor bob casey signed the abortion control act. And this was one of the first attempts by an individual state to restrict Abortion Access after roe, not the first but one of the first. There were several provisions in this act that were designed to limit abortions. These included informed concept, consent, spousal notification, parental notification for unemancipated minors, waiting periods, and clinics would be required to report all of the Demographic Data to the state. So when casey signed this act, it was immediately challenged by a number of abortion providers, counselors and doctors and this turned into the class action suit, planned parenthood vs. Casey. It was 1992 by the time this case reached the Supreme Court. And attorneys for the appellate argued that the pennsylvania abortion control act effectively overturned roe since it imposed so many regulations on women who were trying to receive abortions and on the doctors providing them. On the other hand, the attorneys for the defendants argued that they werent overturning roe. They just wanted to be judged by an undue burden test. Now, in prior challenges to roe, the Supreme Court had already decided two things. That the existence of a fundamental right and the enjoyment of a fundamental right were mutually exclusive. Just because you have a right to do something doesnt mean you get to do something. And that since states do have an interest in protecting potential life, they could favor pregnancy and childbirth and adoption and not abortion. So the majority in planned parenthood versus casey held on to the three fundamentals tenants of roe, that women have a right to abortion before viability, that the state has the right to restrict abortions after viability and that the state has an interest in protecting the life of the woman and potentially of the child. Nevertheless, in their opinions for this case, the majority also opted for an undue burden standard over the existing trimester standard. The undue burden standard is more flexible and it reflects the states interest in protecting fetal life. The judges also held that pennsylvanias restrictions did not constitute an undue burden. So when these judges are moving away from a trimester system that says, you know, abortions are legal from here to here and you can put restrictions here to here, when youre now moving towards an undue burden system, it means that states can develop legislation and rules and put them into place and theyll exist in place until someone takes that to court to say it constitutes an undue burden. It moves away from the doctorpatient relationship and it basically puts abortion back into the courts. So abortion does remain legal but this ruling creates opportunities for a new regulation that at least limit abortions or make some more inconvenient. Does that make sense . Uhhuh. Prof. Gutierrezromine ok. So looking more recently, since 2010, the u. S. Abortion landscape has become increasingly restrictive as more states are becoming hostile to abortion rights. There were 338 abortion restrictions that were enacted between 2010 and 2016. 30 of the restrictions enacted since roe vs. Wade were enacted in the last seven years. Now, more and more legislators are playing on vagueness and abortion laws, playing with viability, but also this undue burden test. The number of abortionproviding facilities continues to drop as well as the number of clinics that are providing abortion services. As of 2019, 58 of women of reproductive age live in states that are considered hostile to abortion. Only about 24 million women of reproductive age live in states that are considered supportive of abortion rights. 25 abortion bans were introduced in 12 states in 2019. That is some of whats here. They vary. Alabama, for example, attempted to ban all abortions. Other states enact gestational age bands, after fetal heartbeat detection, or between 8 and 18 weeks. Some states focus specifically on banning certain types of procedures for abortion. Or reasons for abortions. So some states actually prohibit people from getting abortions if theyre doing it because of the child is the wrong sex or the child has down syndrome or some other kind of genetic anomaly. 27 states require a woman seeking Abortion Wait a specified waiting period, between counseling, mandated counseling and the procedure. These usually vary between 24 and 72 hours. And sometimes this means that women have to make multiple trips to the clinics. If you recall from the documentary that we watched, some of these women are driving five hours to be able to get to the procedure and theyre doing that to bypass the waiting period or imagine if they have to do that because of the waiting period. They have to do that twice. And 18 states require that a woman receive counseling before having an abortion. So who has abortions in the United States . As this graph illustrates, the u. S. Abortion rate actually reached a historic low in 2017. That is about 13. 5 abortions per 1000 women. When roe was decided, that rate was about 16. 3 per 1,000 women. The following statistics that im going to indicate now, theyre from 2014. Theyre from the institute. But according to them, about one in four women will have an abortion by the age of 35. 45. 34 were aged 20 to 24. And 27 were between the ages of 25 and 29, meaning that more than half of the people who have abortions are in their 20s. 51 of the patients who had abortions in 2014 were using some other method of Birth Control at the time they became pregnant and 59 of them already had children or had previously given birth at some time. Approximately 75 of abortion recipients in 2014 were poor, meaning that they made under the federal Poverty Level of 15,730 for a family of two or they were low income, meaning that they made 100 or 199 of the federal Poverty Level. Globally, concerns over zika virus in latin america have also reignited some of these discussions about Abortion Access in countries where the procedure was completely illegal. Again, we see that this potential for babies being born with severe abnormalities have at least been sufficient to reignite discussion for easing of restriction in these predominantly catholic antiabortion nations. However, as of yet, this has not materialized into any new policies. Abortion has remained a topic of public debate. But in recent years, it has gained more attention through just some of these restrictive legislation acts. And overwhelmingly, these new acts call for mandatory waiting times, parental notification, spousal consent, vaginal ultrasounds and even preventing the dispensation of the antiabortion drugs. Or preventing that in clinics that dont have an operating room. And many of these regulations disproportionately affect young women, rural women, women of color, and low income women. And these acts illustrate a failure to recognize that historically, abortion restriction has done more harm than good. Despite increased attention, abortion rates in the u. S. Continue to decline and some argue that this is because of better access to other forms of Birth Control, like the pill, condoms, iuds and others argue its because of increased societal acceptance of single parenthood or even the decreased significance of marriage. But even though abortion rates have fallen, it doesnt mean this procedure has lost its significance. These laws do not discourage women from other devices. They have not historically and they want to know. These abortion restrictions deny women access to safe, hygienic medical procedures and simply advance the notion that a womans body belongs to anybody but herself. Questions . Thats it. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer listen to lectures in his on the go by streaming our podcast anywhere, anytime. Youre watching American History only on cspan3. This is American History tv on cspan3. Feature 48d, we hours of programs exploring our nations past. This sunday, the fleet that. Ame to day to stay. Here is a preview. [explosion] it, khasi and we call it suicide planes. Way. Specialize in one any american ship, bombs, burning gasoline, and [indiscernible] [explosion] [gunfire] japans secret weapon was no for those who, for months, but now, to meet every planeenge, that could fly, new or old, from the heart of japan itself. Ecksteinyearolds, still in aviation school. To isolate our troops. It was desolate desperation. It was suicide. It would be the pattern from now until the very finish. Men whoggle between want to die and men who fight to live. [explosion] [gunfire] [explosions] [explosions] watch the full program here in American History tv