Gutierrezromine teaches a class about laws and policies regard ago bor regarding abortion. She tracks Public Opinion through court cases and newspaper kofrncoverage. She also describes costs and health risks in different time periods and states. All right. Everyone, welcome back. This week were looking at the topic of abortion. And in class on tuesday we watched the film abortions stories womens health. That is looking at the more current debates about abortion now. It was looking at abortion in states that had begun to legislate abortion restriction. So today were actually going to go back in time a little bit. Were going to give some Historical Context and do a historical overview of the topic of abortion and were going to start nationally and then were going to look at california specifically, specifically on the topics of specialized abortion or abortion specialists and decriminalization. And then were going to go back to the National Context to look at roe v. Wade and then the legislation that has happened since then and in the more recent years. So if you recall from around, you know, week one or two, we had a very brief introduction to the topic of abortion in the colonial period. We talked about sarah grassmanner and her abortion in the 1740s. So we had had a very brief introduction to it. But today were actually going to pick up around the tomb of the comstock act. Do you remember the comstock act from a week ago . Can you remind us . [ inaudible ] information on planned parenthood. No advertising of contraseptives and the stock of the male. So good. The 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. The punch line is that comstock is prude. I doesnt oppose all methods of Birth Control. Does encourage couples to use methods of Birth Control he considers dignified or ethical. Those include abstinence. They also 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 okay with. But he doesnt like other types of Birth Control. He doesnt like condoms, diagrams or abortion because of their connection to the vice trade. Now we mentioned when we were talking about the progressive era and womens reform movements that these types of Birth Control had been linked to vice industries. Simply as a matter of vocation, that sometimes women who were prostitutes and employed these different methods just because they need to continue working. So when were putting this again back in the context, this is a refresher, of the 19th century, were looking at gender ideology, separate spheres and race suicide, if you are an educated middle and upper class white woman and you want to use these types of methods, theyre at best frowned upon. Again if, youre married. And at worst, theyre immoral. And if youre a sickle womngle attempting to usive in te any o methods, youre considered immoral. So lets look at an example of a 19th century abortionist. Now this is the example of madame restell. Her name was first ann troe. She was born in 1812. She is the woman you went to if you wanted an abortion in new york city. In 1836, she married a man named charles lowman. And thats when she began to embark on this career as a professor of womens medicine, a midwife, but also an abortionist and supporter of contraceptives. Her husband supported her and in this together. So the patent medicines that may have been effective, they made the most money providing abortions, illegal abortions. The 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 foremaning performing an abortion on a woman and resulting in her death. She has 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 shes found guilty and actually does have to serve time in prison, that was her trial in 1847, she receives such special treatment in prison that the city council actually investigated and the warden of the president 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 stepdaughter 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. So 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. But in 1878, Anthony Comstock disguised himself as a potential customer. He approached her and 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. She had her attorney try to help her out. But it was all to no avail. She was actually really going to do hard time for this trial. And so on april 1st, 1878, the day her trial was going to begin, she slit her throat with a carving knife in her bathtub. Of thats what this artist renditioning is trying to show. Now some people did criticize comstock for entrapment. He was nonchalant about it. He called it a bloody end to a bloody life. Her estate was valued at 1 million which is valued at 25 million today. Questions so far . Okay. Comstock is not 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. The 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, the wide dissemiconductzemation material 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 the laws in order to protect women. Now since there is increased medical and Technological Advancements thats going on in this era, you do have new methods of Birth Control, 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 a long kind of spoon like device. You cant tell but it is serrated. And so this would be used to perform an abortion. And you would dilate the cervix. You would insert the 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. This doctor believed that medical men were the guardians of women and children. He is the example of an American Medical Association member in the 19th century. He is from new england. He went to harvard. And he was really religious. He was a member of one of the first generations of, you know, gynecologists who are basically moving into the sprabrand new f. He is a contemporary of jay marian sims who we read about in medical bondage. He is most well known for the efforts to irrad indicate the practice of abortion. He is responsible for make ago borgs a moral issue for the first time. That previously no one was really interested or invested in the moral implications of abortion. No one talked 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 to abortion as prenatal or even murder. They emphasized their own education and specialization to basically argue that they were the people who were best in the position to lobby the government to basically ir basically irrads practice. This is part of that as well. Because its usually mid wives and physicians of color who were most likely to perform abortions. So its not just about the moral thing. Its about suggesting that these other people should not be qualified to practice medicine. We are. We medical Association Members are. Mu as a result of this campaign, good doctors did not perform abortions unless it was absolutely necessary to protect the life of a woman. By 1880, all states have laws against abortion. Questions . Yeah . Before the moral element was added, what was the reasons they had against abortion . It was more about, you know, sex being for pro creation 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 this meant you were having, you know, immoral sex practices. Did they get a bunch of doctors that say hey were the authority now . Its a bunch of physicians that organize themselves and saying were creating standards. Were its not backed by the government. They form their own lobbying group. Were going to define the standards of professional medicine and we are we are going to kind of be gatekeepers for this purpose. We have mainline position on things and we basically become a lobbying group after that. Other questions . Okay. So you have dr. Storer and other people putting forth this kind of moral and Educational Campaign but another thing that is 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 using referrals from friends, sisters, coworkers, maybe even trusted physicians and many of these women secretly have successful abortions and we dont know anything about them. But these arent the women who become topics of conversation in popular culture. But you have this sensationalism of publicized abortion related deaths that provide fodder for reformers, 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 actually ended up releasing a 25part expose called infanticide to talk about the dangers of illegal abortion and the providers in new york city. So in this vision, theinvestiga journalists went undercover. They pretended to be a couple. And in this long form expose, they transported readers of their newspaper to the abortion underworld and exposed physicians, mid wives and Police Officers who were basically receiving bribeos or were somehw involved in this trade. So use ago borgs storiing abortd the newspapers to profit because can you spread the stories out for days at a time. You can give a little bit one day and drag the story out for a week or two weeks if you wanted. Now if you recall, a couple weeks ago we saw short clip from the 1934 film road to ruin. If you remember they were having a party and even they were taken away by a female Police Officer and then they were medically inspected. And then eve had syphilis and she reforms and change hers life and ann finds out shes pregnant. And so when i turned off the clip i told you, you know, anns boyfriend tells her hes not going to marry and he takes her to have an illegal abortion and she dies. That was a filming sample. You have the stories of sex and of jilted lovers, coverups and death. Its really titillating for whoever is reading or watching them. But its important to note that they also fit within the larger framework. Its not just about stopping abortion. Its also fitting within other attempts to regulate sexuality. So make sure that sexuality was conforming with heterosexual practices, repressing homosexuality, preventing abortion, policing prostitution, and preventing the dem natiissen of obscene material. Womens sexuality fits within a certain framework and that framework is marital reproductive sex. Every else should be shamed. So these women who die from these procedures, they cant conceal their identity or their practices anymore. They kind of serve as Cautionary Tales for everyone else. Questions . Even though there is this policing, abortions dont disappear. And by the 1920s, the campaign, the a many. Ama campaign created a hostile environment for women seeking the procedures. Women may have felt harassed by their physicians. Their physicians might have given them sermons. And some women might have felt guilty to go speak to their doctor about this. And its also harder to get an abortion if you know the physicians are cracking down on other providers. But even if Law Enforcement is also helping with that as well. Abortion is a legally ambiguous procedure in the United States. I mention that by 1880 all states have laws against it. But its important to note that the procedure is not banned in and of itself. Rather, the circumstances around a borgs indicate whether the procedure is legal or illegal. So this means that an abortion can be legal for one woman and illegal for another. Or even legal for one womans pregnancy and illegal for the 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. But if a woman is going to die from this pregnancy, then the physician has the right and has the authority to perform an abortion in that instance. But there are no clear criteria to assess whether or not a womans life is at risk. So there is no checklist to determine what actually constitutes a risk to a womans life. Now since physicians typically practiced independently, it was acceptable for them to come to their own conclusions and assess whether or not they believed in abortion was medically necessary and this is considered illegal abortion. If they believe their patient has a condition that will threaten her life, he or she can schedule the procedure and thats it. But if physicians are hard line ama members like storer, they may be less inclined to provide the procedure. Yeah . What if they went to another city . Were they able to get an abortion . The states vary in every single state. And they may not even have to go to another state. They can maybe find another physician who they can convince that they should have a legal abortion. Thats a really interesting and good point that bianca brought up because by the 1950s and 1960s, this legal distinction is important. By the time we get to the 1950s and 1960s, we have an abuse of this trust that professional ama members have given individual physicians. That leads to that decision being removed from the individual physician and placed in the hands of the committee. So its no longer your individual physician who says, yep, i think that this is necessary. Its now three to five physicians you never met to determine whether or not they think you should have an abortion or not. Well get there in a little bit though. But what is interesting also is that for some women this creates a space for and if we want this fogs to continue working for me and my family, youll find a reason to justify this abortion. So its legally amorphis. So as they circumscribe what constitutes legal abortions, in the 1920s, its only an exception for life. It was 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 new technologies, perhaps, maybe even antibiotics and they are trying to kind of 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. In 1934, reginald renkin approached doctor george watts and proposed to him for an idea of an illegal Abortion Syndicate that would span the entire west coast from seattle to the u. S. Mexico border. And watts he approached watts specifically because watts was an abortion specialist. He had developed this new method for performing an abortion called the vacuum aspiration technique which sounds incredibly scary. But it meant that his abortions were safe. He was able to practice for 40 years. And he stayed under the radar. It reduced the risk of sexist and infection because it basically removed all fetal tissue from the uterus and thats why his method worked. So renken approached watts. Watts came onboard and between 1934 and 1936, renkin 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 renkin or any of the physicians working for him, he was not an abortionist or a specialist. He was the genius or the master behind mastermind behind all of this. But if any woman went to one of the 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 the receptionist how far along with her pregnancy and that would determine the cost. So the further along she was, the more it would cost. Now ideally they would like to charge between 30 and 50 for a procedure. And this was only in the first 6 to 8 weeks. If you were to put that into modern values, yes the governments calculator goes up to 100. Again again, this is only if in the first six to eight weeks. If he had is 12 weeks along, they charge 50 to 75, maybe 100. Beyond 12 weeks, the clinic was supposed to collect as much money as possible. 200, 250, or even 300. And i put some of the values here for you. So 250 would be about 4700 today. Now once the staff had collected forms and fees, they would escort the patient t