USA – These women ran an underground abortion network in the 1960s. Here’s what they fear might happen today

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN
Sun April 23, 2023

The voice on the phone in 1966 was gruff and abrupt: “Do you want the Chevy, the Cadillac or the Rolls Royce?”

A Chevy abortion would cost about $200, cash in hand, the voice explained. A Cadillac was around $500, and the Rolls Royce was $1,000.

“You can’t afford more than the Chevy? Fine,” the voice growled. “Go to this address at this time. Don’t be late and don’t forget the cash.” The voice disappeared.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/23/health/abortion-lessons-jane-wellness/index.html


As Supreme Court Prepares to Rule on Roe, Illinois Once Again Ground Zero for Abortion Access

Could it mean the return of the Jane Collective for a new era?

DePaul’s Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence
June 1, 2022

When Maggie Olivia found herself in a Missouri doctor’s office in the wake of a positive pregnancy test, she didn’t mirror her doctor’s enthusiasm. She remembers being in a new relationship and not in a position to financially support a child.

“I was crying … It was really upsetting.” Olivia said. “My doctor at the time was like, ‘Congratulations, mom.’ They gave me a little gift bag with prenatal vitamins …”

Continued: https://news.wttw.com/2022/06/01/supreme-court-prepares-rule-roe-illinois-once-again-ground-zero-abortion-access


Before Roe v. Wade, a secret group provided abortions. Two new films tell the story.

January 28, 2022
JENNIFER 8. LEE

Months before the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, seven women were arrested in a police raid of an underground illegal abortion service in two South Chicago apartments, and charged with counts of abortion or conspiracy to commit an abortion.

With Roe v. Wade declaring abortion a constitutional right, the charges against the seven women were dropped and the service they belonged to, the Jane Collective, dissolved.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1075836338/sundance-festival-2022-roe-vs-wade-the-janes-abortion


The Argument for Abortion as a Religious Right

The Argument for Abortion as a Religious Right
The world's largest religions support—and sometimes require—abortion.

by Leila Ettachfini
Feb 10 2020

When evangelical professor Bruce Waltke shared a standard biblical interpretation in favor of abortion in 1968, his words were hardly controversial.

“God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed,” he wrote in a 1968 Christianity Today article. “Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.”

More than five decades later, a lot has changed. In that time, a concerted effort to place anti-abortion views at the core of the religious right has succeeded in rallying conservative Christians against reproductive rights.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjd3b7/the-argument-for-abortion-as-a-religious-right


USA – ‘You have to stand up to illegitimate authority’: what veteran abortion activists can teach us in the Trump era

‘You have to stand up to illegitimate authority’: what veteran abortion activists can teach us in the Trump era
The pioneers who struggled for legalisation in the 60s are seeing the same battles being fought all over again

Laura Barton
Sat 18 Jan 2020

The telephone sat in the dormitory hallway, and when it rang it might have been for any of the residents – young women in their teens and early 20s, all students at the University of Chicago. Calls came from family and friends and boyfriends, from colleagues and classmates and clubs. But sometimes the voice at the end of the line would ask for “Jane”.

This was 1965, and in Chicago the social justice movement was gathering pace – a new era that encompassed civil rights, student rights, women’s rights and resistance to the war in Vietnam. Among those involved was Heather Booth, a 19-year-old social sciences student from New York.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/18/you-have-to-stand-up-to-illegitimate-authority-what-veteran-abortion-activists-can-teach-us-in-the-trump-era


USA – The New Abortion Underground Starts With Information

The New Abortion Underground Starts With Information
The threats against safe abortions are changing—where women once feared the coat hanger, the symbol of the handcuff is now more ominous. Is arming activists with information the first step in keeping abortion accessible?

By Meghan Racklin
January 22, 2019

A papaya, it turns out, is a good model of a uterus in the early stages of pregnancy. Well—the papaya is a bit bigger, actually. And the average uterus has more of a tilt. But overall, the fruit is a close replica.

That’s what I’m told during a training session hosted by the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP). Under the guidance of our instructor, a doctor and RHAP fellow, I insert a thin metal instrument into the top of my papaya to create an opening before inserting a small suction device called an aspirator. There’s a slight slurping sound as the papaya seeds are sucked into the aspirator’s main chamber. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. And then it’s done.

Continued: https://www.glamour.com/story/the-new-abortion-underground-starts-with-information


USA – What Back Alley? These Women Say DIY Abortion Can Be Empowering

What Back Alley? These Women Say DIY Abortion Can Be Empowering
The pro-choice movement has portrayed non-clinic abortion as a last resort. But some women are trying to change that image.

Emily Shugerman
01.04.19

The image provokes both fear and fury: a wire coat hanger, spattered with blood, symbolizing the drastic measures women may take when abortion access is limited.

Whoopi Goldberg brandished one on stage at the 2004 March for Women’s Lives, urging the younger generation to remember what their forebears used. Protesters at the 1989 March for Women's Equality carried a giant replica, stained red, through the streets of Washington D.C. like a macabre parade float. And the symbol has been ubiquitous since Donald Trump’s election, popping up at marches, in the pages of glossy magazines, and on this site.

The imagery makes Jill Adams, founder of the Self-Induced Abortion Legal Team, shake her head.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-back-alley-these-women-say-diy-abortion-can-be-empowering?ref=scroll


USA – Code Name Jane: The Women Behind a Covert Abortion Network

Code Name Jane: The Women Behind a Covert Abortion Network
In the years before abortion became legal, a clandestine group helped women with unwanted pregnancies get around the law.

Video: 7:57 minutes. Abortion Was Illegal. This Secret Group Defied the Law. By Retro Report

By Clyde Haberman
Oct. 14, 2018

The no-frills advertisement, printed at times in student and alternative newspapers, went straight to the point: “Pregnant? Don’t want to be? Call Jane.” A telephone number followed.

This was nearly half a century ago, when abortion was illegal almost everywhere in the country and alternative newspapers were in their heyday. There was no Jane, though, not literally anyway. Yet at the same time, Jane was anybody.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/us/illegal-abortion-janes.html


The Jewish Women Leading the Resistance in the U.S. Battle Over Abortion

The Jewish Women Leading the Resistance in the U.S. Battle Over Abortion
As the focus on Roe v. Wade increases with the looming addition of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, many volunteers say they are motivated by Jewish values and attitudes toward abortion, which differ from those of conservative Christianity

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen (New York)
Oct 10, 2018

NEW YORK – Access to abortion in the United States has become more limited in recent years, increasingly restricted by state laws even though it became a constitutionally protected right in the landmark decision Roe v. Wade 45 years ago.

At the forefront of countering that trend is a little-known network of volunteers, many of them Jewish women, who are motivated by their faith and commitment to the idea that women need to be able to control their own reproductive choices.

Continued: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-jewish-women-leading-the-resistance-in-the-u-s-battle-over-abortion-1.6545400


USA – The untold ways women are fighting to protect abortion access if landmark Roe v Wade falls

The untold ways women are fighting to protect abortion access if landmark Roe v Wade falls
‘We’re here to continue our work, no matter what happens,’ says one activist

Emily Shugerman, New York
July 21, 2018

The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh – Donald Trump’s conservative, pro-life pick for the Supreme Court – has set off a wave of activism among women’s rights advocates seeking to protect abortion rights across the US.

Groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America have staged protests and phone drives in an attempt block Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination, warning of a return to the days before Roe v Wade – the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/roe-v-wade-abortion-brett-kavanaugh-trump-supreme-court-us-women-protest-pill-a8457076.html