Weekend Process Notes
Before Roe: A Woman’s Story
When abortion was controlled by the states: This is not a recommended path
Oct. 27, 2022
Politically we are in deep trouble and it is hard to think about the future or to venture any guesses.
Consequently, I am looking to the past which lures me into thinking that there may be some clues there. Today, women are being pushed into corners, refused education, not to mention occasionally killed and/or forced to carry babies they aren’t prepared to care for or to hand off to someone else. Most of us have no one to hand a baby off to, any more than we would gladly take one if someone tried to hand one to us. Past and present apply here.
Before, in the early 1970s
In the early 70’s I got pregnant during that period in which young women hoping to find love and meaning in a serious relationship were suddenly thrown into a culture which required they make rapid fire decisions about whether or not to have sex with the new prospect. It got to the point where if you went out with someone more than a couple of times you were expected to get serious enough to explore sex and move that relationship forward or run the other way as fast as you could. Maybe in some areas the pressure wasn’t quite that obvious and steady, but here in San Francisco I think it was. My therapist literally concurred with the admonition, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs!”
A man by the name of Michael Raindon found me at Gasser’s Camera Store on Geary Blvd where I had chosen to work despite the terrible wages but in hopes of learning more about the field of photography, photographers and to get a discount on supplies I needed as an aspiring photographer. Michael was quite a good photographer though all his subjects were stationary, trains and trees, and objects left in silence. We had a couple of dates, and I think we both felt encouraged to move on, get more serious, and attempt to have sex.
The sex wasn’t memorable but I did manage to get pregnant
Meanwhile, I had given notice at Gasser’s as I felt I couldn’t stand much longer the harassment and disrespect I experienced there every day as the only woman on the sales floor of Adolf Gasser’s large camera and photofinishing shop on Geary Blvd. Somewhat desperately, I was planning to travel to Mexico with my close friend and roommate, Faith, who I knew from our college years at Indiana University. Our best idea was to throw caution to the wind, enjoy ourselves, and hope and pray that something more promising evolved.
Politically we are in deep trouble and it is hard to think about the future or to venture any guesses.
There was the period of “Was I pregnant?” or “Wasn’t I pregnant?”. The poor drugstore test said I was not. Still, my period didn’t start, and I felt somewhat not myself, though hard to tell as so much was going on, fighting with Gasser, hanging on to my job a couple more weeks because I needed the money, leaving my rented apartment. I had told Gasser, “You’ll have to fire me if you want me to leave earlier.” Because I had friends at the store and was not willing to get screwed any more than I already had been without a fight, he tolerated me a couple more weeks. To say he didn’t like me doesn’t describe the hostility he felt for me, threatening once to rip my dress off.
My plans were such that I felt I needed real confirmation that I was not pregnant. I trundled off to Dr. Hartman my Ob/gyn and he confirmed that I was indeed not pregnant. I believe that was when the professional tests accessed little rabbits and they either died or didn’t depending on your pregnancy results. (Possibly that isn’t accurate but I don’t have the time and inclination to do the research right now. I have checked now and the truth is the animal, not always a bunny, died whether or not you were pregnant ).
Dr. Hartman sent me home with some kind of pills which he said to take in a certain order and they would cause my period to begin again. He seemed confident. I was reassured and continued on with the travel plans, which were skimpy at best: take a bus to Mexico, go along the Pacific Coast, and end up in Mexico City if nothing more important and exciting prevailed.
There were inauspicious signs on the bus trip. For example, poor Faith had to tolerate a man sitting next to her who was masturbating. We were pretty defenseless generally speaking. I walked away from a bus stop in a little town to see if I could find some food and found that the sun set faster than I expected which left me totally in the dark as there were no street lights whatsoever, hardly any lights period.
I did find my way back just in time. These rushes of adrenal were regular throughout the “adventure.” And isn’t that part of what we went for anyway? Faith and I wanted fresh, novel experiences and possibly “love,” so we were putting ourselves in jeopardy. We would have preferred to avoid danger, but that wasn’t a choice.
By the time we got to Puerto Vallarta we had experienced some poor hotels and rather sad beaches, so we decided to stay in a more touristy spot and rent some place decent where we could stay for a week. We did find a lovely place with a deck perched on the hillside. The low price would have been unimaginable in the United States.
Faith and I ate and didn’t drink. We sat in the sun. I was getting morning sickness being still many bus rides from Mexico City.
On the road, we stopped in one small town thinking it would be “interesting” for us. More than interesting, it was frightening. The crappy place we stayed was just that. We went out in the evening to find food and to walk around the town square, the zocalo. We seemed to be the only strangers, and we got the impression they were suspicious of us. Young women of any sense in Mexico did not just go wandering around, dropping themselves off by bus in unfamiliar places. Their parents would have disowned them I suspect.
Many people seemed to be visibly displeased with our presence, and some of the younger men were openly insulting. We scurried back to our pension and determined to catch the next bus out of town. Which we did.
The most beautiful sight we saw on the road to the capital, which I still think of off and on, was a magnificent jacaranda tree. There was nothing else of interest in the scenery, not in any direction, and suddenly there was a gigantic tree fleshed out with gorgeous purple flowers. It dominated the landscape like nothing I had ever seen before. I couldn’t even photograph it with the bus moving and no equipment out.
By this time all the pills to bring on my period were taken with no results. I knew once we were in Mexico City I needed to see a doctor. Once in the city we found a cheap, tolerable pension and were still somewhat excited about our adventures. My Spanish was less than adequate but helped to make ourselves understood. Faith had no Spanish.
I don’t remember how I got the name of a doctor, probably by walking up to a concierge service in a good hotel after blowing money on something to eat or drink there while acting as if we were actually guests of the hotel along the Reforma, the main commercial avenue. I scheduled a doctor’s appointment and did my best to keep having a vacation which for Faith was her first venture into Mexico. I had been there before and loved much of the fun I had had as a 19 year old, much sought after American girl.
We found young American girls were still much sought after. It was hard to traverse the city without having unwanted attention from men. Two young women alone were fair game, much more than we realized. We might change direction, cross the street, duck into a store or restaurant. Occasionally I would whirl around and scream at some guy, “STOP Following Us and Making Noise!! Just Stop It! NOW! STOP!” It didn’t intimidate anyone but had a startling affect. I suspect that many women with similar experiences in our youth still maintain vestiges of this guerrilla training all our lives.
Unfortunately for us, we did meet two suave and wealthy Mexican men who we didn’t scream at, but should have. They were cute, well-dressed and spending money. They showered us with seemingly appropriate attention (which of course we were hungry enough for to forget the question of safety). They begged us to go to Cuernavaca some 70 miles from Mexico City. One of the young men had a second family home there. First, we were wined and dined in a couple of nightclubs that were the poshest places I had ever, ever seen, and I was not that sheltered from luxury earlier in life. Then there was the pressure to go to a gorgeous home that belonged to one of their families and was in a beautiful, mountainous place.
We agreed to go. Was it the sword one of them had in his eloquent umbrella which convinced us it would be exciting enough to succumb? We were making friends. I had even confided to the boy most interested in me that I was pretty sure I was pregnant and was trying to deal with that question. We were lonely. I don’t know if they were, it was all supposed to be fun.
The road from Mexico City to Cuernavaca winds through mountains; they had a fancy car and drove too fast. We arrived outside a gated compound and they spoke with their staff, who then disappeared not to be seen again. We were shown around, in my memory there was genuine art work signed by famous Mexican artists. Thinking now, I find it hard to believe that I would have had the ability to assess whether the art was original or not. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Still, a gorgeous home decorated the way you might expect wealthy Mexicans who appreciated their culture to decorate a home.
The next thing I remember is being in bed with one of these guys, us alone in a room, and I guess we had sex though I have no memory of that. I hadn’t planned on having sex, and I would like to say that Faith and I had made it clear that part of the condition of going with them was that it was a “friendly” jaunt to see another part of Mexico. I don’t know if we did that. I remember my guy calling the large dog into the room and pulling the sheet off me to expose my body to the dog. By then I was nervous. Did we use contraception, I don’t know. Since I had already shared with him the possibility that I was pregnant, I likely didn’t give contraception a thought.
I wanted to see Faith, that she was all right, and needed to check in with her. As soon as we had a private second, we communicated to each other, “Let’s get out of here as fast as possible.” Many people know that a common response to having sex with a stranger is “Let me out of here as fast as possible.” So I can’t blame the men or assume that they felt any differently from the way we felt. I do think they intended to have sex with us as soon as we met them. I think we hoped for different and more.
Back in Mexico City, I sought another interchange with some concierge service at a swanky hotel. I needed to make a phone call to the United States, using my time, energy, and money calling my OBGYN Dr. Hartman. For whatever reasons, I explained to the friendly male manager at the hotel that I had an unwanted pregnancy going on, and I was getting desperate to deal with the situation. The hotel manager extended his knowledge which was that he knew how I could acquire pills that bring on an abortion. He could point me in that direction if I wanted. I thought that was kind of him and declined because the idea scared me to death, which I figured is where that plan might end up.
Dr. Hartman sitting in San Francisco was of no use. Too bad. And it had become clear that he didn’t approve of abortion. I went to my appointment with the Mexican doctor who wasn’t terrible but wasn’t sympathetic. He was able to verify that indeed I was pregnant. I explained that contrary to his findings I had been told definitively that I was not pregnant which is how I ended up away from the United States and in his office. I had given up my job, my apartment, and did not have a dependable partner who wanted to have a baby with me or anyone else. I asked about possibilities to end the pregnancy. He was off put at the very idea and said, nothing he could do to help and no need to come back.
I must have been a solid eight or more weeks pregnant by then. I knew there were services operating in Berkeley, California which were able to arrange abortions in Mexico. Their services were subtly advertised in the hippy newspaper, the Berkeley Barb. Their underground business would set up a complete program with a flight to Mexico City, a ride from the airport to a decent hotel, all the medical needs including an abortion, a trip back to the airport, and a flight to return to San Francisco/Berkeley. All neat and tidy.
Time for another venture to find a good hotel concierge who would for a price allow me to use their phone to call Berkeley. I don’t know if I used the same concierge or not, but I do remember that as a young American woman being very direct and properly appearing in a fancy hotel, I could get attention and service quickly. In truth, before I had gone to Mexico earlier, at the age of 20 to study Spanish, I had never felt particularly beautiful, but in Mexico the combination of age, relative affluence, implicit access to many things American (especially car parts, I kid you not) I felt frighteningly attractive.
Reaching Berkeley by phone took some time, money and trouble in those days. And when I did talk with an unknown man who was probably making a fair amount of money with this “gig,” (maybe not, though he didn’t exude compassion despite my story) he explained to me that they could not help me.
I explained right back at him, I am already here in Mexico City so this ought to be easier instead of impossible! We went back and forth. He stuck with his position that their services were a package deal, you could not get only part of the package. I got completely logical and argued, “Oh, if I fly to Berkeley and meet you then we can arrange for me to return to Mexico City and have an abortion?” Yes, he agreed that could be done. I noted that the service was a feeble offer of help and that I would try and somehow manage without their assistance.
Faith and I discussed what made the most sense which was for me to go home to San Francisco and see if I could access the new but rather unclear (to me) measures concerning abortion in California. There was no internet to check with the fine print. Though the federal government still had not passed Roe Vs. Wade giving women the right to access abortion if they wished, California had gone ahead of the rest of the United States and passed legislation with numerous restrictions on access but making it possible to get a legal abortion.
I don’t remember all of the restrictions, but one was that you had to find two doctors to certify that you needed to get an abortion for psychological and/or physical reasons. Then all this paperwork and appointments, gotten and accomplished, the request for permission had to go before a hospital board which met once a month. Another serious delay!
Faith decided she wanted to stay a little longer in Mexico and go to Acapulco. She was in the same unemployed, unhoused position as I was, so-called “footloose and fancy-free,” . . . at least she was not pregnant. That sadly had happened during an earlier juncture in her life with tragic results.
I set to making arrangements to go home. We spent a day or so more trying to enjoy our lives. We went out on an early evening to have a meal and were walking near the Reforma in a largely bank and business area. The rain had passed as it often did, happening in the afternoon during the summer and cleaning the air for a beautiful evening.
As we strolled along 3 or 4 men were beating up another man. Right there on the sidewalk, big as life. We were horrified and started screaming at them to stop beating the guy up! All the noise gathered some other men out of the office building. They were standing behind a fence in their suits and ties. By then, one guy had pulled out a gun and was waving it around. So we yelled at the seemingly authoritative, suited type men, “Take the gun away!” They just stood there and watched us behaving in this bizarre and unexpected manner.
The fighting had stopped. Everyone froze. I hollered at the more respectable-looking men, “Call the police!” This was well before cell phones but phones did exist. The upstanding gentlemen on the other side of the fence didn’t move a muscle. Someone did say there is a police station a few blocks away. Faith and I conferred as to what to do, and probably I suggested one of us stay there and the other one run to get the police.
Still, the scene was like a frieze, with no fighting and no gun shooting. Then Faith took off in the direction suggested, and I stayed put. Our naivety was beyond belief but kind-hearted. We were deluded into thinking we had some power. God knows where we ever got that idea since daily life of housing, jobs, and physical safety or lack thereof showed no evidence that we had power. Still, we had been able to stop the beating.
I waited a minute or two until everyone (beaten, beating and innocent bystanders) took off in all directions. Someone said to me, “You better get out of here; you don’t want to be here if the police show up.” But I waited a long while for Faith and the police to arrive. It was dark and I was scared and no one came.
Finally, I gave up and hurried back to the pension hoping against hope that Faith was there. She wasn’t though. I waited and after some time during which I and time felt completely out of control, she got there. She relayed her freaky experience with the police. (I was sick to my stomach for several unhappy reasons).
She had found the police station, and they had sent several policemen in a car to go find the trouble. As they went through the exit from the station, guns were issued to the policemen in the police car, and off they went. She reported that the policemen thought the whole episode was enormously funny, so they were laughing and teasing her. Beyond that, I couldn’t get a clear picture. Apparently, they had driven around the city for quite a while, laughing and having a good time, everyone but Faith. Somehow she got out in one piece and ran to the pension. Exhausted and Frightened. I blamed myself, of course.
On overdrive, I was on a plane home to San Francisco, and Faith was on a bus to Acapulco where by some sorry coincidence she crossed paths with the guy who had been being beaten up on the street, the one we had tried to help. Another story I can’t relate.
As noted, the restrictions for women seeking abortions in California were complicated and time-consuming. Because my physical health appeared to be normal enough, what I needed to insist on was that psychologically I was in trouble and couldn’t handle a pregnancy due to my somewhat questionable mental state.
Saying that I didn’t have a job, a place to live, much of any money, a partner who wanted to child, or a desire to have a child myself wasn’t a credible story. The story had a say I was somewhat mentally unstable and would be pushed too far by having a baby. For sure the doctors I talked with were entirely sympathetic and had gotten themselves on a list of doctors who would like to help women who they felt had the right to choose whether to carry a baby to term or not.
Of course, I thought about going through with the pregnancy. I knew I would have loved the child and done my best, but I definitely did not see the pregnancy as a “child.” I had figured out by the age of 25 or so that life can be rough and having a child to raise you need developed skills, and economic and social support. Also, I had done a lot of babysitting as a young woman, and I knew that spending many hours a day doing childcare isn’t always a dream come true. It is incredibly hard work testing every aspect of your life!
I chose to talk with the titular sperm donor, a sweet handsome guy who didn’t have a clue. He was nonplussed at the thought of having a child and acquiesced entirely to my decision to do all that I could to get an abortion.
I must have gone onto some type of medical welfare because I didn’t have insurance. As we all know in the United States health insurance is largely tied to employment, which I didn’t have. Honestly, I can’t remember where I stayed on my return to San Francisco. Maybe my friend Lynn’s, maybe my older sister Judith’s? I do remember that Judy disapproved of abortion to the extent that she said she herself could never, ever get one. That was hard to hear as I valued her opinion deeply.
I had to wait for my “application for an abortion” to go before the hospital board. That took some weeks; by then I was definitely over 14 weeks pregnant. I managed to get a bad cold so the doctor was a little iffy about knocking me out for the procedure. Several years later once Roe V. Wade had passed, I ended up choosing again to get an abortion. It was easier and so much less stressful though still plenty stressful.
I got a date for this first abortion and checked into the hospital for a two-night stay. Maybe a two-night stay was because I had had a cold or maybe everyone allowed to get a California legal abortion at that point needed to stay for several nights? We were “sick” women, don’t you know.
I was definitely under general anesthesia for the surgery and didn’t remember a thing. The part of the hospital in which I was located had been an obstetrics wing, but because the pregnancy statistics had dropped dramatically, delivery services for babies were being eliminated at some hospitals including the one I was in.
Interestingly, after Paul Ehrlich wrote THE POPULATION BOMB (Published in 1968) and predicted massive starvation due to overpopulation within the next decade, the population growth slowed considerably, especially in the US and China. Ehrlich’s book didn’t cause this drop in the birth rate (though it did increase our consciousness). The confluence of increasingly available birth control, rising divorces, fewer benefits of having large families or any kids at all, and shrinking goods and services made many people consider shifting their reproductive choices. China itself had begun its one child policy (leading currently to the shortage of women in China and changes in Chinese policies).
Back to my story, Michael, the willing sperm donor to whom I had been somewhat attached, had taken me to the hospital and wished me well, saying, “This is a tough decision for you.” He wouldn’t express an opinion, it was my decision. He didn’t feel involved which he had been.
After the procedure (which I think and hope we all know is much less dangerous than carrying through with a pregnancy) I was back in my ward with several others who had also had abortions. Once I had become awake enough to deal with reality, I saw that a woman in the bed next to mine was extremely upset, crying, and just miserable.
So I asked if she was all right, needed any help, etc. She said she just wanted to die. We started to talk and at some point, I sat on the side of her bed, the better to hear and be of some comfort. Her story was that she had come to San Francisco from somewhere in Canada (where abortion was not legalized until 1988). She had borrowed all the money she could scrape together, lied to her family about what she was up to, and did and said whatever she felt she needed to in order to get an abortion in California.
She repeated a few times that she just wanted to die. I did my best to be reassuring and express my less depressed view of being able to get a safe abortion, and sanely and positively continue on with my life. While she was expressing more details of her despair, a disapproving nurse popped in and told me to get off the woman’s bed. Then I tried to talk with the nurse, telling her, out of earshot of the Canadian, that the woman was practically suicidal if not actually so. “Please, get her some help while she is here, before she leaves.”
I don’t think the Canadian was regretting her decision, just bemoaning that she was broke, in debt, and away from home and family. She was overcome with shame about taking care of herself and frightened about the loneliness and risk in which she had put herself. Possibly if she hadn’t felt such shame she would have chosen to have a child. Who knows.
Meanwhile, I was sent home which meant crashing at my sister’s apartment which had formerly been my apartment, a roomy old Victorian flat in the Mission District.
My very short-term boyfriend Michael was a little sympathetic about “my” difficult decision which he couldn’t relate to. He went off to work and I set to work in his darkroom for some hours to try and enjoy myself and feel at least vaguely productive.
When he returned from his job, I sort of collapsed with exhaustion, explaining that I was done in for the moment. He questioned me, “How long are you going to go on about this abortion?” Whereupon I flew up and left his place as quickly as I could grab my few things. He did catch up with me a few blocks away, sort of apologizing, sort of wanting me not to disappear if only I would behave myself.
But that was it. I couldn’t accept what he wanted to get and give, and I really was desperately tired. That was the abrupt end of that relationship. Likely, it wouldn’t have been a nurturing, supportive partnership for either of us. Not at that time and not in that culture.
I have never been sorry I got that abortion. Nor a subsequent one either. Both were a result of failed birth control. Do I add that because I am promoting a picture of myself that is not quite so selfish and shameful? I don’t think so, but that birth control can fail is true. Later, I had a home and a husband and chose to have a child who has become a decent, sensitive, kind person whom I love very much. I raised her through rough times, just not nearly as rough as it could have been.
