These news photos of abortion arrests show the shame and resolve before Roe v. Wade
Photojournalists exploited these men and women, but created a powerful record in the process
In the 1950s, in addition to being illegal, ending a pregnancy was incredibly dangerous. Countless thousands of women lost their lives in botched abortions in the decades preceding Roe v. Wade, many dying as a result of infection or unskilled and negligent operators. Women went to great lengths to escape the stigma of an unwanted pregnancy, recruiting an untrained cousin to perform the procedure, for example, or following a stranger into a makeshift operating room.
But underground providers were ubiquitous, if you knew where to look. And cracking down on the practice was a priority for police departments.
These photos of “abortionists” and “abortion suspects” in police custody leave a lot to ponder. We know they are from the archives of the Los Angeles Examiner, snapped by news photographers in the 1950s, while their subjects were being booked. Reporters were likely drawn to the story for its salaciousness, and hung around the station houses until granted permission to expose the perpetrators to their flash bulbs—the perfect incriminating portrait to accompany a juicy writeup in the morning papers. One couple strains to hide their faces from the offensive. Others look nonchalant, even defiant as they meet the intruding lensmen with hard-boiled cool.
From court records it’s known that five members of the Johnson family were engaged in running an illegal abortion clinic out of a home in Long Beach, California. When a client began hemorrhaging a few days after her procedure, signs of a “criminally induced abortion” were discovered, setting off an investigation which culminated in their arrests. Nurse James Alexander Weiss is listed as the “brains of the ring.” His sister Vivian Johnson helped transport the clients. An abortion from Weiss and his co-conspirators would have cost $350 at the time (about $3,200 in today’s dollars). And though it’s difficult to determine whether his operation was entirely exploitative, altruistic, or both, it’s easy to see that stakes were highest for the young women who felt they had no one else to turn to in a time of crisis.
