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WHEN ABORTION WAS ILLEGAL: Untold Stories
produced by Dorothy Fadiman and Daniel Meyers
in collaboration with KTEH-TV

INTRODUCTION

Until recently, the era of illegal abortion has been a "sealed chapter" in women's history. In WHEN ABORTION WAS ILLEGAL: Untold Stories, compelling first-person stories illuminate the danger of back-alley abortions, revealing the physical, emotional and legal consequences of when abortion was a crime in the United States. Women who jeopardized their lives, doctors who risked losing their licenses, and others who tried to help women find safe abortions, speak frankly about their experiences.

RELATIONSHIPS and ROLES

Betty had been in a "serious relationship" when she became pregnant. The pregnancy ended the relationship. 

  • Discuss ways in which an unplanned pregnancy might affect a relationship. From a woman's point of view? From a man's?
  • What might some of the physical and emotional issues be when the man does not want to be involved in decisions about an unplanned pregnancy? If he does want to be involved?
Rosalie was raped several years after her illegal abortion, and became pregnant again. She decided to bear the child, and give it up for adoption. 
  • Contrast the attitudes today about an unmarried woman's decision to continue a pregnancy with those before abortion was legal.
  • Can you imagine yourself in Rosalie's situation? What do you think you would do?
Dr. Hodgson discusses the practice problems of "shotgun marriages" and that they usually do not last.
  • How do you think you would feel about marriage as an alternative to having an abortion?
  • How might you feel about raising a child as a single parent?
  • How would you feel about giving a child up for adoption?   Other options?
CONTRACEPTION/PREVENTION
Lana was 17 years old, married, and already a mother. She was told by her doctor that another pregnancy would be dangerous to her health, yet she was not given birth control information. She later became unintentionally pregnant and chose to seek out an illegal abortion to save her own life. During much of the time that abortion was illegal, contraceptives were also illegal. 
  • Discuss the place of contraceptives information in "the abortion debate."
  • Discuss the complexity of feelings about birth control, and why that can also be a volatile issue for some people. 
PROVIDERS and THE LAW

Dr. Armstrong reports on hospital admissions of women with "botched abortions" in the 1950's and 1960's. The cause of these deaths was often disguised on hospital records as "spontaneous hemorrhage" or "infection." 

  • Discuss the challenge of getting accurate statistical information on illegal abortions.
Terry describes the difficult position of many physicians in the years when abortion was illegal. 
  • If you were a doctor at that time, facing loss of your license and/or imprisonment, how might you have acted?
  • What do you think some of the motivations of the few doctors who did provide abortions might have been? What were some of the costs to them personally? Their rewards? 
  • Did the film change the way you view health practitioners who perform abortions today?
Dr. Paulsen helped to pave the way for "therapeutic abortions," testifying that a woman needed an abortion for psychological reasons. For him, the law was more flexible, and included the legal right to an abortion if the potential mother's mental health was in danger. Some people said that providing these abortions was an abuse of the law. Some people believe that abortion should be permitted only in cases of rape or incest, or when the woman's life is in danger. 
  • Discuss the implications of a therapeutic loophole prior to Roe v. Wade. What happens to access for women of different economic classes when abortion is neither fully legal, nor fully illegal?
  • Do you think there are circumstances under which access to abortion should be limited? Which?
  • Do you think it is possible to "legislate" all the possible scenarios that surround unplanned and unwanted pregnancies? Why or why not?
SECRECY, CHOICES AND SPEAKING OUT

Betty reflects on obtaining an illegal abortion and admits she felt "like a criminal" until she was able to speak about it, some forty years later. Prior to Roe v. Wade, many women went to unskilled abortionists they had never met, performed self-abortions, or continued their pregnancies without talking to anyone about their feelings.

  • Why do you think Betty's "societal guilt" remained for 40 years? 
  • Discuss the ways in which counseling, or being able to confide in someone, might affect a woman's emotional reaction to an illegal abortion, or to a legal abortion experience. 
  • Discuss the mixed feelings ANY choice can bring, either immediately or years after the decision.
Lana postulates that the same woman who risked her life to get an abortion might, later in life, risk her life to have a baby. 
  • Why might a woman who had an abortion then choose to "risk her life to have a child?" 
  • Why might a woman who loves and wants children choose to have an abortion, especially a dangerous illegal one? Discuss the concept of "the right time."
Lola Huth died from a self-induced abortion. Her sister, Freddie, says, "We all have to start telling these stories." 
  • What is the value of young people hearing about the back-alleys? 
   

 
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