The Janes

I had no other options.

I wanted it over with...

and I didn't care how it was done. I was that desperate.

An acquaintance said, "Here's a phone number,"

and it was the mob.

They had to talk in code.

They said, "Do you want a Cadillac, a Chevrolet, or a Rolls-Royce?"

The Chevy was the cheapest, 500 dollars.

A Cadillac was something like 750, and if you wanted the Rolls-Royce,

and we're talking about the '60s here,

it was a thousand dollars.

That's what the mob charged for an abortion.

I said, "Well, I think I want a Chevrolet,"

and they go, "Okay, fine, well,

you know, we'll see you at this address

with your money."

It was not a familiar part of town.

I went to the room that I was assigned...

and I sat on the bed and I waited.

The next thing you know,

there's four of them, there are three men and a woman, and then they brought

another young woman with them who also needed an abortion.

I was petrified.

They spoke all of three sentences to me the entire time.

"Where's the money?"

"Lie back and do as I tell you."

"Get in the bathroom." That was it.

I was just laying there trying to,

you know, get my breath, and I knew I was bleeding,

and all of a sudden, they were gone.

They just left.

Two young women out in the middle of nowhere

in a motel, bleeding.

If I had stayed in that room, I'd be dead.

When we both were able to, an hour or two later,

stand up without being dizzy, and then we could get out the door,

find a cab, she went her way, I went mine. And that was it.

In the state of Illinois, and most of the rest of the nation,

abortion was illegal.

It was not medical practice.

It was simply a crime.

We were very aware of the fact that...

women were suffering in a variety of ways

because of abortion being against the law.

Women did awful things out of fear and desperation.

We knew that some would be injured, some would die.

Many people around them, including children

that they already had, would suffer.

So we thought, "We can be of use. You need an abortion, we'll help you."

"Call this number and ask for Jane."

Jane was an outrageous undertaking by a lot of smart women.

Traveling under the radar of the Chicago Mafia

and Chicago Police Department.

That was a case where men's underestimating women's abilities

worked very well for us.

As a member of Jane, I knew the risk I was taking.

I knew that it was possible that I could go to jail

for what I was doing.

But at the time, I was-- I could care less.

Until I was arrested...

I figured it wouldn't make any difference. You know, I'd be fine.

If you start getting serious

and start worrying about all these little details...

you won't get anything done. You won't get anything done.

That was the beauty of Chicago, I think.

It was a town where people did stuff.

A lot of things were going on in Chicago

that made it... politics seemed very real,

or, you know, what was happening in the country very immediate.

I wouldn't say I went to Chicago with a particular interest in abortion.

Every woman should have a sign. Please pick them up.

Like other women in Jane,

we came to the service from other things,

the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement.

-Don't block the sidewalk! -It was around us, you know?

You couldn't not pay attention to what was going on.

You smell like pigs, that's why we don't want you! Pigs!

At the open housing demonstrations on the southwest side of Chicago,

racists were lining the streets ready to throw bottles.

Your mother is a whore!

-Your mother is a whore! -I said, "Here's an opportunity

for me to take a stand in defining who am I

as a person, what do I stand for?"

I still have a scar on my arm from where one of the slivers of bottles hit me.

Just keep moving! Just keep moving!

I can assure you that the hatred and the hostility here

are really deeper than what I've seen in Alabama and Mississippi.

People were throwing bags of shit at us,

grabbing women's earrings and pulling them out of their ears.

Throwing firecrackers from trees.

Run, run, run, run! Run!

I was afraid all the time.

But, you know, I was a warrior for justice.

I had started at the University of Chicago,

and I joined the Freedom Summer Project.

I went to Mississippi to support the voter registration effort.

And during that summer,

I learned that sometimes you have to stand up to illegitimate authority.

And sometimes there are unjust laws that need to be challenged.

I came back to campus,

and then a friend of mine

was raped at knifepoint in her bed in off-campus housing.

I went with her to Student Health,

and she was given a lecture on her promiscuity,

was told that Student Health didn't cover gynecological exams.

And I was outraged.

Women were at a total disadvantage when it came to our reproductive rights

and our own medical rights and just our personal rights.

Women didn't have the power to make decisions.

You had to be married to get a diaphragm.

When the pill came in,

you had to be married to get a prescription for pills.

If you weren't married, you were out of luck.

Contraceptives were not widely, freely, openly available.

When I went to college,

I was told, "Go to Woolworths, get a five-dollar ring,

put it on your left, fourth finger...

then tell the doctor that your name is Mrs. Somebody-or-Another

and you needed birth control."

Just insane.

I became more engaged on women's issues,

but I don't remember any real discussion about abortion

until a friend told me that his sister was pregnant

and was nearly suicidal. That she wasn't ready to have a child,

and was looking for a doctor to perform an abortion,

and could I help out?

I started to ask around.

I went to the doctors who were in the medical arm

of the Civil Rights Movement, and they directed me

to a Dr. T.R.M. Howard.

The Mississippi White Citizens' Council

is exerting tremendous economic pressure

upon the Negro people of the State of Mississippi.

He had been a civil rights activist in Mississippi

until he stood up against the murder of Emmett Till.

And then his name appeared on a Klan death list

and he came to Chicago.

He set up a clinic on 63rd Street.

I contacted him by phone.

He was very responsive. He said he would take care of it. And...

he was good to his word.

Word spread and someone else called.

I put that person in touch with Dr. Howard,

and then word spread again.

And so it only dawned on me over time how big an issue this was.

It was at the end of school, so there weren't many kids in the dorm.

There was a girl down the hall.

We weren't friends, she was a little older.

She knocked on the door and said she was in trouble,

and could I help her?

So I went down to her room, and there was blood everywhere.

She said, "I had an abortion and I'm bleeding

and I'm really scared. Can you call the doctor?"

You know, there was one phone in the hallway.

So I went into the hallway and called the doctor.

He said, "How much is she bleeding?"

I don't know. I said, "Well, she's..."

"I'd say it's pretty bad."

He said, "Put her feet up, go get ice,

and call me back in two hours."

So I got on my bike, I went and got ice, brought it back, cleaned up her room.

She said, "Don't tell anybody. Don't tell my boyfriend."

And I realized, "Oh, my God, how scary. She's all by herself."

I saw her, like the next day and she had stopped bleeding,

the ice did it, the elevating the legs. It worked.

So that was good.

-That must've been scary for you. -It was re--

Well, plus, I was... high.

Which was true. You know, 'cause this was the end of school.

We're sitting around smoking some dope and I'm like, "What?"

Well, that got me out of it really quick.

All of a sudden, I'm riding my bike in the night going,

"Oh my God, I have to, like, not be this way anymore."

So it was scary, and it was so...

It just stayed with me because it seemed so wrong that this was going on.

I was a medical student at Cook County Hospital.

What was seared into my brain is what desperate people will do

when they think they have no other choice.

Women would come in with some type of a complication,

often a horrendous injury...

as a result of an illegal abortion.

Women would use objects

to try to disrupt the pregnancy, which perforated the uterus,

perforated the bladder, perforated the intestines.

There were chemical means.

I recall one woman who tried carbolic acid.

She had horrific burns.

We would see 15 to 20 people a day.

They either went to the operating room,

or they went up to the Septic Abortion Ward.

And the Septic Abortion Ward was full every day.

I just remember walking into the unit

and observing those patients there.

Nineteen years old, young girls...

either self-induced or somebody did it, and why can't we save them

or why can't we do something more for them?

One girl, I remember the doctor saying,

"There's nothing more we can do for her."

Here's this beautiful young girl

and nobody there, and she's dying.