During the late 1950’s, a drug called Thalidomide became popular worldwide as an alternative to aspirin. It was basically seen as a cure all for whatever might ail somebody, with one popular use being alleviating the symptoms of morning sickness during pregnancy. Unfortunately, it was soon after discovered that the drug could cause severe birth defects and it was banned in most countries by 1962. Though never approved for use in the United States, it was widely distributed for testing purposes, including to pregnant women. One of these women was Sherri Finkbine, an upper middle class white woman living in Phoenix. Fearing her baby would be deformed, she decided to get an abortion, which was illegal in Arizona and most other states, leading to her travelling to Sweden to have the procedure done. Her story became a national news sensation, garnering a great deal of pity for her plight and sparking the first widespread calls to change laws regarding abortion in the United States.
It should probably be understood that throughout the history of the United States, abortions most certainly took place. When the country was first founded, it was not an uncommon practice amongst people of all social classes, who used various old wives’ methods to terminate unwanted pregnancies. However, this began to change in the mid-nineteenth century when a religious revival shifted the practice from something people just kind of took care of in private to a direct ticket to eternal damnation. Fun fact, this same religious revival led to a huge jump in support for the abolition of slavery, which just goes to show you that history is a complicated mess. Anyways, starting in the late nineteenth century, states began licensing physicians, you know, because having random people providing healthcare probably wasn’t the best idea. Many of these newly licensed doctors became major opponents of abortion, not because they really gave a damn, but mostly because most abortions were done by unlicensed healers and various other quacks. As a result, by the start of the twentieth century getting an abortion was a felony crime across the U.S.
Now of course it should go without saying that though illegal, abortions still totally happened. However, since they were illegal, getting an abortion involved either spending a lot of money to get a procedure done by a seedy maybe doctor with no qualms about skirting the law or utilizing various questionable home remedies. In both cases there was a significant amount of risk to women’s health and deaths were not uncommon. However, the women most negatively affected were mostly poor, so of course nobody really gave two shits about it. That didn’t really change until the Thalidomide scare followed closely by an epidemic of German measles, which could cause severe birth defects, which made the possibility of needing an abortion very real for middle class American women. Since most families couldn’t afford a quick jaunt over to Europe, a movement to legalize abortion gained strength, becoming a central tenant of second wave feminism. Colorado became the first state to legalize abortion in 1967, followed soon after by California and several other states. However, the legislatures in most states remained firmly entrenched against legalization, supported by religious and other such socially conservative organizations.
In states where lawmakers were resistant to legalizing abortions, feminists turned towards a more judicial strategy, bringing forward cases to challenge abortion laws in court. The hope was to not only legalize abortion in specific states, but to eventually get a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. A similar strategy had been quite effective during the Civil Rights movement earlier that decade. Unfortunately, finding women who were willing to become a face for abortion proved harder than expected. The widespread stigma of not only abortion, but also even publicly talking about sex, made the majority of women less than willing to step forward. Most women who publicly talked about getting abortions, didn’t do it until well after the fact. The dream client would have been similar to Sherri Finkbine; married, well to do, and white. However, these were the same women who could easily afford to cross state lines to get an abortion and who were the most concerned about sullying their reputations. This left the poor and unreputable, people who were desperate and had little to lose if their identities were discovered. However, it was a very real concern that the less than stellar reputation of such women could sink a case. A ridiculous amount of court cases depend upon the ability of a lawyer to create sympathy for their client. Luckily, this little problem could be gotten around by never actually having the client appear in court. Using the excuse of the need to protect the women’s identities, Finkbine had received death threats, feminist lawyers found a perfect way to keep their clients out of the public eye.
One such woman was of course Norma McCorvey, who under the pseudonym Jane Roe was the plaintiff in what eventually became the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling which legalized abortion nationwide. Though her treatment by her lawyers was very much less than stellar, it paled compared to the women involved in other important abortion court cases, some of which were outright lied to by their lawyers. As is unfortunately true for many human rights movements, ethics regarding how individuals are treated often get overshadowed by a zealousness to do what is right for the masses.