美国国家公共电台 NPR Before 'Roe v. Wade,' The Women of 'Jane' Provided Abortions For The Women Of Chicago

 

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")

WALTER CRONKITE: Good evening. Tonight - the subject of abortion¹. The illegal termination of pregnancy² has reached epidemic³ proportions in this country. The conflict between the law and reality has resulted in a national dilemma⁵. Abortion will...

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Monday marks the 45th anniversary of Roe⁶ versus⁷ Wade⁸, January 22, 1973. Before the Supreme⁹ Court's decision, abortion was against the law. In most of the country, women who sought out the procedure took risks.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

In the 1960s, an underground network of women in Chicago took a different risk to try to give women seeking abortions¹⁰ a safer alternative. The group was known as Jane. And at first they connected women with doctors who were willing to break the law and perform the procedure. And eventually women in the collective trained to perform abortions themselves.

KELLY: We're going to hear firsthand accounts of what they did and why. These accounts include some graphic¹¹ descriptions that listeners may find disturbing. Radio Diaries brings us the story of the group.

WINNETTE WILLIS: My name is Winnette Willis. When I was 23 years old, I was a single mom, and I became pregnant. It terrified me - the thought of having another kid by myself. I think I was kind of desperate, actually. I remember being on an L, on the train platform and seeing a sign. And the sign said, pregnant - and there was a question mark - don't want to be - question mark. Call Jane - and a phone number. So I called.

HEATHER BOOTH: My name's Heather Booth. I started Jane in 1965 when a friend of mine was looking for a doctor to perform an abortion. I made the arrangements. Then someone else called. Well, by the third call, I realized I couldn't manage it on my own. I thought, I'd better set up a system.

MARTHA SCOTT: My name is Martha Scott. I joined the group in 1969. I had four children under the age of 5. Many of us were stay-at-home moms, a bunch of housewives.

JEANNE GALATZER-LEVY: I'm Jeanne Galatzer-Levy. I was a member of Jane. I was 20 years old. I hadn't had so much as a speeding ticket, but abortion really was the frontline. It was where women were dying.

WILLIS: There was all kinds of stories out there - you know, people who had used a hanger¹² to stick in themselves to kind of stimulate¹³ abortions. But I wasn't going to do that. So that's why I went to Jane.

BOOTH: Women would call an answering machine - were asked to give their phone number, their name and the date of their last period.

SCOTT: We met someone before they were going to do this. We gave them a chance to talk about it. And we told them what was going to happen. There were lots of points along the way where they could have said no, changed my mind because you do think about it a lot. I don't think anyone chooses to have an abortion lightly.

WILLIS: I remember the day of, I took public transportation to this apartment at Hyatt Park. There was, like, seven or eight people in there. And we waited. At the appointed time, we were put into a car, and we were taken to a second location where the abortion was performed. It felt very underground, you know? I remember looking at the people who performed the surgery, and I felt relief (laughter) that somebody was going to help me.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")

CRONKITE: Good evening. The facts are astonishing. Hundreds of thousands of pregnant women unmindful of what may happen to them secretly seek abortions. For them, there is a wide gulf¹⁴ between what the law commands and what they feel they must do.

TED⁴ O'CONNOR: My name is Ted O'Connor. I was a young homicide detective on the South Side of Chicago. This is a Catholic city. Abortion wasn't even discussed. And I knew nothing about Jane. The whole operation was totally under our radar¹⁵.

LESLIE REAGAN: Jane was very organized and very clandestine¹⁶ and secretive. My name is Leslie Reagan. I'm a professor of history and author of the book "When Abortion Was A Crime." The thing that ultimately made Jane so unique was they took the practice of abortion into their own hands. They decided¹⁷ to learn and perform abortions themselves. And that was a stunning¹⁸ decision.

GALATZER-LEVY: We told them upfront we were not doctors. You know, doctors charged $500 a pop. So we would say, we charge a hundred dollars, but we will take what you can pay. We were doing four days a week, and we were typically doing 10 women a day.

SCOTT: We would rent apartments all over the city. We set up in two bedrooms and put linens¹⁹ on the bed and sterilized²⁰ our instruments. So the person who was having the abortion would, you know, stretch out, and the person who was assisting would sit with them while it was happening - you know, hold hands and, you know - and then I would insert the speculum, administer the anesthesia that was delivered by four shots to the cervix. And then the cervix would be dilated²¹, and then the instrument would be inserted into the uterus to remove the material. So that was the procedure.

GALATZER-LEVY: We gave every woman a little pill box with Ergotrate to help prevent bleeding and tetracycline, which is an antibiotic²². By and large, we were dealing²³ with healthy women pregnancies²⁴. I mean, we were not qualified²⁵ to deal with somebody with real medical problems.

SCOTT: I probably did hundreds of abortions. I mean, the fact is abortion is a pretty easy procedure. But still, you're messing around inside somebody else's body. It's not necessarily given that you won't do harm.

There were problems. There were people who ended up in the emergency room, you know? It wasn't always perfect by any means, you know? We felt it was the right thing to do. But that doesn't mean anything when the police are actually at your door.

O'CONNOR: It was spring of 1972, and two female Hispanics walked into the police station. And they told us that their sister-in-law was going to have an abortion. Of course these women were Catholic, and to them, one, it was a sin. And two, they didn't want a child killed. That's how they felt. And so with two unmarked squad²⁶ cars, we managed to follow our target, drove into the South Shore neighborhood, pulled up in front of one of the apartment buildings, rode up on the elevator.

And we saw a young woman, late-20s, extremely well-dressed. And she stopped momentarily and braced²⁷ herself. She was pale, looked like the blood had drained out of her face. And my partner took her by the arm, in a very stern voice said, did you just have an abortion? She said yes, and he said, where? And she led us to the door. I really didn't know what to expect when I walked in there. The living room was filled with young women waiting for an abortion. It was - I was shocked to see it. And of course they were very surprised when we came in.

SCOTT: They were such Chicago cops, you know? They were burly. They spoke²⁸ with South Side accents. They came in and looked around and said, where's the doctor, looking for the guy. But there wasn't any guy, you know? There was just us.

O'CONNOR: I remember one of the women asked me what I thought these women were supposed to do if they couldn't get an abortion, you know, what did I think was the right thing. And you know, I told her, listen; I don't have any opinions about what they should do. But you're breaking the law. That's all I know, and that's why I'm here. So we arrested everybody.

SCOTT: I remember being handcuffed to somebody, and we were all taken down to women's lockup.

GALATZER-LEVY: We were charged with 11 counts of abortion and conspiracy²⁹ to commit abortion.

O'CONNOR: I remember thinking at the time, I can see both sides of this. It's a tough issue, you know? And my side is, I don't want to see a life destroyed. That life is helpless. It has no choice in this. And that's - that angers me. On the other hand, I've never been pregnant.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite."

CRONKITE: Good evening. In a landmark³⁰ ruling, the Supreme Court today legalized abortions. The majority in cases...

REAGAN: Six months after the arrests, the Supreme Court decided Roe versus Wade, and ultimately the charges that had been brought against Jane are dropped.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")

CRONKITE: Antiabortion laws of 46 states were rendered unconstitutional.

REAGAN: Roe v. Wade brought an end to Jane because now there were legal providers. But the controversy³¹ didn't just disappear.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LEM TUCKER: Perhaps more than any other issue in American life today, the abortion question is loaded with the emotional arguments of life, death and morality, not the kinds of issues a court can finally settle.

SCOTT: Roe v. Wade made such an enormous difference. It was a very important victory. At that point, we all kind of scattered³², went onto other things. I mean, we really thought the fact that it was legal would change things, that this wouldn't be as political anymore, that it would fade a lot as any kind of a social issue. But we were wrong. We were wrong.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MCEVERS: Jane performed approximately 11,000 first- and second-trimester abortions before Roe versus Wade. No deaths of women were ever reported in connection with the service.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KELLY: This story was produced by Nellie Gilles with Joe Richman and Sarah Kate Kramer. It was edited by Deborah George and Ben Shapiro. A special thank you to Laura Kaplan, author of "The Story Of Jane." You can hear this story and more on the Radio Diaries podcast.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MCEVERS: And elsewhere in the show, we will hear more about the current debate around abortion. Thousands of anti-abortion rights activists³³ came to Washington today for the annual March for Life. It's been held every year since the Supreme Court's decision in 1973. President Trump³⁴ delivered a speech to the crowd on video. Some protesters held signs that said make America pro-life again.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

1 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

2 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

3 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

4 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

5 dilemma   

n.困境，进退两难的局面

参考例句：

• I am on the horns of a dilemma about the matter.这件事使我进退两难。
• He was thrown into a dilemma.他陷入困境。

6 roe   

n.鱼卵；獐鹿

参考例句：

• We will serve smoked cod's roe at the dinner.宴会上我们将上一道熏鳕鱼子。
• I'll scramble some eggs with roe?我用鱼籽炒几个鸡蛋好吗？

7 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

8 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

9 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

10 abortions   

n.小产( abortion的名词复数 )；小产胎儿；（计划）等中止或夭折；败育

参考例句：

• The Venerable Master: By not having abortions, by not killing living beings. 上人：不堕胎、不杀生。 来自互联网
• Conclusion Chromosome abnormality is one of the causes of spontaneous abortions. 结论：染色体异常是导致反复自然流产的原因之一。 来自互联网

11 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

12 hanger   

n.吊架，吊轴承；挂钩

参考例句：

• I hung my coat up on a hanger.我把外衣挂在挂钩上。
• The ship is fitted with a large helicopter hanger and flight deck.这艘船配备有一个较大的直升飞机悬挂装置和飞行甲板。

13 stimulate   

vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋

参考例句：

• Your encouragement will stimulate me to further efforts.你的鼓励会激发我进一步努力。
• Success will stimulate the people for fresh efforts.成功能鼓舞人们去作新的努力。

14 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

15 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

16 clandestine   

adj.秘密的，暗中从事的

参考例句：

• She is the director of clandestine operations of the CIA.她是中央情报局秘密行动的负责人。
• The early Christians held clandestine meetings in caves.早期的基督徒在洞穴中秘密聚会。

17 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

18 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

19 linens   

n.亚麻布( linen的名词复数 )；家庭日用织品

参考例句：

• All linens and towels are provided. 提供全套日用织品和毛巾。 来自辞典例句
• Linen, Table Linens, Chair Covers, Bed and Bath Linens. Linen. 采购产品亚麻布，亚麻布，椅子套子，床和沭浴亚麻布。 来自互联网

20 sterilized   

v.消毒( sterilize的过去式和过去分词 )；使无菌；使失去生育能力；使绝育

参考例句：

• My wife was sterilized after the birth of her fourth child. 我妻子生完第4个孩子后做了绝育手术。 来自辞典例句
• All surgical instruments must be sterilized before use. 所有的外科手术器械在使用之前，必须消毒。 来自辞典例句

21 dilated   

adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes dilated with fear. 她吓得瞪大了眼睛。
• The cat dilated its eyes. 猫瞪大了双眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 antibiotic   

adj.抗菌的；n.抗生素

参考例句：

• The doctor said that I should take some antibiotic.医生说我应该服些用抗生素。
• Antibiotic can be used against infection.抗菌素可以用来防止感染。

23 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

24 pregnancies   

怀孕，妊娠( pregnancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• She's had three pregnancies in four years. 她在四年中怀孕叁次。

25 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

26 squad   

n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组

参考例句：

• The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
• A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。

27 braced   

adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来

参考例句：

• They braced up the old house with balks of timber. 他们用梁木加固旧房子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The house has a wooden frame which is braced with brick. 这幢房子是木结构的砖瓦房。 来自《简明英汉词典》

28 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

29 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

30 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

31 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

32 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

33 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

34 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。