Providing Our Own Abortions.

http://www.cwluherstory.com/CWLUFeature/feature.html

Jane: An Abortion Service

Today it's hard to remember when abortion was illegal. But before the Roe vrs. Wade court decision of 1973, women with unwanted pregnancies faced difficult choices.

Women with money could travel to a country where abortion was legal. Those without that option could take their chances with illegal abortionists in this country. Others tried dangerous self-induced abortions, making the coat hanger a national symbol of women's desperation. Each year an estimated 5,000 women died from botched abortions.

The Abortion Counseling Service of Women's Liberation, better known by its nickname "Jane", began as an underground referral group. Eventually they decided to perform the abortions themselves.

Former Jane members estimate that they performed more than 11,000 illegal abortions. Working under difficult clandestine conditions, Jane became legendary on the streets of Chicago for the quality of its care and the dedication of its members...

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We were members of a Chicago women’s organization that proved by four years experience that included performing more than 12,000 illegal abortions that abortions can be performed safely, humanely and very inexpensively by nonprofessional paramedics working under often primitive conditions.

In spite of the fact that the women who came through our abortion service were largely women who had nowhere else to go—too far pregnant, too poor, too young, too oppressed, too sick, too alone; and in spite of having to work under incredible stress, with inadequate facilities and no cloak of legitimacy to protect us, our medical results over four years compare favorably with the results of licensed medical facilities in New York and California.

Our group had its foundations in women’s liberation. Our view was that all women are equals and peers; there was no hierarchical “Professional” relationship between counselor and patient—nor among counselors regardless of their responsibilities. We worked with, not on, the pregnant women who came through the service.

Counselor, patient or paramedic—we were all partners in the crime of demanding the freedom to control our own bodies and our own childbearing.

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The Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU) grew out of the women's movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and the other social movements of the time.

From 1969-1977, CWLU members dedicated themselves to developing grassroots programs for women while working toward a long term revolution in American society.