And oh yeah

[ellid]

I attended a candlelight vigil for Dr. Tiller in Northampton on Wednesday night. We had almost two hundred people of all ages and both genders. I spent several minutes chatting with a man who remembered the days thirty years ago when fully a third of the beds in maternity wards were occupied by women with infections, perforated uteri, septic shock, and hysterectomies caused by illegal abortions. A lot of those women died, and a lot more were left sterile thanks to the surgeries needed to save those lives.

Dr. Tiller helped those in desperate straits. Now he's gone because of a fanatic. I wonder how many women will die, how many men will be widowed, and how many children will be left motherless because he isn't around anymore?

Comments

[cordelia_v]

I'm so glad that people are organizing vigils for Dr. Tiller. It's important not to let this fade from memory.

Normally I do read your journal, but almost never comment. But this inspired me to comment because the man you spoke to reminded me of stories told to me by my grandmother, a physician who began her practice in the 1930s. She said that every hospital in those days had a septic abortion ward, usually located right next to the maternity ward. And she said that many of them did die; often they were mothers already, and their households simply couldn't afford to feed one more mouth. When they died, she said that family members often begged her to put down "appendicitis" or "pneumonia" as the cause of death, because abortion was so very stigmatizing.

My grandmother was a founding member of Planned Parenthood in her county. To her, this was a public health issue, pure and simple.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

The chaplain at Smith when I was an undergrad had been part of an Underground Railroad of ministers and doctors who ensured that women got safe abortions in the days before Roe v. Wade. I will *never* forget him saying that he still had his list of contacts and would not hesitate to reactivate the network if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned.

I think a lot of people either don't remember the bad old days or have been so caught up in the anti-abortion rhetoric that they forget that not all pregnancies are viable, that not all women are physically capable of bearing children, and that there are plenty of families and situations when it simply is not feasible for a woman to continue a pregnancy. And that countries that outlaw abortions don't see a decline in the abortion rate, just a corresponding rise in the maternal mortality rate.