Expecting a proliferation of abortion restrictions at the state level, pro-abortion forces are organizing an ”Overland Railroad” to help pregnant women travel to New York and other states that have liberal abortion laws.
The plan, modeled after the Underground Railroad, in which abolitionists helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in the last century, comes in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in June that upheld the right to choose abortion but allowed the state of Pennsylvania to impose several restrictions on the procedure.
”The idea is to use the NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League)
network to give women transportation, to give women escorts, to give women homes if they need them, to make sure that every woman who needs an abortion can get it,” said Kelli Conlin, executive director of the New York State chapter of NARAL.
A similar program, called the Overground Railroad, was set up three years ago by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Philadelphia. The group instituted a structure at that time because it believed another case before the Supreme Court at the time might be used to challenge Roe vs. Wade. It was not needed then, but the Overground Railroad`s 600 members in about 40 states are prepared to volunteer to ”transport, house or escort individuals in need of help” in getting legal abortions, said a member reached through the group`s toll-free number who would identify herself only as ”Carol.”
Teenagers would be referred first to counseling, Carol said.
”As you see more restrictions coming down in other states, it`s going to become much more of a burden on New York,” Conlin said.
New York has no significant barrier to abortions performed within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. It is also one of the few states that will fund Medicaid abortions for poor women. Those who learn that New York has few restrictions on abortion might travel there rather than checking on restrictions in their home states first, thus adding to the financial cost to New York State. (Officially, one must live in New York State and show evidence of financial need to qualify for Medicaid; but in practice, requirements often are circumvented by various means-a letter written by a friend verifying residence, for example.)
Conlin said she expects New York to become a hub for out-of-state abortions, as it was before the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in its 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade. (New York had legalized abortion in 1970.) However, it will be at least a month before Pennsylvania`s law goes into effect. Its requirements include a 24-hour waiting period, pre-abortion counseling, consent of a parent or judge of a girl under age 18 and statistical reporting by the physician.
”There is the prediction that the poor women of Pennsylvania are going to need to be hand-held across the state line to get abortions in large numbers,” said Geraldine Oftedahl, chairwoman of the New York State Right to Life Committee. ”We have no basis for believing that`s an accurate prediction.”
Oftedahl said her group will continue its efforts to limit the availability of abortion by concentrating on educating the public, offering legislative proposals and helping elect public officials sympathetic to their point of view.
Pro-abortion forces find the current situation reminiscent of the years between 1970 and 1973, when some states relaxed abortion laws while other states remained firm in banning the procedure.
In 1970, Dr. Jane Hodgson, 77, an obstetrician-gynecologist, was medical director of a clinic in Washington, which had eased its laws.
”We were doing 1,500 abortions a month, and that`s when I had my eyes opened,” said Hodgson, who now lives in St. Paul. ”The women came from all over the country. They were all ages. Many of them would arrive and be broke- they wouldn`t have the money to stay overnight.”
As in the program currently being set up by NARAL, clinic counselors in those days housed some patients in their homes and provided funds for food, transportation and other needs. Because follow-up care frequently was unavailable when they returned home, the women were given dimes to call the New York clinic collect in the event of trouble, Hodgson said.
Dr. David Grimes, a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who investigated abortion-related deaths for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said many of the deaths of women between 1970 and 1973 were caused by travel-related complications. He cited the case of a Little Rock woman who took a bus to get an abortion in New York City, immediately reboarded the bus and then died when she returned to Little Rock. Travel`s rigors and a woman`s financial inability to remain for follow-up care in the city in which the abortion is performed can lead to medical complications, he said.
Even in states where abortion is unrestricted, many women must travel long distances to find abortion providers, said Grimes, noting that 83 percent of all U.S. counties do not have abortion providers.
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Alexander Sanger, president of Planned Parenthood Inc. of New York, said younger doctors are less inclined to perform abortions today because ”they don`t understand what it was like before 1970-they didn`t work in emergency rooms where they were patching together women who had given themselves abortions and seeing those women die.”
Dr. Bill Peterson, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, recalled the situation in the 1940s and 1950s.
”I recall very vividly the days when women didn`t have the right to choose an abortion, when they used slippery elm, potassium permanganate and turpentine and, of course, the old coat hanger or catheter,” said Peterson, 69.
Peterson recounts the story of an illegal abortion clinic set up on an idyllic Virginia estate. The clinic would have its drivers pick up patients on street corners at night, blindfold them and then transfer them to another vehicle before taking them to the estate. After the abortion, the process was repeated in reverse.
In New York City during the 1950s, there was also the case of a well-known physician on Park Avenue who did ”a fairly good job” except that he would sometimes demand sex with his patients in addition to his $750 fee, Peterson said.
Burke Balch, state legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, said the abortion horror stories of that era were exaggerated after World War II.
”You have to look back to the 1940s to find maternal deaths in the thousands,” he said. ”What happened was, with the introduction of penicillin and sulfa around the time of World War II, the deaths dropped to approximately 250 a year.”
”It was medical progress, not the legalization of abortion, that reduced the dangers of abortion to mothers,” Balch said.
By the 1960s, according to Hodgson, abortion counselors were referring the better-heeled clients overseas.
”It was sort of an underground thing, where we sent people to Mexico, Canada, Japan and, after 1967 when the British law changed, to England,” she said. Other popular destinations included the Scandinavian countries and Puerto Rico. Cuba was also a popular destination for U.S. women before travel was banned.
In Chicago, a women`s group based in Hyde Park created an underground network in 1969 called ”Jane” that bypassed the medical community. Approximately 120 women, trained by illegal abortionists, reportedly performed 11,000 to 13,000 illegal abortions over a four-year period.
Kelli Conlin, the NARAL official, said her group is hoping to help women avoid unsafe, back-alley abortions.
Before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortions in 1973, Conlin said, ”It was mainly wealthy women who had the wherewithal to get somewhere where they didn`t know anyone. They could pay for the hotels, pay for transportation and everything else.
”What we want to make sure of is that if it comes to this again, that every woman will have access to legal abortions.”