Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles

 

For several months after I finished writing Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles, I felt a heaviness, a sadness for all the women who had suffered. Between research, interviews and writing it had taken a year. The book covered abortion before Roe v. Wade. What helped me not descend into depression was a sense at least with Roe v. Wade women's reproduction rights were safe.

How wrong I was.

I knew that my grandmother and her friends, all born in the late 1800s, controlled the size of their families with the "knitting needle solution." I found it hard to picture these very-proper women, who still wore corsets, aprons and sensible shoes, aborting themselves but none had more than two children at a time when birth control was almost non existent.

I knew many friends had had abortions under frightening conditions. 

As time went on and the pro-lifers became stronger, I was scared we would go backwards. I decided to write a book.

My first interview was with Bill Baird, who after seeing a woman die from a botched abortion, became a lifelong fighter for women's reproductive rights including birth control. Baird was in his late eighties, blind and extremely helpful when we talked. Today he is 92.

Day after day, I did the research. I found information on the first abortion trial in Pomfret, CT. A woman in 1742 died from an abortion and her abortionist was tried. 

I found all the ways women tried to abort their children from the dangerous to the ridiculous.

I watched Tim Sebastian on BBC's Hardtalk interview Norma McCorvey, the Roe of Roe v. Wade. If I ever did anything wrong I would never go on the program because Sebastian would go for the jugular vein. With Norma McCorvey, he pulled his punches, was even gentle. Unfortunately, the interview is no longer on Youtube.

I watched video after video of women who had undergone abortions. Gerri Santoro was featured in a film www.pbs.org/pov/films/leonassistergerri/. An abused wife, she tried to free herself. A do-it-yourself abortion left her bleeding to death on a motel floor. The picture of her lying on the floor in her own blood and her story became an article in Ms Magazine. Gerri's story left me crying.

Watching the films of women's families that had died, brought up something seldom discussed. When a mother dies from an abortion her children grow up motherless like the singer with five children who couldn't afford a sixth. Some of their stories. https://www.attiegoldwater.com/motherless-a-legacy-of-loss-from-illegal-abortion

I did interview after interview. I heard from women who were sexually abused by their abortionists. The age of women varied from 12 to 50, married, unmarried, rich, poor, all classes.

A presenter for Romper Room took Thalidomide just as the news broke on it causing birth defects. She was denied an abortion and had to go to Japan for her abortion. The fetus was horribly deformed. At one point, her children needed police protection when they went to school because of people threatening them because their mother had sought an abortion. 

"Back in the 50s and 60s, every major hospital in the U.S. had a septic abortion ward..." according to Dr. David Grimes.

I gathered information from 3000 B.C. to 2017 which proved to me, women will do what they need to do regardless of society.

I self published and mailed copies of the book to every pro-life group, every Supreme Court Justice. I received a few replies threatening me with hell and/or calling me evil.

Neither myself or my daughter are of child bearing age. However, every young woman is at risk should they become pregnant and want or NEED an abortion for personal, financial or health reasons.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle at cost.