Women’s access to family planning, contraception, birth control, emergency contraception, and healthcare services and resources should be unrestricted by the government or religious preferences of private third parties.
What motivates a person to fight for abortion rights?
For Patricia Theresa Maginnis it was a combination. Part of her motivation came from a military tour in Panama and seeing how an unmarried pregnant woman, who was brought in in a strait jacket, was treated. When she worked in a hospital back in the States, she saw hundreds of women admitted from complications after illegal abortions.
Born in 1928, Maginnis was 31 when she moved to San Francisco. Her activism accelerated with her support for abortion reform bills. Things moved too slowly for her as her belief grew that all anti-abortion laws should be repealed. It led her to:
- Form the Citizens Committee for Humane Abortion Laws
- Speak at panel discussions
- Conduct surveys
- Fight for California legislation to make abortion available for everyone.
Two other women joined her in her fight: Rowena Gurner, Lana Phelan. With Maginnis formed they formed the Army of Three. They provided women with information on abortion providers.
In 1968 the Society for Humane Abortion maintained a free Post-Abortion Care Center (PACC), which was sponsored by the American Humanist Association (AHA). Their website says: “The AHA supports every woman’s unequivocal moral and legal right to autonomy over her own body and reproductive choices. Women’s access to family planning, contraception, birth control, emergency contraception, and healthcare services and resources should be unrestricted by the government or religious preferences of private third parties. Local, state, or federal initiatives designed to undermine the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade violate the individual’s human right to pursue all reproductive options.”
Because the Society for Humane Abortion had a tax-free educational status which could have been threatened, Patricia Maginnis set up a parallel organization, the Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (ARAL).
ARAL handed out pamphlets and kits (for a small donation) that gave information about:
- Abortion specialists
- Abortion laws
- Mexican, Japanese and Puerto Rican abortionists
- Customs information
- Directions on self-induced abortions
T hey asked for evaluations after a woman had an abortion to help the group maintain the quality of names given out.
Working with another organization, Maginnis helped:
- Sponsor symposia on abortion procedures for physicians
- Provide speakers and literature to libraries, medical schools, physicians, family planning
- Publish a quarterly newsletter
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