I am sharing my own story one day after Dr. Tiller was gunned down in Wichita, to honor him and other brave physicians whose commitment to womens' right to choose have put them in harm's way.
When I was 20, I became involved with a very handsome and charismatic man (my boss, actually) from my job. I was very inexperienced sexually and no protection was used (actually I was somewhat clueless about the exact facts of human reproduction).
This was in the 1960s, before abortion was legal. "Good" girls in my town who became pregnant either entered hasty marriages or disappeared to relatives' homes far away to have their babies and then give them up for adoption, or went to so-called "homes for unwed mothers", where pregnant girls went to hide until their babies were born, which were immediately adopted out--usually the mothers never even saw the babies before they were gone forever. The alternative was the primitive abortions available involving the shady underbelly of a bad side of town. I knew girls who had taken this route and suffered terribly.
So when I finally understood that I was pregnant I was terrified. I could never have told my parents. I had lived on my own for several years and they couldn't have helped me deal with the problem in any case--they had several more children at home and no financial help to offer me. I was on my own.
I had heard a rumor that a house of prostitution operated in an old building downtown, and that there was a doctor's office in that same building. Well, I supposed in my ignorance, then of course that would be the doctor who would help me! Surely a doctor who practiced in the same building where prostitutes worked would be someone who did abortions all the time! So I made an appointment with this doctor, and walked up the five dingy flights to his office certain that this was the answer to my problem.
When I opened the office door, much to my surprise I realized this was obviously a regular and respectable doctor's office. The four or so patients in the waiting room were well-dressed and obviously weren't prostitutes. My heart sunk to my knees as I realized my foolish mistake. But then I was called to the reception desk and signed in, so I thought I might as well go through with seeing the doctor, anyway--maybe he would have a recommendation for someone who could help me.
As I sat down in the waiting room, I was eyed politely but curiously by the other women waiting--everyone in the room except me was African-American.
When I got in to see the doctor, my heart sunk even more. He was a distinguished-looking African-American gentleman in the usual white doctor's coat, pictures of his family on his desk and his diploma from a well-known medical school on the wall.
I sat down and burst into tears. Gently the doctor asked me questions--how long had it been since my last period, did I have any health problems, my age--the same questions any physician would ask a new patient. He examined me and confirmed that I was pregnant. Seated across from him again, I continued to cry as I explained that I wasn't married, that I had a poorly-paying job and that I couldn't go to my parents for help. Please, I begged, could he tell me where I could go to have a safe abortion?
He reached across his desk and patted my hand and said "Stop crying. I'm going to help you". He then told me that once or twice a year he would help a pregnant woman in situations where he felt he really must help. I was to return to his office late Friday evening and he would perform an abortion in his office. He would be there alone, he said, so I should bring someone who could take care of me afterwards. His nurse and other office staff had no idea he ever performed illegal abortions, he told me. I could tell nobody. His fee, he said, would be $150. (At this time, the only remotely safe abortion available in town cost around $450, a huge sum at that time).
On Friday, I returned to the doctor's office with the man who'd impregnated me. The doctor gave me local anesthesia and performed a dilatation and curettage abortion in his spotless procedures room. It hurt but was soon over. "Call me if you have any bleeding or other problems", he said. And that was that. I returned home to my apartment and recovered within a few days.
Over the years I realized what this kind physician had risked--at that time abortion was completely illegal and he had risked his license and very severe criminal penalties to help me for a very small sum of money. In an age of casual and cruel racial injustice, this black doctor could have easily withheld his help to me, a white middle-class young woman who had never given a thought to racial inequalities. My gratitude for what he did for me has only grown over the years.
I was able to go on with my life, to go to college and make my successful way in the world. I married and had a child when I was ready to make this commitment in my life. And to make up for what this doctor risked in helping me at such a frightening time, I give money now to Planned Parenthood and to NARAL for the ongoing work they do to preserve the now-legal right to abortion for women in this generation and those to come. Those of us who lived through the age of totally illegal abortion hope that young women now will never take this right for granted as anti-choice factions seek every day to send women back to the back alleys for abortions they choose and need to have.
Oh, and one more thing--there were no prostitutes in Dr. S.'s building--just a storage facility for a paper company and a hardware store on the first floor. I had started out with a completely mistaken notion and stumbled on a kind and brave angel, who has now passed on. Thank you, Dr. S. You'll always be my hero.
Dana
