{"id":266104,"date":"2022-04-14T10:35:05","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T15:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=266104"},"modified":"2022-04-13T13:24:12","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T18:24:12","slug":"abortion-underground-preps-post-roe-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-underground-preps-post-roe-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion underground preps for a post-Roe America"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As it was in the days leading up to the 1973 Roe v. Wade<\/em> Supreme Court decision, there is today an abortion underground preparing to commit abortions in a post-Roe<\/em> America.\u00a0Despite past (and debunked) pro-abortion\u00a0claims<\/a> that hundreds of thousands of women died from illegal self-abortions prior to decriminalization, modern abortion underground efforts are largely focused on the promotion of DIY, or self-managed, abortions.<\/p>\n

In 1959<\/a>, Mary S. Calderone, medical director of Planned Parenthood,\u00a0acknowledged<\/a> that \u201cphysicians of impeccable standing are referring their patients for these illegal abortions to the colleagues whom they know are willing to perform them\u2026\u201d She called abortion \u201cno longer a dangerous procedure,\u201d because it was being committed by physicians, claiming that \u201c\u202690 per cent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Planned Parenthood president Alan Guttmacher in\u00a01967<\/a>\u00a0claimed, \u201cSeventy per cent of the illegal abortions in the country are performed by reputable physicians, each thinking himself a knight in white armor.\u201d And in a recent UCSF Innovating Education training module<\/a>, former abortionist Carole Joffe described<\/a> those \u201cwho provided abortions\u201d during a \u201chuge huge market of illegal abortion\u201d as \u201cdoctors of conscience\u201d and \u201cwell trained people who were established in the medical practice,\u201d adding that they were \u201cphysicians \u2013 mainly male.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to create a fear of back alley and illegal abortion in order to pursue Roe v Wade,” abortion activist Maggie Mayhem told<\/a> an audience on her video, “Hackers in a Post Roe v. Wade World.” She added that “it wasn\u2019t necessarily as honest as it was politically advantageous to talk about it the way we did.”<\/p>\n

Prior to Roe<\/em>, the New York-based Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CCS) helped women obtain illegal abortions from physicians. According to Time.com<\/a>, the CCS, started by Rev. Howard Moody of the Judson Memorial Church in New York City in 1967, acted under what they claimed to be \u201chigher laws and moral obligations transcending legal codes.\u201d In Chicago, volunteers with a group called the Jane Collective<\/a>\u00a0referred patients to abortionists, later learning to commit abortions and performing about 12,000 abortions between 1969 to 1973, according to<\/a>\u00a0The Atlantic. Films about past underground networks are currently being produced, including \u201cThis is Jane<\/a>\u201d for Amazon Studios and \u201cThe Janes<\/a>,\u201d which will premiere as part of the Doc10 Documentary Film Festival.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Pro-life lawmakers should focus on halting the growth of virtual abortion pill dispensaries<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Modern networks developing<\/b><\/p>\n

Modern abortion efforts<\/a> are instructing activists to create devices to carry out dangerous, DIY abortions using<\/a> a mason jar, a rubber stopper, a syringe, aquarium tubing, a plastic speculum, a cannula, and a one-way valve,\u00a0The Atlantic<\/a>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

“So this is a device with a few components. One of them is a needleless syringe, which creates suction. The other most important one is something called a cannula. It is a flexible plastic tube that’s used to be introduced into the uterus and is used also for suction. In the middle, there is a mason jar that’s connected to both of those elements using aquarium tubing. And there’s also a one-way valve that prevents backflow,\u201d Journalist Jessica Bruder, author of the Atlantic piece,\u00a0told<\/a> NPR.<\/p>\n

The idea behind this seedy contraption began\u00a0with\u00a0Carol Downer<\/a>, founder of the Feminist Women\u2019s Health Centers, years before abortion was legal. Downer\u00a0developed<\/a> the practice of “menstrual extraction<\/a>,” creating an underground network of unlicensed women who performed home abortions. “The ‘menstrual’ in the title comes because Downer says the procedure was only performed when a woman\u2019s period was\u00a0due, and they wouldn’t take a pregnancy test beforehand. That way, everyone had plausible deniability,” wrote KPCC.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, those same proposed<\/a> euphemisms are referring<\/a> to use of the abortion pill regimen as \u201cmissed period pills\u201d or \u201clater period pills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruder’s Atlantic piece, “A Covert Network of Activists is Preparing for the End of Roe<\/a>,” read in part, “A sprawling grassroots infrastructure has already grown in the cracks\u2026 even with Roe<\/i> still the law of the land. More than 90 local organizations known as abortion funds<\/a> raise money to pay for procedures and related expenses\u2026 Below the grass roots is the underground: a small network of community providers who connect with abortion seekers by word of mouth. This network, too, is growing. Its ranks include midwives, herbalists, doulas, and educators. When necessary, they are often willing to work around the law.”<\/p>\n

Bruder even described a Zoom meeting where abortion advocates learn about “ending pregnancies with legal drugs and without medical supervision.” Bruder claimed that curriculum was developed by Susan Yanow, spokesperson for SASS\u2014Self-Managed Abortion; Safe and Supported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Community providers in the abortion underground<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSo there’s a network of people in general who refer to themselves as community providers. And the idea is a community provider could be anybody who’s willing to connect women with abortion pills who might not otherwise be able to get them, or in some cases, offer alternate options,\u201d Bruder told<\/a> NPR.<\/p>\n

An activist who attended network training described being led to a home which “belonged to a set designer” where “the roughly 20 students practiced in themed rooms, giving one another vaginal exams and checking blood pressure.”<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The Guardian:<\/a><\/p>\n

Partway through the workshop, a pregnant woman arrived who had agreed to let them witness her abortion by a Del-Em, a homemade suction device invented by female activists in 1971, when abortion was still outlawed. It was built from a Mason jar, a one-way valve, and two lines of plastic tubing \u2013 one that leads to a cannula, a medical straw that removes fluids, and another that leads to a syringe without a needle, which can be pumped to create suction. <\/em><\/p>\n

A student threw a floral blanket on the leather bed, and Anna hid the masks that lined the room. The woman entered and lay on her back before a midwife, who set a speculum around her cervix, peered inside her vagina with a headlamp, and inserted the cannula into the uterus. The students watched as the client pumped the syringe, blood slugging down the see-through tube.<\/em><\/p>\n

Writer Nina Liss-Shultz, who authored “Inside the Top-Secret Abortion Underground” published<\/a> by Mother Jones, claims to have\u00a0talked to dozens of \u201cclandestine providers, and our conversations offer a rare glimpse into a world that is shrouded in secrecy and fear.\u201d As one secretive online resource for underground providers puts it, Liss-Schultz wrote, \u201cClinical abortion care plays a vital role,\u201d but \u201cwe all deserve the right to choose how, where, and with whom we want to have our abortions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abortion pills part of post-Roe strategy<\/b><\/p>\n

Melissa Grant, chief operations officer for Carafem<\/a>,<\/a> told<\/a> Today about obtaining abortion pills online or in stores from Mexico. An underground network<\/a>\u00a0promoting illegal abortions was highlighted recently in a\u00a0Vice News mini-documentary<\/a>, while Mexican abortion activists are conspiring<\/a>\u00a0to smuggle<\/a> abortion pills into Texas.<\/p>\n