Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America

3. “Back-Alley Butchers”: Terminating Pregnancies

51 3 “Back-Alley Butchers” Terminating Pregnancies A real life description, to me, would be a rape victim. Brutally raped; savaged. The girl was a virgin; she was religious; she planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life. —Bill Napoli, Republican state senator, responding to being asked what, in his mind, would constitute a valid exception to South Dakota’s 2006 abortion ban Few decisions are more personal and intimate, more properly private, or more basic to individual dignity and autonomy, than a woman’s decision . . . whether to end her pregnancy. —Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, writing in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians1 On January 28, 2000, Barbara Gaddy was admitted to a New York county jail on drug charges; she was about eight weeks pregnant.2 Barbara wanted to terminate her pregnancy. For four weeks, county jail officials refused her request for an abortion and repeatedly harassed and threatened her.3 Barbara was finally able to schedule an abortion for March 2nd. In the meantime, anti-abortion activist Karen Jackson filed a lawsuit asking the court to block Barbara from having an abortion because taxpayers should not have to pay for an elective medical procedure. A New York State Supreme Court justice barred Barbara from having the abortion (scheduled for the next day) until a hearing took place on whether county 52 “Back-Alley Butchers” corrections officials should pay for the procedure.4 Barbara’s appointment was cancelled.5 As we saw in the previous chapter, respect for a woman’s right to bodily sovereignty requires that the state does not prohibit a woman from becoming pregnant. Nor should the state require that a woman remain pregnant and have a child against her own interests, either. These basic principles have been upheld by courts since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. However, while abortion has remained legal, available, and safe, since 1980 a woman’s ability to decide to terminate her pregnancy has been seriously undermined.6 The lengths that some legislators, prison and jail administrators, judges, and sheriffs (and in some cases, even a woman’s own attorney) will go to prevent a woman or girl from exercising her right to terminate a pregnancy speak to the precarious status of women’s reproductive rights.7 Each year, over 6 million women in the United States will become pregnant.8 About one-half of all pregnancies are unintended.9 Around one-fifth of all pregnancies (and around 40 percent of all unintended pregnancies) will result in an induced abortion.10 Around one-third of the women who obtain legal abortions are 20–24 years old, around 55 percent are white (though abortion rates are highest among black women), over 80 percent are unmarried, and around 60 percent have had at least one live birth before.11 Nearly 90 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester; about 6 percent are performed after 15 weeks gestation.12 Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures performed today. In the United States, the proportion of maternal deaths due to abortion (legal or illegal) is essentially zero; the risk of death associated with childbirth is 11 times higher than that associated with a first-trimester abortion.13 Our abortion policies reflect a view that a woman should not be permitted to make decisions about her body solely and on her own behalf. The public’s conflicted feelings about abortion are manifested in government policies that recognize the formal legality of abortions but impose many obstacles that obstruct women’s access to the right.14 It is not enough for a woman to decide that she needs or wants an abortion. If she is young or poor or incarcerated or advanced in her pregnancy, she very likely will have to convince others, including doctors, judges, parents, and correctional authorities of the correctness of her decision. This effectively abrogates pregnant women’s decision-making power by privileging the interests of her physician, the state, and the fetus over her own. This has a significant “Back-Alley Butchers” 53 impact, not only on women’s access to abortion but also on women’s ability to achieve economic, political, and...