July 2003

Whose Choice??

While working on this piece, two incidents from my sordid past reared their ugly heads. Memory can play tricks—in most cases, you remember only that which gratifies you. The rest gets shunted into the dustbin of history. The short jumper that did not go with seconds on the clock, the strikeout with runners in scoring position, the C in European
history—these are incidents that are forgotten as you ruminate on the past. So memories’
sleight-of-hand notwithstanding, here are my tales.

The first involved an old high school chum. It was 1969. He had taken up residence with a woman, and frankly, they had been going at it like rabbits for about six months. As you might have expected, she became pregnant. Both of them were poor, starving students, and knew that they had no business bringing babies into the world that they could not support. My old pal approached me…thinking that maybe I could help them out of their predicament…that perhaps I knew somebody…and I did. I knew a speed freak (call him Fast Eddie) who was a cousin of an MD from a large Midwestern city. He performed clean, antiseptic abortions in a clinical setting. Let’s call the MD Doctor Crackerjack. Fast Eddie would call the Doc and tell him that a couple from Columbus needed to see him. They would come on a Friday morning at which time the Doc would do a routine exam. If everything was in order, he would instruct them to return in the afternoon. Doctor Crackerjack would perform the abortion at that time, and instruct the couple to return the next day to check for excessive bleeding and infection…all of this for 250 dollars…1969 money. My friends went to Doc Crackerjack and everything went off without a hitch. They were very grateful to me, Dr. Crackerjack and to Fast Eddie, the over-amped speed freak.

The second of my tales involved a colleague—a devout German Catholic from a wealthy suburban family. She was hanging out with a Quaalude junkie…not only did they set his apartment on fire, but she also became pregnant. Dr. Crackerjack was on the run, the New York option was not available yet, and Roe vs. Wade was still 3 years down the road. She approached me…and I just happened to know a drug dealer whose sister was a Licensed Practical Nurse with a revoked license. She performed abortions upstairs from a storefront in the neighborhood of 105th and Superior Avenues in Cleveland. Does it sound sordid yet?? My friend had to go back twice to get the job done…and eventually the damage done to her had to be surgically repaired.

Then in April 1970 came the New York option. Thanks to the courage of a few right- thinking souls in the New York State Assembly, abortion was legalized in that state. I suppose one could even applaud Gov. Nelson Rockefeller for signing the legislation… if he weren’t such a murderous sonofabitch. If you could afford the airfare to New York and the overnight accommodations and the doctor’s fees; then, you could have a legal abortion…in a clinical setting. If you were poor and had an unwanted pregnancy… too bad.

In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled on Roe vs. Wade. This was an acknowledgement by the Court of women’s reproductive rights…a recognition of the idea that decisions concerning a pregnancy were between a woman and her doctor. It was a step out of the dark ages…no more Hough area storefronts…no more ‘abortion underground’. Now the right to choose was the law of the land, and miraculously, that decision has not been overturned for thirty years. In spite of the maniacal demonstrations by right- to-life crazies, in spite of the murder of doctors, in spite of the fire-bombing of clinics, in spite of the wretched rhetoric of the religious right…a woman still has the right to choose in this country.

How much longer will there be a choice?

I recently received mail from Planned Parenthood which solicited funds. Planned Parenthood is a noble organization — they provide affordable reproductive health care and counseling, and they have been doing it for a very long time…but this same mailing referred to a ‘fringe minority of religious extremist groups who have invested millions to elect an anti-choice congress and an anti-choice president’. As much as I admire Planned Parenthood, I believe that they are woefully misguided about that ‘fringe minority’ business. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote on the results of a December 2002 Gallup Poll—the subject was religion in the U.S.A. Forty-six percent of those polled described themselves as evangelical Christians or born-agains. Forty-eight percent of those polled believe in creationism, and a mere twenty-eight percent believe in evolution. There is a problem when these fundamentalist Christians make public policy…their faith produces extreme discomfort with the notions of condoms, sex education and the like…and any policy which does not include these factors will lead to more AIDS, more pregnancies… and yes, more abortions.

There is also the ‘gag rule’ for your consideration. This is an edict issued by Reagan in 1987…its purpose was to prohibit U.S. funding of any health facility in the world that mentioned the word ‘abortion’. If a clinic in Botswana treated AIDS patients and performed abortions—absolutely no American dollars for them. Bill Clinton rescinded this nonsense soon after his election, and now Bush has rescinded the rescission…the gag rule is back. No matter how vital the clinic might be in a community, the mere mention of the ‘A’ word will disqualify it for any federal funding.

Did you know that the University of Arizona stopped offering or teaching abortion in 1974. This was a promise made to the state legislature in return for 5.5 million dollars to build a new football stadium at the Tucson campus.

I don’t think that the Bush administration will mount a full frontal assault on Roe vs. Wade in the federal court system. Such a brazen act would alienate a substantial element of his political base—namely, suburban, professional women who identify themselves as pro-choice Republicans…rather, they will use a piecemeal, state-by- state strategy…chipping away…making the choice of abortion increasingly more difficult and expensive.

Governor Sibelius of Kansas—a Democrat and a woman—recently vetoed just such a piece of legislation overwhelmingly passed by the stupid white men in the Kansas state legislature. This law would have required all health facilities in the state to possess millions of dollars worth of unnecessary equipment and facilities or lose state funding. Many clinics that provide abortions…especially to low income women…would close. An attempt to override this veto will happen later this summer.

So much has been written about how the fundamentalists have hijacked the Nation of Islam while the fundamentalists in this country are driven by the same agenda… a return to the stone age where the only choice for women are the abortion underground or a seedy storefront in the Hough. Mullah Omar of the Taliban once said that the only place for women in Islam was in the house of their husband or father…or in the ground….perhaps the so called religious right shares this view.