The abortion self-help movement has spanned more than twenty-five years. Its early perspective was influenced heavily by repressive abortion laws, in particular the 1967 California Therapeutic Abortion Act, which stated that abortion was available only in an accredited hospital, only up to twenty weeks, and was subject to approval by a panel of doctors. Women's access to abortion was also severely limited by class, race, and age. Although adult white women with money could obtain abortion (the painful dilation and curettage), young women, poor women, and women of color—those women with least access to institutional medical care—were often forced to turn to illegal abortionists or self-induced abortions.
California women suffered under the restrictions of the Therapeutic Abortion Act. After observing abortions being performed at a local illegal clinic that used a new, less traumatic method utilizing suction to extract the contents of the uterus through a plastic tube attached to a syringe, some decided to learn to do abortions themselves.
The first "self-help clinic" meeting took place in Los Angeles on April 7, 1971. The leaders, including this author, shared information about nontraumatic suction abortion and self-abortion methods and also demonstrated vaginal self-examination using a speculum, mirror, and light. One attendee, Lorraine Rothman, returned to the next meeting with the prototype of a device called the Del'em that made it possible for women with minimal training to perform either menstrual extraction or early abortion. After observation, training, and improvements in the Del'em, the small group successfully performed early abortions and menstrual extractions in private homes.
Starting in 1970, these women traveled around the country to hold "self-help clinic" meetings, sharing information about vaginal self-examination, menstrual extraction, and improved abortion methods. The response was overwhelming. Self-help clinic groups sprung up in their wake. When abortion became legal in January, 1973, some of these groups formed the nuclei of women-controlled abortion clinics.
The collective, which became formally organized as the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers, studied the history of abortion and birth control and learned about population control. The philosophy of the population control movement rested on three assumptions. First, rapid population growth in developing countries is the cause of hunger, disease, and underdevelopment. Second, women cannot be trusted to use birth control and abortion and so should be sterilized, whether or not they want to be. Third, without Western intervention, the Third World will not be able to stabilize its birthrate.
At first the population control movement took approving notice of the self-help movement. The Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers was tentatively approached by foundations about grants for research into menstrual extraction. But women in the self-help movement refused to participate in any program that forced sterilization on women of color while simultaneously espousing support of women's reproductive rights.
Carol Downer
See also
Abortion;
Women's Health Movement.
