| In the years just before abortion became legal in 1973, hospital wards were filled with women seeking abortions--who either had been injured or become sick obtaining an illegal abortion under dangerous conditions, or who had tried to induce the abortion themselves.
Desperate women used a number of dangerous means to terminate pregnancies. Some sought abortions from back-alley abortionists, with usually humiliating and sometimes deadly results. Other women tried to induce abortions with homemade means--such as a bleach douche, or inserting sharp instruments into her cervix. This is why the now almost forgotten image of the wire coat hanger became the symbol of the abortion rights movement. By ELIZABETH SCHULTE |
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At www.counterpunch.org
At www.counterpunch.org
