The online archive of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (1969-1977)
Jane
Jane: An Abortion Service
Women with money could travel to a country where abortion was legal. Those without that option could take their chances with illegal abortionists in this country. Others tried dangerous self-induced abortions, making the coat hanger a national symbol of women's desperation. Each year an estimated 5,000 women died from botched abortions. The Abortion Counseling Service of Women's Liberation, better known by its nickname "Jane", began as an underground referral group. Eventually they decided to perform the abortions themselves.
Former
Jane members estimate that they performed more than 11,000
illegal abortions. Working under difficult clandestine
conditions, Jane became legendary on the streets of Chicago
for the quality of its care and the dedication of its
members. This section of our website is dedicated to Ruth Surgal ("Big Jane") 1937-2004 |
|
Today
it's hard to remember when abortion was illegal. But before
the Roe vrs. Wade court decision of 1973, women with unwanted
pregnancies faced difficult choices.
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From Women Who Broke the Silence
“
And the crazy part of it was even if you were clever, even if you spent
your adolescence reading John Donne and Shaw, even if you studied
history or zoology or physics and hoped to spend your life pursuing
some difficult and challenging career, you still had a mind full of all
the soupy longings that every high-school girl was awash in...
underneath it, all you longed to be was annihilated by love, to be
swept off your feet, to be filled up by a giant prick spouting sperm,
soapsuds, silk and satins and, of course, money.
Copyright © 1999 - 2008 CWLU Herstory Project: The Online History of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union.
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