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January 21, 2018 3:16 AM   Subscribe

Before Roe v Wade, Jane was a network of women who provided abortions to Chicago women. The service was launched in 1965 by Heather Booth, then a 19-year-old student at the University of Chicago. Her friend's sister was pregnant and desperately wanted an abortion. Booth found a doctor who was willing to perform the procedure secretly. "By the third call, I realized I couldn't manage it on my own," Booth says. "So I set up a system. We called it 'Jane.' " At first, Jane connected women with doctors. But eventually, the group's members started performing abortions themselves. With time, Jane grew into an all-women network with dozens of members, ranging from students to housewives.
posted by stillmoving (11 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
Synchronistically, this has been in the news here: Tasmania's only abortion clinic closes, putting pressure on government to find alternative

It's a huge problem, but it's not because abortion is illegal: it's because contraception and RU-486 have made the sole existing surgical clinic unviable. That being said, the present Tasmanian government does seem to be pretty unfriendly to reproductive rights, so I wouldn't be surprised if there had been some discreet obstructionism leading up to this .
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:06 AM on January 21, 2018


Usually, they gave their clients a muscle contractor and an antibiotic...
I wonder how they got hold of prescription drugs?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:24 AM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


I totally learned about Jane from an episode of Cold Case.
posted by leesh at 9:01 AM on January 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


I wonder how they got hold of prescription drugs?

God bless the doctors who were supplying them, and I hope that they were never caught.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:03 AM on January 21, 2018 [15 favorites]


By the way, I think that's a typo and should be muscle relaxer.
posted by stillmoving at 9:13 AM on January 21, 2018


I think that was also the era of the "mother's little helper," and benzodiazapenes and other relaxing agents were fairly easily available for stressed moms, so may have been somewhat easy to obtain those meds from the family doctor and use for others.

I would also be curious to know the racial and ethnic background of the women who used and had access to their services.
posted by stillmoving at 9:59 AM on January 21, 2018


A couple of notes on Heather Booth, a founder of Jane, who organized in Chicago for decades, and then in Washington.

This week Heather was arrested in the US Capitol, protesting for DACA and immigration reform. Meanwhile, her husband Paul Booth, who she met 50 years earlier at an anti-war sit-in in Chicago, was in his last hours of life in a hospital nearby. It seems Heather made it to the hospital to tell Paul Booth about that day's protest before he died.
posted by cushie at 10:10 AM on January 21, 2018 [24 favorites]


Thanks for this! I always appreciate hearing about Jane. A few years ago, I read The Story of Jane by Laura Kaplan, a history of the collective written by one of the members, and it really stuck with me.

I would also be curious to know the racial and ethnic background of the women who used and had access to their services.

I still have my notes from when I read the book, and race was one of the angles I was particularly interested in. They served a diverse population from the start:"college students of all races, which she expected, and black women from the neighborhood and her Movement contacts. But there was also a growing number of white working-class women, wives and daughters of city workers, many of whom were Catholic."

The number of women of color, and black women in particular, they served increased as Jane's phone number started spreading through the city and by word of mouth. The collective, almost all white women, struggled to recruit WOC to be involved as counselors--a goal they recognized as crucial as WOC became a more predominant part of the women they served. (The book acknowledged the complicated aspect of white women performing abortions for poor black women, as well as some of the racial and other intersectional blindspots they had. It also features the story of a black woman who became a counselor with Jane after she accompanied a friend to her abortion, and then later turned to Jane when she had an unintended pregnancy of her own; at the time the book was published (late 90s), she was the only former member of Jane currently working at an abortion clinic.)
posted by mixedmetaphors at 11:13 AM on January 21, 2018 [16 favorites]


By the way, I think that's a typo and should be muscle relaxer.

It was probably a drug like pitocin in or ergonovine to stimulate uterine contractions and help expel the contents and prevent bleeding. Given that those drugs are not controlled substances and diversion control in the 1960s was pretty lax, not only physicians but sympathetic nurses and pharmacists could have helped them out. All are worthy of praise.
posted by TedW at 12:18 PM on January 21, 2018 [9 favorites]


previously
posted by brujita at 2:27 PM on January 21, 2018


Wow! I had no idea Heather Booth was the founder. She is a legend in organizing circles. I met her once, along with her husband, who seemed just thrilled and proud to be married to such a force of nature. They were both lovely people and she was inspiring.

Rest in power, Paul, and keep giving them hell, Heather.
posted by lunasol at 1:01 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


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