Jane Fishman: 53 years on, still fighting the same battle for reproductive choice

I'm not a smoker. Never have been. It always made me dizzy. But I'm sort of attracted to outliers who continue to defy common sense or medical advice. The dinner was a fundraiser for the Lilith Fund, which is fighting the controversial abortion law in Texas. It's a hot-button issue, to be sure. But to my mind there's nothing disputable about choice. Or health.

It’s funny what you remember in the dark, when prodded by hearing other experiences from other women. I’ve never had an abortion, but there was that August night in 1968 when I witnessed firsthand what happens when women have to resort to unsavory and dangerous means to end an unwanted, untoward pregnancy. I had been visiting family in Detroit before returning to Chicago to resume teaching high school English. I had made plans to have dinner with a Detroit friend who had plans to be in downtown Chicago for a few days. I did not know she had driven there with her mother to get an abortion. Despite extensive connections and deep pockets, her parents were unable to find a local doctor who could help them out. They finally found a connection in Chicago, except it was the week of the raucous, explosive Democratic National Convention. Hotel rooms were hard to find. They finally found one at some private club.

I met up with my friends for dinner the night after the procedure. The story they told was horrendous. At midnight my friend met a driver in the club’s lobby. He was to drive her to a motel in Skokie, a northern suburb. My friend was blindfolded for the ride. When her mother tried to get in the car she was stopped; she couldn’t go.

“The money is in my purse,” my friend recalled saying. “I brought cash as instructed,” she said. Some $700.

“I know,” the doctor said. “I already took it.”

She was returned to the hotel room three hours later. For the next three days she fought the bleeding and the pain.

By the time I met up with them, downtown Chicago had exploded. Vietnam protestors roamed Michigan Avenue and Grant Park followed by police with billy clubs and riot gear.

Without social media, everything was happening in real time. We had no clue what to expect. No one was texting us with warnings. There were no 24-hour newscasts; no beeping alerts. We merely wanted to find someplace to have dinner.

My friend, whose bleeding would not stop, was desperate to find a bathroom. We walked past broken glass from busted plate glass windows. We scooted through crowds of protesters trying to escape some 12,000 police officers. Barroom television screens showed a frantic Mayor Richard J. Daley begging for calm while shutting off the microphone of speakers on the convention floor and shots of a befuddled Hubert Humphrey, who went on to win the nomination. It was a confluence of events of counterculture, anti-Vietnam War protesters and Yippies.

Credit: Steve Bisson, Savannah Morning News

Credit: Steve Bisson, Savannah Morning News

At the time, I was more frightened and scared for my friend than worked up by the convention, the protests and the anger. All I wanted was to get back to my tiny apartment on Aldine Avenue.

As I’m telling this story in the dark on Mills B Lane Boulevard, where 45 people gathered to raise money for a group supporting reproductive autonomy, it seems so preposterous, so ridiculous, I’m wondering if it really happened.

Were women so undervalued, so disparaged? And are we still, some 53 years later?

We cannot let this continue. I am glad we no longer have to whisper in the dark to show our support, but frankly, I can’t believe we’re still fighting the same battle.

Jane Fishman is a contributing lifestyles columnist for the Savannah Morning News. Contact Jane at gofish5@earthlink.net or call 912-484-3045. See more columns by Jane at SavannahNow.com/lifestyle/.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Jane Fishman: 53 years on, still fighting the same battle for reproductive choice