THE RIGHT WE WON

contributed by Rose Massing from the Emergency Abortion Task Force and NOW Abortion hearings, Fall, 1974

I would like to speak in favor of women's rights to abortion from the standpoint of a social worker who has seen the unbelievable tragedies to women and children when legal abortions were not available. I have been a social worker for over thirty years. I have worked with pregnant women in the clinics of our hospitals in Cleveland: I have tried to help them during and after their pregnancies; I have also worked in agencies that do adoption work, that provide foster homes, and in institutions for dependent and neglected children. I have worked in state, city and county welfare organizations. And finally, I have worked for the past fifteen years with families and young people in the public schools.

There is probably no greater dilemma that faces a woman than being pregnant with a child for which she is not ready at that particular time in her life. It is a time of great decision, and it is a decision that no one can really help her make. I have tried to empathize with the young unmarried mothers when there was no legal abortion available. I have tried to feel what they were feeling the fear of disclosing the information to their mothers, the trapped feeling of not knowing whom to approach for a safe abortion, the wish to disappear somewhere where she was not known and to return without shame and dread to her community, her school or her job; the wish to somehow keep the baby, the knowledge that possibly placement for adoption might be a path to follow, yet the knowledge too that she would never forgive herself in years to come when she might be able to offer as much or maybe even more than adoptive parents. I have tried to empathize, but I have been aware that without the alternative of a legal, safe abortion the woman sitting at my desk was not having the opportunity for a real alternative: to end the pregnancy safely and to be able to give birth to a baby later when, and if, she really felt ready to do so.

The decision to have a baby is equally as important as the decision not to have one, and making that decision is only possible if abortion is an alternative and of course, if birth control measures are made absolutely safe and harmless.

Every pregnant woman wants to know that her coming baby is a welcome one. Experience has shown that a baby that is truly wanted has a better chance of survival and of good loving care. Every mother wants to know that her family and friends will continue to love her and give her child the kind of warm

acceptance that will make her baby's future a secure one. Every mother wants to be proud of the putative father and wants his loving support. These and many other unknowns face a pregnant woman. Unlike many European countries we make no government provisions for decent day care programs. Our institutions for children, our foster homes, throughout our country are full of children whose parents cannot care, for them, yet cannot bring themselves to relinquish these children for adoption. Not in all cases, but in many, the children were unwanted childrenborn when a woman did not have access to a safe, legal abortion.

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In the past when we counselled a young woman about the ways to cope with an unwanted pregnancy, we could not really discuss the problem honestly to suggest an abortion as one possible solution was illegal and therefore unethical. In fact to discuss birth control measures was unethical in the case of an unmarried woman neither the planned parenthood organizations nor the ob-gyn clinics would provide birth control information or devices until quite recently. Hence, we were really in a never-never land, and the only alternative that we could safely suggest was that perhaps there would be a bed available in a maternity home. All the while the pregnant girl sitting there was probably wondering if there was some safe way she could abort the child; and her mother was probably wondering how she could persuade her to have an illegal abortion without harming her or making her feel rejected.

Denial is one of the terms social workers and psychologists use when a client appears to be repressing reality factors and running. away from them, unconsciously. Denial is when a pregnant woman doesn't want to think about or talk about her coming baby when she is so confused she can't think straight.

And denial is when the same girl smiles brave. ly, thanks you and says she isn't really afraid and she'll manage somehow. How these girls have managed, we will never know, but buried in their heads and hearts are stories of deaths, pain, confusion, and also of coping, somehow, in spite of the deep hurt.

I can remember a married woman who delivered her twins in the emergency room, and left them in the hospital the next day so that she could return to her job and her family. Somehow by corsetting herself tightly she had managed to conceal her pregnancy. By some unbelievable miracle the babies were born healthy. She relinquished them for adoption.

I can remember a high school senior whose father was able to pay a psychiatrist to see his daughter and to recommend a therapeutic abortion the only trouble was that she was in love with the father of the baby and she didn't want an abortion.

To me it really makes sense every woman should have an opportunity to decide what she wants to do about her pregnancy. And if she wants it, she should have qualified counselling from someone who will help her think out, carefully, all the alternatives. An abortion, like any other surgery, is a deep and meaningful experience for every woman, and has different meanings for each one, and for the same person at different stages of her life.

The best statement I have seen about the topic of legal abortions was made by Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, at the time of the Supreme Court Ruling (January, 1973). He stated:... That a woman is free to make the basic decision whether to bear an unwanted child... that childbirth may deprive a woman of her preferred life style and force upon her a radically different and undesired future... to endure the discomforts of pregnancy; to incur the pain, higher mortality rate and after effects of childbirth; to abandon educational plans; to tax further mental and physical health in providing childcare; and in some cases to bear the lifelong stigma of unwed motherhood, a badge which may hound if not deter later family relationships.

The Supreme Court Decision of 1973, legalizing abortions and women's rights to them, is a landmark decision, possibly the most valuable in guaranteeing freedom to women for all time. We should do all we can to prevent the striking down or weakening of that freedom.

a social worker's

LNS/cpf

page 6 What She Wants/ January 1975

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