From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in the 20th Century U.S.
U.S. Law and Race Initiative
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09/11/2024
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Please join us for a conversation on criminal abortion in the 20th century with Alicia Gutierrez-Romine (California State University, San Bernardino), author of From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969.
William Thomas will moderate the discussion and invite questions from the audience, including our students.
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- [00:00:05.090]Wonderful so Good Morning everyone, thank you for joining us
- [00:00:08.353]for the final U.S. Law and Race Initiative webinar in our spring 2024 series.
- [00:00:14.010]My name is Anne Gregory, and I'm a first year PhD student in history at University of Nebraska
- [00:00:20.854]studying American indigenous and legal histories and history of Indian territory.
- [00:00:26.619]Launched with support in fall of 2023
- [00:00:30.240]the US law and race initiative explores new approaches to research,
- [00:00:34.640]teaching, and public engagement
- [00:00:37.181]with the history of law, race and racialization in the United States.
- [00:00:41.909]Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation,
- [00:00:44.840]the initiative brings together large university teaching programs,
- [00:00:48.646]immersive new forms of digital media content,
- [00:00:51.360]and Community partnership storytelling
- [00:00:54.164]in order to connect Americans to their history in
- [00:00:57.340]ways that repair the fractures in our national understanding of race and racialization.
- [00:01:02.072]Dr. Will Thomas, Dr. Jeanette Eileen Jones,
- [00:01:05.938]and Dr. Katrina Jagadinsky are the faculty leads on the U.S. Law and Race Initiative,
- [00:01:11.463]along with an array of expert partners in the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Law at UNL.
- [00:01:18.066]We are hosting a series of webinars
- [00:01:20.762]deepening the national conversation on the legal history of race.
- [00:01:24.931]Today, we are excited to host a discussion
- [00:01:28.578]about US constitutionalism and criminal abortion in the 20th century,
- [00:01:33.318]we invite our panelists now to turn their cameras on.
- [00:01:37.663]We are honored to have with us today, Dr Alicia Gutierrez-Romine,
- [00:01:42.143]born and raised in the Inland Empire,
- [00:01:44.853]Dr Gutierrez-Romine earned her BA in history from CSUSB in 2010.
- [00:01:51.115]And her PhD in history from the University of Southern California in 2016.
- [00:01:55.919]Her book, From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California 1920 to 1969
- [00:02:03.687]published by University of Nebraska press in 2020, and
- [00:02:08.042]with an insightful poignant post Dobbs new revised afterward from 2023,
- [00:02:12.730]explores the history of criminal abortion
- [00:02:15.990]and abortion legislation in California before Roe v Wade.
- [00:02:20.464]Gutierrez-Romine's work has been published in
- [00:02:23.181]Beyond the Borders of the Law: Critical Legal Histories of the North American West,
- [00:02:28.000]published by University Press of Kansas in 2018 and
- [00:02:31.320]edited by the US Law and Race Initiative’s Dr. Jagodinsky.
- [00:02:35.475]Dr. Gutierrez-Romine has also been published in California History, and the Southern California Quarterly.
- [00:02:42.886]She was awarded the American Historical Association's
- [00:02:46.582]Littleton Griswold Grant in 2020 and the Huntington Library's Myers Short-Term Fellowship in 2022.
- [00:02:55.012]She has been featured on C-SPAN, Science Channel,
- [00:02:59.260]and the Los Angeles Times, The Economist, and The New Yorker, among others.
- [00:03:04.252]Her research and abortion scholarship
- [00:03:07.150]also resulted in Governor Gavin Newsom posthumously pardoning Laura Minor, a 1940 San Diego abortion provider.
- [00:03:15.940]Her current project explores intersections of race and professional medicine in Southern California and the borderlands.
- [00:03:24.400]Our host, Dr. Will Thomas,
- [00:03:26.900]is the Angle Chair in the Humanities and
- [00:03:29.850]Professor of History at the University of Nebraska.
- [00:03:32.734]He served as Chair of the Department of History from 2010 to 2016.
- [00:03:37.402]He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Lincoln Prize finalist.
- [00:03:41.160]He is the author of:
- [00:03:43.041]A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation's Founding to the Civil War,
- [00:03:48.440]about enslaved families in Maryland
- [00:03:51.010]who sued for their freedom in the decades after the American Revolution.
- [00:03:54.360]A Question of Freedom received the 2021 Mark Linton History Prize.
- [00:03:59.360]With partners Michael Burton and Kwakiutl Dreher,
- [00:04:02.961]he is producing a series of live-action animated documentary films.
- [00:04:07.700]The first of these films, Anna,
- [00:04:09.740]was released in 2018 and won
- [00:04:11.876]Best Animation at the New Media Film Festival in Los Angeles.
- [00:04:16.101]The second, The Bell Affair,
- [00:04:17.989]is in production with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- [00:04:21.824]A dedicated teacher and mentor,
- [00:04:23.937]and as chair of the Department of History,
- [00:04:26.720]Dr. Thomas guided the department to the
- [00:04:28.625]University-wide Departmental Teaching Award in 2017.
- [00:04:34.280]He received the Hazel R. McClimont Distinguished
- [00:04:37.899]Teaching Fellow Award in 2012 from the College of Arts and Sciences in Nebraska,
- [00:04:42.240]the highest award for teaching in the college.
- [00:04:44.799]Drs. Thomas and Gutierrez-Romine are going to be in conversation
- [00:04:49.460]for about 35 minutes before we turn to your questions.
- [00:04:53.672]Please feel free to submit your questions at any time
- [00:04:57.370]using the Q&A function on Zoom
- [00:04:59.800]or simply put your hand up and we will bring your image up to ask a question directly.
- [00:05:04.579]Live captioning will be available to audience members.
- [00:05:08.370]Thank you, Dr. Gutierrez-Romine, for being here.
- [00:05:11.755]I'll turn things over to Dr. Thomas and see you all again at the end of this discussion.
- [00:05:18.710]Thank you, Anne, very much, and welcome, Professor Gutierrez-Romine.
- [00:05:23.642]We're glad you're here with us today.
- [00:05:25.630]Thank you for joining us at such an early hour, your time.
- [00:05:31.280]Well, I'm happy to be here. I've actually been up for a little bit.
- [00:05:35.146]I actually came straight from the gym.
- [00:05:37.210]Oh, good. So you're pumped up and ready to go.
- [00:05:41.152]Exactly. All right. Well, we would like to
- [00:05:45.000]just start really with if you could just give us an
- [00:05:48.693]overview of your research of your recent book.
- [00:05:53.120]And I think particularly what I'm thinking about is the networks that you
- [00:05:59.100]uncover of women and doctors in California
- [00:06:05.185]from the 1920s to the 1960s and how they were
- [00:06:08.600]instrumental in the movement to legalize and decriminalize abortion before Roe v. Wade.
- [00:06:16.100]I guess I'd like to hear more initially about how these networks formed and
- [00:06:22.260]how they worked in California.
- [00:06:25.610]Great. So let me start off again by saying thank you for
- [00:06:31.031]inviting me to be here. I'm always really
- [00:06:32.820]excited to speak to students at other
- [00:06:35.947]universities and other classes to talk a little bit about
- [00:06:38.920]my research and things that interest you.
- [00:06:42.182]I never really expected to write about the history of abortion.
- [00:06:47.543]I knew I was interested in medical history,
- [00:06:50.364]maybe something with gender or race or sexuality.
- [00:06:53.828]And it was really only when I was at the California State Archives that this topic
- [00:07:00.160]kind of fell into my lap. I started by looking at physician license revocation files in the
- [00:07:07.820]California Board of Medical Examiners records,
- [00:07:10.225]because that's where I was expecting to find tension.
- [00:07:14.084]You know, what is it that's causing physicians to get their medical licenses revoked?
- [00:07:18.247]And maybe that will illuminate something about racial or gender,
- [00:07:22.880]disparities in the medical field.
- [00:07:25.432]And what I ended up finding was
- [00:07:27.920]a lot of documents that were indicating that physicians were losing their medical licenses for
- [00:07:32.880]performing, quote, "illegal operations," end quote.
- [00:07:36.167]And it didn't really dawn on me
- [00:07:39.140]what that meant until I was going further through the records and realized that
- [00:07:43.020]it was really a euphemism for abortion.
- [00:07:45.798]And, you know, it wasn't something that I
- [00:07:50.238]was interested in writing about or thinking about writing.
- [00:07:53.583]And I'm someone, you know, I'm a millennial.
- [00:07:57.916]I've always kind of grown up in the shadow of Roe v. Wade.
- [00:08:00.992]So I've never really considered what, you know, things were like before that case.
- [00:08:07.980]As a historian, as a trained historian, I knew that
- [00:08:10.907]that was a pivotal moment that made abortion legal.
- [00:08:14.049]But just as an individual, I'd never really considered what things looked like before that.
- [00:08:18.408]So as I continued to go through these records,
- [00:08:21.650]one of the very first
- [00:08:22.720]things that kind of inspired me,
- [00:08:25.025]maybe to kind of pivot my research or go in this direction,
- [00:08:27.740]was that I started uncovering documents about the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring.
- [00:08:32.370]And the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring is really one of these networks that proliferates along
- [00:08:41.140]the entire West Coast in the 1930s.
- [00:08:44.672]And as I was, you know, going through these documents,
- [00:08:48.150]I realized that it was this massive syndicate,
- [00:08:50.730]it was this criminal syndicate,
- [00:08:52.640]and, you know, by the end of that first day,
- [00:08:57.259]I knew it existed. I reached out to my advisor,
- [00:09:00.620]and I asked him if he'd ever heard of it before,
- [00:09:02.958]and when he said he hadn't, and I did a
- [00:09:06.230]Google Scholar search, and nothing popped up,
- [00:09:08.563]I realized this is probably what I need to write about.
- [00:09:11.942]And so the following day,
- [00:09:15.311]I start going into these records, and I realized that
- [00:09:19.120]the California Board of Medical Examiners had done extensive investigations
- [00:09:22.970]on members of the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring,
- [00:09:26.005]that some of the main figures
- [00:09:27.869]in this case are,
- [00:09:29.150]it's a man named Reginald Rankin, and he was kind of the
- [00:09:32.190]head of the syndicate.
- [00:09:34.650]And he had some kind of shady
- [00:09:39.150]tax stealing stuff that he did land speculation,
- [00:09:43.060]probably tax evasion stuff in the 20s.
- [00:09:45.800]So he is one of these figures who's,
- [00:09:49.238]you know, not on par with Al Capone, or these
- [00:09:52.360]high-level mobsters, but he's like a hustler.
- [00:09:54.540]So he's someone who's kind of lower level
- [00:09:57.008]trying to make money however he can,
- [00:10:00.310]doesn't really matter how.
- [00:10:02.540]And he envisioned his criminal
- [00:10:04.873]abortion syndicate as this coast-wide empire that would span,
- [00:10:10.900]you know, California, Washington, and Oregon.
- [00:10:15.000]And he had intentions of making a lot of money,
- [00:10:17.570]but what I found really nuanced about him
- [00:10:22.400]is that he wanted these procedures done well.
- [00:10:25.840]And so Reginald Rankin is one of these figures
- [00:10:28.473]who kind of appears in several
- [00:10:30.106]places throughout the book.
- [00:10:32.440]He tries to do, you know, the
- [00:10:34.092]Pacific Coast abortion ring,
- [00:10:35.463]he tries to do another criminal syndicate
- [00:10:37.498]in Nevada a little bit later, and then he comes back to California in the 50s
- [00:10:42.020]and does something else.
- [00:10:44.060]And in the example of the Pacific Coast abortion ring,
- [00:10:47.795]I found that the way that they kind
- [00:10:51.120]of brought people on to
- [00:10:52.320]the network was by using an insider in the California Board of Medical Examiners who
- [00:10:56.860]was supposed to be investigating violators of the California Medical Act.
- [00:11:02.132]And while this insider, William Byrne, is acting on behalf of the California Board of Medical
- [00:11:08.640]Examiners to stamp out illegal practitioners of abortion, he's also at the same time trying
- [00:11:13.980]to encourage them to join a Rankin syndicate
- [00:11:17.571]so that he could bring in more trained physicians
- [00:11:20.880]and abortion specialists.
- [00:11:22.240]So, they use this method from the inside to kind of bring more people in, and at the end
- [00:11:31.600]of, you know, the syndicate lasts from '35 to '36, the cases in '37,
- [00:11:38.660]there's almost three dozen physicians and other,
- [00:11:43.177]you know, clinic staff, nurses who are defendants in the trial.
- [00:11:52.160]The Pacific Coast Abortion Ring is, was really interesting in the sense that they had all
- [00:11:57.600]of these different clinics along the entire West Coast,
- [00:12:00.844]they used trained medical professionals
- [00:12:03.420]to provide these procedures,
- [00:12:05.397]so overwhelmingly they were safe illegal abortions, and many
- [00:12:08.000]of them were actually performed by physicians, but they,
- [00:12:14.156]they were safe, and so what I thought
- [00:12:18.160]was interesting about it is that it really stood in the face of
- [00:12:21.226]what we tend to think of as an illegal abortionist, right?
- [00:12:25.620]I think, when many people think of the term illegal abortion,
- [00:12:29.300]they think of something really dirty and nefarious,
- [00:12:31.951]and they think of something that takes place in a back alley.
- [00:12:38.200]But Reginald Rankin and the syndicate really showed that abortion could be a safe
- [00:12:44.186]medical procedure, what was illegal was the justifications or means
- [00:12:50.342]through which they were providing these procedures.
- [00:12:56.500]And that is another thing that's kind of at the heart of abortion is that it isn't the
- [00:13:02.240]procedure itself that is criminal,
- [00:13:05.631]it's rather the circumstances surrounding an individual
- [00:13:08.320]case that dictate whether that procedure is illegal in that instance or not.
- [00:13:15.620]So, we could have an instance where abortion is legal because, you know, there's a
- [00:13:21.920]medical issue or something, and so,
- [00:13:23.985]a physician justifies it as requiring a therapeutic abortion,
- [00:13:28.960]but in the very same woman in a subsequent pregnancy, if she didn't want to be pregnant
- [00:13:33.440]and just wanted an abortion, then that abortion is illegal.
- [00:13:37.040]So, it isn't the procedure itself, it's the circumstances,
- [00:13:41.620]and that tended to fly in the face of a lot
- [00:13:45.985]of earlier kind of public discourse about abortion because it is, you know, it
- [00:13:51.840]was and still is a stigmatized procedure.
- [00:13:54.640]And so, when abortion did pop up in public discourse,
- [00:13:58.604]it was usually in regards to fatalities.
- [00:14:01.760]And so, with the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring,
- [00:14:03.640]and all of these women who survived the procedure,
- [00:14:07.540]who move on with their lives, it really showed that abortions could be safe.
- [00:14:13.240]So, the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring is kind of the centerpiece of the book.
- [00:14:19.020]I talk a lot about the organization.
- [00:14:21.760]And then Reginald Rankin appears a little bit later.
- [00:14:27.020]There's various other people who are also providing
- [00:14:30.050]abortions at this time, you know, individuals.
- [00:14:33.220]I just, he was interesting in the sense that he tried to really make a
- [00:14:36.511]criminal enterprise out of it.
- [00:14:40.260]And when he comes back again to California in the 50s,
- [00:14:44.740]he has a much more restrained
- [00:14:46.480]vision of illegal abortion that involves kind of just
- [00:14:51.680]Organizing everything here in California and then transporting women across the border
- [00:14:55.400]into Mexico for the procedure to be done there and then bring them back.
- [00:15:00.780]And then I argue that, you know, this particular case, the Buffam case, is really instrumental
- [00:15:09.920]to kind of moving us towards seeing more
- [00:15:12.473]trans-border abortions and ultimately decriminalization
- [00:15:15.540]in the state of California.
- [00:15:18.880]In terms of, you know, these networks,
- [00:15:21.600]you know, I think Leslie Reagan did a wonderful job of explaining
- [00:15:24.820]how women spoke with each other
- [00:15:26.460]about how to find these places and who to go to.
- [00:15:31.160]And that was very much the case in my own research as well.
- [00:15:35.200]In some instances, you know, when they were trying to open a new clinic
- [00:15:39.301]in Hollywood, for example,
- [00:15:41.245]they were having trouble trying to find girls to kind of help the physician
- [00:15:47.140]there specialize and kind of get ready to go, get the office going.
- [00:15:51.520]So they would send out recruiters to different parts of the city, so they would send them
- [00:15:55.480]to bars, they would send them to Hollywood Boulevard and just kind of advertise, "Hey,
- [00:16:00.520]you have a problem, you need fixing, I have a person who can help you."
- [00:16:06.240]So there is that kind of solicitation that is also happening through the use of steerers,
- [00:16:11.380]putting people in pharmacies and other places where they could
- [00:16:14.755]serve recommendations and offer recommendations of clinics.
- [00:16:19.240]So, it wasn't just these intimate female networks.
- [00:16:21.440]that directed other women and friends,
- [00:16:25.790]family members to be providers.
- [00:16:28.160]It was very much almost like sandwiched forward advertising on
- [00:16:32.618]Hollywood Boulevard going like, "Need an abortion?
- [00:16:34.940]I can help." Not quite that open
- [00:16:37.736]or dramatic, but essentially they are out on the street looking for people
- [00:16:42.660]and offering these services, which might have been more
- [00:16:48.258]in demand during the Great Depression at the time.
- [00:16:54.880]Your inquiry into Reginald Rankin and the
- [00:17:01.760]Pacific Coast abortion ring, first of all, I have a lot of questions about this.
- [00:17:07.920]I'll try to focus them.
- [00:17:09.680]One is maybe just that term, the Pacific Coast abortion ring, where it comes from,
- [00:17:15.836]who called it that?
- [00:17:21.280]Your book essentially moves kind of the period of legalization
- [00:17:30.490]or the campaign for legalization
- [00:17:33.580]or the forces that drove legalization back to the 1930s,
- [00:17:40.540]back to this turning point.
- [00:17:44.500]And you talk about the public testimony of women in that trial.
- [00:17:51.200]And other trials and how important that was.
- [00:17:54.900]Can you tell us a little bit more about the trial itself and the significance of that
- [00:18:03.140]public witnesses and testimony that flowed from that trial?
- [00:18:09.840]Yeah.
- [00:18:10.840]So first of all, Rankin, that I saw, never named it himself.
- [00:18:17.640]So one of those instances where the press gives it a name and then it names it.
- [00:18:21.120]It makes it sound even cooler.
- [00:18:23.480]So it was like the California Board of Medical Examiners initially called it
- [00:18:27.920]the Watts-Rankin Syndicate,
- [00:18:29.803]Watts being George Watts, who was the physician who
- [00:18:33.890]was working closely with Reginald Rankin.
- [00:18:35.440]So for a little bit, they called it that.
- [00:18:37.520]And then a story gets written about it in one of those like true detective magazines
- [00:18:44.080]from the 1930s that are really salacious with all the details and everything.
- [00:18:48.120]And they called it the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring.
- [00:18:51.040]And it kind of exploded from there.
- [00:18:54.160]It sounded very exciting and sexy to call it that.
- [00:18:59.800]The other question in terms of the trial.
- [00:19:01.640]Yes.
- [00:19:02.640]So this is one of the things that I noticed early on.
- [00:19:07.080]In looking at the literature, I felt like there was a lot of discourse, there were a
- [00:19:11.440]lot of metaphors about speaking in silence.
- [00:19:14.740]Like Kristin Luker said that, you know, in spite of the depression, like why didn't an
- [00:19:20.960]organized feminist movement or why didn't an abortion movement kind of emerge?
- [00:19:27.080]Women were silent.
- [00:19:28.080]And then Leslie Reagan says they weren't silent.
- [00:19:29.960]They spoke in these intimate networks and groups.
- [00:19:32.360]And then in order to kind of respond to the existing literature and thinking about silence
- [00:19:39.520]and speaking, I saw examples, particularly in the Pacificist abortion ring, where women
- [00:19:45.920]were compelled and coerced into testifying.
- [00:19:49.320]And this was possible.
- [00:19:50.880]Because the procedures were safe.
- [00:19:54.520]So unlike other really sensational cases from the 1920s,
- [00:19:59.640]and before, these cases weren't
- [00:20:03.080]coming into the press, because, you know,
- [00:20:06.090]some young woman was seduced and got an abortion
- [00:20:08.480]and died, right, these, these people were on trial, the defendants in the Pacific abortion
- [00:20:15.180]ring were on trial, because there was a mountain of evidence,
- [00:20:19.016]they had physician patient cards,
- [00:20:20.800]they had, you know, safes full of jewelry and fur coats that people had used as collateral,
- [00:20:26.940]they had all of these different offices in all of these different cities throughout the
- [00:20:31.180]Pacific coast, and they had all of these different books with their financial record.
- [00:20:36.660]So it was a really easy trial from that evidentiary perspective.
- [00:20:41.318]But the thing that was different was that it wasn't a fatality
- [00:20:45.914]that was sparking this investigation. I found no evidence of any woman dying
- [00:20:52.056]from any of the specialists in the Pacific Coast abortion ring, which
- [00:20:56.000]is really impressive, particularly since this is a moment where antibiotics aren't
- [00:21:02.640]widely used. And they're not even really, I think, invented until 1939.
- [00:21:08.400]They're not kind of within public
- [00:21:10.120]circulation until after like 1941. So it really was a testament to
- [00:21:16.540]the sterilization techniques that they used to make sure that their instruments were clean.
- [00:21:20.640]It was a testament to their medical skill and their ability to do these procedures safely.
- [00:21:26.740]And in some respects, I suggest that this is kind of their downfall as well, because
- [00:21:32.760]these women theoretically could have been tried as conspirators
- [00:21:38.229]under the California law at the time.
- [00:21:41.479]But that pretty much never happened at all.
- [00:21:44.301]But prosecutors often and
- [00:21:47.680]other law enforcement officials often used the threat of
- [00:21:50.560]prosecution to compel these women to testify, saying,
- [00:21:53.377]we will try you as a conspirator unless
- [00:21:57.060]you testify, unless you do this. So you have a long line of women that they are able to
- [00:22:03.260]locate and find through some of these documents
- [00:22:06.271]who then have to go on the stand and talk
- [00:22:09.860]about these really intimate procedures and, you know, their own medical history, their
- [00:22:15.720]sexual history, things that they were not intending to divulge.
- [00:22:20.480]And so these women are forced to speak in a moment when they don't want to.
- [00:22:25.460]And it is important because, I argue, it pushes them towards trying to find other means.
- [00:22:33.780]Women don't want to have an illegal abortion in the United States, in California, if it
- [00:22:38.820]could potentially lead to them having to testify on a stand in front of reporters,
- [00:22:43.520]a jury, a courtroom full of people.
- [00:22:45.660]And there are newspaper, you know, images
- [00:22:48.613]where you could see these women trying to cover
- [00:22:50.400]their faces as they're going in and out of the courtroom,
- [00:22:53.160]they're embarrassed, they're ashamed.
- [00:22:55.022]And, you know, some people didn't want to endure the scrutiny of a public trial.
- [00:23:02.260]And so for other women who are perhaps
- [00:23:06.950]interested in abortion, this is kind of a wake up
- [00:23:10.307]call, like, is this what you want?
- [00:23:12.560]Like, do you need to pursue other means?
- [00:23:14.500]So let me do it properly through my physician and a hospital, or,
- [00:23:20.320]I'm going to go to Mexico, I'm going to do something else, like, I'm not going to stand
- [00:23:25.160]for this kind of outing in public.
- [00:23:28.880]So I argue that, you know, it shows that
- [00:23:32.107]abortion could be safe, because there are all these
- [00:23:34.940]women who are on the stand testifying.
- [00:23:36.680]But women's desire to remain silent is
- [00:23:40.960]then what pushes more people towards the
- [00:23:43.340]therapeutic abortion route,
- [00:23:45.010]or finding other ways to acquire an abortion that are maybe more
- [00:23:49.683]quiet or secret or out of the country.
- [00:23:54.760]Can you talk about the pathway to the Belous case in California and how
- [00:24:08.880]we go from, yeah, the Rankin to Belous?
- [00:24:13.080]Yeah, so I was, well, I'll start by saying,
- [00:24:20.160]when I saw Rankin pop up again in this 1950s case, I was so excited because I realized,
- [00:24:26.700]oh my gosh, I have something that I can carry from chapter to chapter.
- [00:24:30.040]I have an anchor who I can carry through and follow through time.
- [00:24:34.680]So that was really exciting for me because as I was writing the dissertation, I was like,
- [00:24:39.416]I have no idea where this is going.
- [00:24:41.100]How am I, I can't write a dissertation just about specific coach abortion rigs.
- [00:24:45.580]So then when I saw him pop up again, I was like, oh, I have continuity.
- [00:24:48.680]This is great.
- [00:24:49.840]So excited.
- [00:24:50.600]But Rankin, he ends up serving some time in Nevada after opening
- [00:24:58.487]another abortion clinic and it fails.
- [00:25:01.600]He eventually makes his way back to
- [00:25:04.450]California and he reacquaints himself with Dr. Belous.
- [00:25:08.060]Or sorry, I'm thinking the Buffum case.
- [00:25:10.820]You wanted to know about the Belous case or the Buffum case?
- [00:25:14.420]They're both "B"s.
- [00:25:15.860]Sorry.
- [00:25:17.800]Yes, yes.
- [00:25:18.740]The case where...
- [00:25:20.000]Where the abortion statute is...
- [00:25:24.128]Sorry, the Belous case.
- [00:25:25.780]Okay, I was just thinking Buffum.
- [00:25:27.474]Yeah, for students, it's the case in California in 1969, right?
- [00:25:30.640]Where...
- [00:25:31.940]Sorry, Belous and Buffum.
- [00:25:34.080]Void for vagueness is the term, right?
- [00:25:37.580]Yes.
- [00:25:38.540]Yeah.
- [00:25:39.260]And just what does that mean, that whole idea of void for vagueness?
- [00:25:44.740]So I still probably need to mention Buffum a little bit before we get to Belous.
- [00:25:48.880]So...
- [00:25:49.920]Reginald Rankin is involved in this other trial.
- [00:25:52.080]He takes women across to Tijuana for procedures,
- [00:25:56.260]and then several of those women do require hospitalization.
- [00:26:00.380]None of them die, but they go to trial.
- [00:26:02.480]Now, this trial, I argue, kind of opens up the floodgates for American abortion tourism,
- [00:26:08.500]which is the context in which Belous is kind of responding to.
- [00:26:13.580]In the Buffum case, California realized that they couldn't
- [00:26:19.840]legislate behavior that was taking place in Mexico.
- [00:26:23.180]So once that kind of falls flat, you have the rise of abortion providers really on the
- [00:26:31.720]border and American and California women crossing the border in order to go to Mexico.
- [00:26:36.820]And there are some competent and great practitioners, but there are also a lot of
- [00:26:45.520]providers who really take advantage of the fact that, you know, many of these women
- [00:26:49.760]are just taking the services of the first person that they can find.
- [00:26:52.777]And so this does also create,
- [00:26:54.640]you know, greater opportunities for infection and naming and deaths, unfortunately. And so
- [00:27:03.040]there is this kind of reputation that seems to arise of Tijuana abortions and of those
- [00:27:09.280]being particularly crude. So in the Belous case, you have this woman who approaches
- [00:27:19.680]Dr. Belous, who is already leaning towards abortion liberalization. That was something
- [00:27:25.200]that was already important to him. And she told him she wanted an abortion.
- [00:27:31.471]He initially refused to provide it to her because he didn't want to break the law.
- [00:27:38.384]He wanted the law to be changed, but he wasn't interested in breaking it himself.
- [00:27:43.974]But he believed that she was so desperate and he feared that she would,
- [00:27:51.166]quote, "turn to butchery" in Tijuana. That was the phrase that he used.
- [00:27:55.600]So he recommended her to a friend of his who he found to
- [00:27:59.780]be a competent provider so that she could have the procedure.
- [00:28:02.830]So the shadow of Tijuana abortions from the Buffum cases is still relevant.
- [00:28:08.960]When this case, she's found, they're arrested, the provider and Belous as well.
- [00:28:18.250]Belous had referred a number of women
- [00:28:20.410]to this particular practitioner before.
- [00:28:22.738]Belous argues that he was still acting within the statute.
- [00:28:29.933]He was still acting within his rights and duties as a
- [00:28:33.920]physician because he feared that if she had gone to Tijuana,
- [00:28:39.293]she would have been risking death.
- [00:28:41.680]So he was really seeing this kind of broader interpretation of the California statute to be
- [00:28:49.440]basically say her life would have been at risk if he had not had access to a legal provider
- [00:28:55.920]because she would have gone to some butcher.
- [00:29:00.180]And there's, you know, the initial decision,
- [00:29:03.520]it goes to the appeal, it goes to the California Supreme Court. And a lot of the case really
- [00:29:09.580]focused on physicians' ability to practice medicine kind of unimpeded.
- [00:29:17.690]There were already a number of other cases in California that
- [00:29:23.610]I don't really discuss in the book, but some of
- [00:29:27.440]these have already established that, you know,
- [00:29:31.307]how close does a woman have to be to death to say that
- [00:29:35.160]her life is at risk? And it's a violation of her constitutional rights to say that she has to be
- [00:29:41.280]on death's door to be able to get an abortion.
- [00:29:46.204]So maybe we don't need to put women that far at risk.
- [00:29:49.692]And there were discussions about, you know, what does it mean for a
- [00:29:57.320]physician to be able to practice medicine?
- [00:29:59.603]And then, you know, later retroactively, someone outside of the medical
- [00:30:06.240]field says your decision was wrong.
- [00:30:08.344]Your decision to provide this woman an abortion was wrong.
- [00:30:12.036]And so now we're going to try you for this violation.
- [00:30:17.136]And this is really debated in the California Supreme Court.
- [00:30:24.550]And it's not really a discussion about
- [00:30:26.860]women's rights in the California Supreme Court.
- [00:30:30.392]It, you know, there's a little bit of a discussion
- [00:30:34.300]about, well, maybe, you know, again, we don't need to have them that
- [00:30:38.060]close to death for this to be okay.
- [00:30:40.730]But it is much more about physicians' ability to practice medicine and to let them be
- [00:30:45.300]medical experts and let them decide.
- [00:30:48.380]and ultimately, the court decide that the phrase necessary to preserve life,
- [00:30:55.209]which was in the statute,
- [00:30:57.589]was too vague to be enforced.
- [00:31:00.850]They couldn't decide what necessary to preserve actually meant.
- [00:31:05.123]They couldn't really establish a rubric to it. And rather than rework the law,
- [00:31:13.280]they decided that they should just drop it. And so ultimately, this leads,
- [00:31:19.120]to the California Supreme Court finding the statute void for vagueness,
- [00:31:22.880]and we essentially decriminalize abortion.
- [00:31:25.464]We don't explicitly, you know, legalize it or protect it or anything immediately.
- [00:31:31.022]But I argue that it kind of indicates that the court recognizes the fee changes is
- [00:31:36.560]emerging at this time. And just a year after, I think New York and Colorado, Hawaii,
- [00:31:42.560]they legalize the procedure. So kind of shift that indicates the shift that is taking place
- [00:31:49.100]right before Roe.
- [00:31:52.405]Thank you. I'm going to turn to my Co-PI's he eyes on the law and race project.
- [00:31:58.967]Professor Katrina Jagadinsky and Professor Jeanette Jones to see
- [00:32:02.459]to invite their questions and then we'll open it up for discussion
- [00:32:06.255]and questions from our classes.
- [00:32:08.375]Which of you would like to lead off?
- [00:32:16.020]Dr. Jones, do you mind if I get started?
- [00:32:17.640]Again, wonderful to have you with us this morning, Dr. Gutierrez-Romín, and I know the
- [00:32:26.800]graduate students enjoyed reading your work.
- [00:32:28.810]We'll be reading another study of abortion in Brazil
- [00:32:32.340]next week, so it was good for us to have this kind of transnational focus that you provide.
- [00:32:40.300]One of the things we're doing with the Law and Race Initiative and in our classes is
- [00:32:47.620]encouraging people to see the broader landscape of evidence that contributes to our
- [00:32:55.290]understandings of legal history of race and gender in the law.
- [00:32:59.690]And in the introduction to your book,
- [00:33:03.700]and as you started this morning, you explained that your entry into this topic of
- [00:33:10.029]criminal abortion or extra legal abortion really came through your interest in
- [00:33:15.871]medical licensing and the revocation of licenses.
- [00:33:19.263]And throughout the book itself, you pull from a wide range of material.
- [00:33:26.799]And so I wondered if we could take a step back from narrative
- [00:33:30.300]to think about sources for a minute. Could you talk a little bit about
- [00:33:36.880]the archival research required to go beyond the statutes and to
- [00:33:45.893]perhaps go beyond Supreme Court cases
- [00:33:51.820]in order to really convey the full landscape of this history?
- [00:33:54.025]Yeah, so this was
- [00:33:58.100]I'm a bit of an archival research nerd.
- [00:34:04.414]I just absolutely love being in the archive. I could spend all
- [00:34:08.180]day in there. It really was fun to kind of
- [00:34:13.240]go through these documents. Fun is probably not the right word with this topic.
- [00:34:17.560]But it really was, you know, fascinating to be able to go through the documents
- [00:34:22.620]individually one by one and kind of see the story kind of slowly come
- [00:34:27.500]together. It's almost like, you know, things gradually kind of start
- [00:34:32.380]filling in from the sides and then eventually they kind of all stack and come into
- [00:34:37.480]place. One of the main sources that I used was
- [00:34:42.560]the Board of Medical Examiners records at the California State Archives. They kept
- [00:34:47.540]quite meticulous records. They had a whole series of
- [00:34:52.740]abortion investigation files that talked about, you know, not just
- [00:34:57.860]the Pacific Coast Abortion Ring, but a lot of other things going on, other providers in the
- [00:35:02.680]state. And so those documents included, you know, reports,
- [00:35:07.520]surveillance, memos, letters that people were also
- [00:35:12.040]sending in to the Board of Medical Examiners. So there's some
- [00:35:17.520]examples of, you know, lovers or fathers who are writing the
- [00:35:21.760]Board of Medical Examiners saying, you know, my daughter
- [00:35:25.540]had this procedure and she died, like, why aren't you arresting
- [00:35:28.640]this guy? There were also, you know, discarded lovers who were
- [00:35:34.400]trying to control their previous wives or girlfriends saying, you
- [00:35:38.760]know, my ex is pregnant, and she's trying to get an abortion,
- [00:35:43.220]like, go get her, go find her, go stop this from happening.
- [00:35:47.500]And so it, there was so many of these little details that
- [00:35:52.180]together don't lend themselves well to one kind of narrative.
- [00:35:58.940]But that really kind of illustrate a lot of the
- [00:36:03.660]different tensions that are going on at this time in
- [00:36:08.380]relation to to abortion. So at the same time that you have
- [00:36:12.000]these kind of individual people writing in with their own concerns
- [00:36:17.480]about the procedure and their loved ones, you also have, you know,
- [00:36:23.140]meticulous record keeping from the state board, trying to,
- [00:36:27.620]you know, make sure that physicians are providing
- [00:36:30.980]competent care, but that they're also following the law. So you
- [00:36:35.180]have, you know, this kind of legal language, and and very
- [00:36:40.620]professional language that is coming from the top, but you
- [00:36:43.840]also have, you know, these letters and newspapers that are
- [00:36:47.460]showing really this whole spectrum, like how do people at
- [00:36:50.220]the top think about abortion? How do people at the bottom
- [00:36:52.520]think about it? And then you can kind of see those interactions
- [00:36:55.440]and relations take place. So there's a whole bunch of these
- [00:36:59.720]records, but a lot of them are really from the perspective of
- [00:37:02.860]the state, from the perspective of law enforcement, from the
- [00:37:05.460]perspective of the professional board, which is very top down.
- [00:37:09.660]And, and is important because it is like a good scaffolding, but
- [00:37:15.780]it doesn't give you a lot of
- [00:37:17.560]personal details about people.
- [00:37:19.480]And so sometimes those letters, when they come in, those
- [00:37:23.040]surveillance, those investigative reports, those interviews, that kind
- [00:37:27.680]of what gives a little bit of the human element, that was really the start.
- [00:37:32.840]And then as I was kind of going through the research, I thought,
- [00:37:37.520]you know, it would be really nice if I had a sense of, right, if
- [00:37:41.140]everyone is saying how dangerous abortions are, how deadly they are,
- [00:37:44.193]I wonder what records the coroner has.
- [00:37:46.333]So then that led me to reach out to the LA County Coroner
- [00:37:50.750]to figure out like what sources do they have.
- [00:37:56.167]And it allowed me to really develop about 60 years worth of coroner report
- [00:38:02.490]data that shows how many people came to the coroner
- [00:38:08.542]deceased with a cause of death listed as abortion.
- [00:38:11.632]And then that also was really fascinating. I have a little bit of a funny story.
- [00:38:19.170]I initially tried to go to the county and request access to the coroner's record.
- [00:38:27.350]And they're like, okay, yeah, just fill out this form and then go wait over here.
- [00:38:31.450]And it'll be about four hours before we can get to you. And I was, you know,
- [00:38:37.230]I took public transportation that day. I was like, I'm not doing this.
- [00:38:40.690]Like I need the documents here now.
- [00:38:42.390]So I went home and then I ended up reaching out to the coroner directly.
- [00:38:46.190]And I explained that I was a graduate student and what I was doing.
- [00:38:50.770]And he was so wonderful. He said, just come to the coroner's office.
- [00:38:55.270]We are going to shuttle the documents here and they will be ready for you at
- [00:39:00.890]8 a.m. tomorrow. And so I was like, that's fantastic. Thank you.
- [00:39:04.450]So I go to the coroner's office and I'm really excited to do my research,
- [00:39:10.470]but there are other people there who are there to like claim their deceased
- [00:39:14.670]and their loved ones.
- [00:39:15.810]So I can't look too excited or they'll think I did it for the
- [00:39:19.760]insurance money. So I'm there.
- [00:39:23.010]They do not have a dedicated research room at the coroner.
- [00:39:27.730]So I had the convenience of them bringing everything to me and saving the
- [00:39:33.370]time, but they threw me in a basement for the duration of my research there.
- [00:39:40.250]And it's a building from the 1800s.
- [00:39:43.870]There was no light in the basement except for the light directly over my
- [00:39:48.030]desk. I could not see beyond the shadows.
- [00:39:50.090]I'm pretty sure the basement was haunted. It smelled of formaldehyde,
- [00:39:54.130]but it was the best research that I got. It was a good research space,
- [00:39:58.430]but it was a little creepy.
- [00:39:59.490]But it was really amazing to be able to, you know,
- [00:40:06.070]I had these, I had the statistical data, right?
- [00:40:08.850]This is how many abortion cases,
- [00:40:10.030]or sorry, this is how many cases the coroner had
- [00:40:14.490]as a load this particular year.
- [00:40:16.490]And this is how many of those cases
- [00:40:18.230]were related to abortion.
- [00:40:19.618]So there's the statistical reports,
- [00:40:21.370]but then there are also the coroner's books.
- [00:40:23.770]So as the coroner is doing the autopsy,
- [00:40:26.890]they are writing in this other book.
- [00:40:28.930]And so I had both of these documents
- [00:40:31.170]and I have the numbers,
- [00:40:32.990]but also the individual data for the individual people
- [00:40:36.750]and their individual experiences.
- [00:40:39.810]And sometimes those were really insightful.
- [00:40:42.430]It's often very kind of clinical writing.
- [00:40:46.330]You know, this person is this many years old.
- [00:40:48.610]This is their address.
- [00:40:50.210]This is, you know, general peritonitis, sepsis, whatever.
- [00:40:54.170]But every now and then the coroner also,
- [00:40:56.950]you know, the coroner medical examiner,
- [00:40:59.790]like left the morsel of something else
- [00:41:02.650]that provided more information.
- [00:41:04.030]And I'll never forget there was one particular case.
- [00:41:07.130]So it's a two page spread.
- [00:41:09.590]All of the demographic information, address, whatever.
- [00:41:11.910]And then they start with the medical,
- [00:41:13.712]you know, explanations and everything.
- [00:41:15.640]And there's a section on the right-hand side
- [00:41:17.850]that's just like additional notes or comments.
- [00:41:20.054]And the medical examiner wrote,
- [00:41:24.820]" four children, on county relief."
- [00:41:28.090]And so this woman who, you know, was 36 years old,
- [00:41:33.100]it was during the Great Depression.
- [00:41:34.872]She was already on county relief
- [00:41:36.830]and she already had four children.
- [00:41:39.370]And so it provided this opportunity
- [00:41:43.210]and she was married, her husband wasn't working.
- [00:41:47.170]And so it did provide an insight into, you know,
- [00:41:52.670]really a lot of the decisions that people made, right?
- [00:41:55.550]Because she, and it also kind of goes against this notion
- [00:42:00.930]of, you know, the people who get abortion
- [00:42:02.900]are like single unwed women who, you know,
- [00:42:05.650]have no other option.
- [00:42:06.720]This was a married woman who,
- [00:42:08.410]probably had this discussion with her husband, right?
- [00:42:12.450]Like we already have four kids.
- [00:42:13.950]We can't support another.
- [00:42:15.147]What do we do?
- [00:42:16.610]And they probably together made the decision
- [00:42:20.290]to have her have an abortion and she died.
- [00:42:23.710]And so it provides really an insight
- [00:42:27.710]into some of these complicated decisions
- [00:42:29.650]that people make.
- [00:42:30.610]And it challenges often our assumptions about,
- [00:42:33.850]you know, who gets these procedures and why.
- [00:42:36.130]So those Coroner Reports,
- [00:42:40.170]they were really,
- [00:42:41.152]they're really impressive to go through
- [00:42:44.910]and they were really insightful
- [00:42:46.470]and I think interesting.
- [00:42:48.650]Newspaper accounts,
- [00:42:51.490]you know, I think we often take them
- [00:42:53.790]with a bit of, you know,
- [00:42:54.910]a grain of salt as historians,
- [00:42:56.390]but they're just really fascinating
- [00:42:58.970]to look at, you know,
- [00:43:00.090]the language and how they're talking about abortion,
- [00:43:02.570]how they're talking about the women,
- [00:43:04.070]how they're talking about the doctors.
- [00:43:05.913]Those are really some of the main sources that I
- [00:43:08.710]use, these coroner's records,
- [00:43:10.030]the Board of Medical Examiners collection, newspapers.
- [00:43:14.330]And when you do medical history,
- [00:43:18.450]there's often some difficulty in terms of,
- [00:43:21.170]you know, patient privacy.
- [00:43:22.640]And so sometimes you run into those issues.
- [00:43:25.830]This was particularly true for the later documents,
- [00:43:30.870]like the documents from the 50s and 60s.
- [00:43:33.050]So for those, I was not allowed to like make photos
- [00:43:38.490]or duplicates of those sources,
- [00:43:40.930]or I had to change the name for some of those.
- [00:43:45.470]So for some of those later cases,
- [00:43:47.750]like there might be a footnote that says,
- [00:43:49.410]name has been changed according to guidelines
- [00:43:52.990]from the California State Archives.
- [00:43:55.730]So there is some issues with like patient records
- [00:43:59.930]and confidentiality that you have to be mindful of.
- [00:44:02.890]But yeah, I tried to cast a wide net
- [00:44:08.270]in terms of sources.
- [00:44:12.350]Thank you.
- [00:44:14.600]Well, first, Professor Gutierrez-Romine,
- [00:44:18.410]thanks so much for this talk
- [00:44:20.430]and for publishing this book
- [00:44:22.250]that is really needed in the field.
- [00:44:25.050]First, I just wanted to say,
- [00:44:27.830]I think it was really important for all of us and the students in particular
- [00:44:32.540]to understand the kind of ethical issues
- [00:44:35.510]that we have to deal with when we're looking at
- [00:44:38.050]as scholars, I don't look at those records in particular,
- [00:44:41.370]but when you're looking at people's personal medical records
- [00:44:44.250]and the work that you do as a scholar to protect them,
- [00:44:47.690]not just in conformity with the law,
- [00:44:49.690]but also understanding the sensitivity of a lot,
- [00:44:52.690]like you said, of these decisions
- [00:44:54.400]and what people are thinking about
- [00:44:56.090]when they make a decision to have an abortion,
- [00:44:59.090]either in consultation with a partner or not.
- [00:45:02.270]I wanted to talk a little bit about the idea of due process
- [00:45:06.610]and how...
- [00:45:07.830]But going back to that discussion about the vagueness, right?
- [00:45:11.790]And the ambiguity of this term of...
- [00:45:14.710]Or this idea of the necessity to preserve life
- [00:45:17.290]or however it was in the California Penal Code.
- [00:45:20.950]And how that vagueness actually can be perceived
- [00:45:26.070]as not giving women due process.
- [00:45:28.710]I don't know if that makes sense.
- [00:45:31.530]Or is the vagueness itself
- [00:45:36.155]prevents women from having equal protection of the law, I guess,
- [00:45:39.803]is what I'm trying to get at.
- [00:45:44.096]So I
- [00:45:46.070]Well, let me maybe answer it this way,
- [00:45:52.010]and then I don't know if I'll kind of touch around your answer
- [00:45:54.830]or kind of get closer to it.
- [00:45:56.310]So I did a talk maybe a few months ago,
- [00:46:00.730]and I was talking a little bit about vagueness in the law,
- [00:46:03.970]particularly in relation to some of the contemporary
- [00:46:07.390]laws that are emerging.
- [00:46:09.330]Because for some of them,
- [00:46:11.169]they're using very similar language, right?
- [00:46:13.390]They're saying fetal abnormality.
- [00:46:15.330]They're saying probable gestational age.
- [00:46:18.630]And so they are embedding vagueness into the law using
- [00:46:24.530]some of these terms.
- [00:46:25.550]And I argued in that particular case that at some point
- [00:46:33.850]in the, if we look at vagueness legislation or
- [00:46:37.170]vague laws, in some instances, vagueness can provide
- [00:46:43.010]like a buffer zone of protection, right?
- [00:46:45.690]That it's vague.
- [00:46:46.690]So that means you kind of fall in.
- [00:46:48.430]So you're probably protected and you're probably fine.
- [00:46:50.770]But vagueness can also then be deployed against minority
- [00:46:56.430]groups and other people who maybe don't conform with
- [00:47:00.370]the status quo.
- [00:47:01.490]So it can be weaponized against them as well.
- [00:47:04.190]And so it,
- [00:47:07.150]kind of can go either way.
- [00:47:10.190]And so
- [00:47:13.150]can you kind of go back to your question?
- [00:47:19.350]I think you,
- [00:47:20.030]I think you're answering it that,
- [00:47:21.830]you know,
- [00:47:22.530]in that it's a double-edged sword,
- [00:47:24.730]the vagueness of the law and particularly in the case of abortion,
- [00:47:27.983]if I understand those laws.
- [00:47:30.910]And then, as you said,
- [00:47:31.830]the kind of current laws where it's,
- [00:47:34.480]it could be a buffer because you can fall within,
- [00:47:37.130]within that category of vagueness,
- [00:47:38.910]but it also, like you said,
- [00:47:40.530]can be deployed.
- [00:47:41.270]So I just wanted to tease that out because I think,
- [00:47:43.690]you know,
- [00:47:44.770]there could, you know,
- [00:47:45.610]with whatever your politics are as a medical decision for the doctor, right.
- [00:47:50.290]If we take it into the realm of the law and the doctors,
- [00:47:54.230]you know, medical decisions,
- [00:47:56.230]that vagueness is where, you know,
- [00:47:58.050]you're in kind of tricky legal terrain.
- [00:48:00.020]and I was trying to, you know,
- [00:48:01.850]tease that out a little bit.
- [00:48:03.190]Yeah.
- [00:48:04.230]Because, you know,
- [00:48:05.130]we found, I found in, in my research,
- [00:48:11.030]there's vagueness in the law already.
- [00:48:13.730]So I found in,
- [00:48:15.690]in my research, right?
- [00:48:17.050]That using the term necessary to preserve,
- [00:48:19.350]and then eventually becomes necessary,
- [00:48:21.130]to preserve life and then necessary to preserve health.
- [00:48:24.550]It kind of gets broadened in some instances a little bit later.
- [00:48:27.550]The people overwhelmingly who are able to make the argument that the
- [00:48:32.350]abortion is necessary to preserve their life or health are people of means,
- [00:48:37.270]who are able to go to their physician and have their physician advocate
- [00:48:40.470]for them and say, yes, this is necessary.
- [00:48:42.690]So for some women, right.
- [00:48:46.010]It's going to be typically in my research,
- [00:48:49.110]it was white women, middle and upper class people who have resources,
- [00:48:53.570]means, and a private physician, and the means to pay for a hospital
- [00:48:57.770]procedure and stay in the hospital for a couple of days, right?
- [00:49:01.170]So we're already kind of chipping away at who has
- [00:49:04.576]access to make these legal claims.
- [00:49:07.070]And so they are the ones who are kind of able to get the physicians to
- [00:49:12.670]say, yes, you know, I support this. I'm on board with this.
- [00:49:15.110]I think in my medical expertise that this is necessary.
- [00:49:19.150]So we have excessive vomiting as a justification for a legal abortion in
- [00:49:25.070]some of these instances.
- [00:49:26.710]But we also find that hospitals themselves, right?
- [00:49:30.130]Because it's not just the physician,
- [00:49:31.810]it's the hospital that they're operating in what types of legal risks and
- [00:49:37.050]liabilities are they willing to take?
- [00:49:38.970]So they might internally establish their own quotas or parameters around
- [00:49:44.530]which they decide that they are willing to kind of step in and say, yes,
- [00:49:48.740]we support you if you're doing an abortion for these reasons,
- [00:49:51.834]but not this reason over here.
- [00:49:53.220]And so which types of people are those hospitals,
- [00:49:58.430]are those doctors willing to kind of push a little bit more for?
- [00:50:01.670]And often these are, again, not just women of means,
- [00:50:06.050]but also,
- [00:50:07.030]married heterosexual women who have all of these other
- [00:50:11.410]markers of respectability.
- [00:50:14.090]So we saw this particularly during the rubella and
- [00:50:17.580]thalidomide outbreaks in the book, right?
- [00:50:19.550]It's these women who,
- [00:50:21.190]come to their doctors with their husbands and they say,
- [00:50:24.550]we as a couple love children. We think children are great.
- [00:50:27.530]We want to have lots of them, but you know,
- [00:50:29.930]I was exposed to this disease when I was six weeks pregnant.
- [00:50:33.230]And so I would like an abortion because we don't think we can handle a
- [00:50:36.323]disabled child. Or I took this drug, um,
- [00:50:39.930]thalidomide and I'm worried about the fetal development and we discussed
- [00:50:44.590]this and we don't want a disabled child.
- [00:50:46.510]And it worked in the context of like the 1950s and sixties also,
- [00:50:50.190]because we aren't great at, at, you know,
- [00:50:53.650]having good relations with people who have disabilities.
- [00:50:56.430]We don't view disability, uh, you know, well in public. Uh,
- [00:51:00.570]so those women who again are checking all of these boxes,
- [00:51:04.190]they're not single unwed women. They're not,
- [00:51:06.990]bad women. They're not women of color with questionable sexuality or morality, right?
- [00:51:12.710]These are good women who've done everything right, except this one thing.
- [00:51:17.170]So we're going to make it right for them, right?
- [00:51:19.482]So vagueness worked in that way, to protect those women's access.
- [00:51:25.130]But we could also see the other hand of if you have a poor woman
- [00:51:32.240]or maybe some woman with a woman of color,
- [00:51:34.830]women with some type of disease or disability, and she says, you know, I can't have
- [00:51:40.610]this child because my life or health, we can also see,
- [00:51:46.320]particularly if they don't have a private physician
- [00:51:48.854]and they're going to a state hospital, a county hospital, and this is particularly true
- [00:51:53.750]after like the 1960s, oh, well, if you're not going to be healthy or safe enough for this
- [00:51:58.430]pregnancy, then maybe we should sterilize you, right?
- [00:52:01.250]Maybe we should do some of these other
- [00:52:03.060]things to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
- [00:52:05.377]And without a private physician advocate, right?
- [00:52:08.526]What opportunities and protections does this
- [00:52:11.630]woman have? So vagueness, okay, like you can have the abortion,
- [00:52:15.081]but also like, we don't need this
- [00:52:16.710]happening again. So let's do something else. And you have these, you know, violations of
- [00:52:22.230]reproductive autonomy through some of these other means.
- [00:52:25.904]And so vagueness in this particular
- [00:52:29.690]context can be deployed to protect women who are worthy of
- [00:52:34.690]protection, right, in the eyes of the hospital, in the eyes of the physician, or
- [00:52:39.570]it can be deployed to then
- [00:52:43.450]result in some of these reproductive abuses against these other women who
- [00:52:49.610]maybe don't fit those boxes.
- [00:52:52.030]Thank you so much. I just want to say that was, you know,
- [00:52:54.930]I just love the way you explain how that the fault lines along race,
- [00:52:59.390]class, and of course, sexuality, sexual orientation.
- [00:53:02.908]Thank you so much for that, Professor Gutierrez-Romine.
- [00:53:05.700]Thank you for the question.
- [00:53:08.440]Let's turn now to questions from our students and participants.
- [00:53:15.459]And if you would just, you can raise your hand and wave, or you can put your
- [00:53:19.630]actual, raise your hand up, not your actual, sorry, your digital hand up. Either way works.
- [00:53:26.470]So if you have a question, and I see, let's see,
- [00:53:33.650]Luke, why don't you start us off?
- [00:53:36.160]Hi, thank you for joining us. I had a question about something we've been
- [00:53:42.350]talking a bit about in our constitutional history class.
- [00:53:45.016]We talk a bit about how popular support for
- [00:53:48.090]Supreme Court decisions has impacts on their validity.
- [00:53:51.080]So I was wondering if you could speak to us a bit about
- [00:53:53.110]how popular support for abortion has changed in the period that you're talking
- [00:53:58.590]about in post-Roe as well, acknowledging that there's some
- [00:54:02.640]nuances in the question with respect to how
- [00:54:04.620]policy modifiers like exceptions and time cut-offs also change people's perception of abortion
- [00:54:11.795]Yeah, so, thank you for that
- [00:54:15.432]so, I think
- [00:54:20.671]I found in my research that the more often
- [00:54:25.428]that abortion kind of becomes discussed in public,
- [00:54:29.750]the more opportunities there are for people to weigh in on their opinion.
- [00:54:34.610]This was a topic that was kind of previously taboo and shrouded in secrecy,
- [00:54:39.720]really only discussed between patients and providers or practitioners.
- [00:54:43.390]And then as we kind of move into the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s,
- [00:54:48.956]we're starting to see more kind of open and public discourse about it,
- [00:54:53.298]which is generating more opportunities for people to weigh in,
- [00:54:56.585]for people to have opinions, form opinions, and voice those as well.
- [00:55:02.717]You know, there was the case of Sherri Chessen, for example.
- [00:55:08.996]She had, you know, a TV show.
- [00:55:11.201]She was like a little, like, I don't know, like a PBS kind of classroom TV show.
- [00:55:17.540]She took thalidomide when she was pregnant and she tried to get an abortion.
- [00:55:22.474]She published kind of an op-ed in a newspaper
- [00:55:26.580]kind of explaining and trying to let other women know, hey, if you took thalidomide,
- [00:55:30.560]you should really talk to your doctor because your baby might have
- [00:55:34.735]these, you know, disabilities
- [00:55:36.395]And she said that she had her abortion scheduled.
- [00:55:39.910]And then people responded to that to the point that her
- [00:55:44.211]abortion was not able to take place
- [00:55:46.630]at the hospital because they started receiving threats.
- [00:55:49.330]And, you know, people vocalized their
- [00:55:53.140]discontent with the idea that this woman was going to have this abortion there.
- [00:55:57.090]So she had to go have her procedure in Sweden.
- [00:56:00.730]And so when we kind of open this up to public discourse,
- [00:56:06.620]people talk and weigh in on their opinion
- [00:56:13.169]I haven't really gauged how, you know, Californians, in particular,
- [00:56:17.561]like responded to the Belous decision.
- [00:56:21.191]You know, when Roe comes around, and is decided,
- [00:56:26.307]I think, you obviously have a very visible group of people
- [00:56:30.243]who are happy that it passed, who are excited that it passed,
- [00:56:34.530]but it also then creates an opportunity for more people to
- [00:56:37.614]really begin to challenge what they see as a decision that they think is wrong.
- [00:56:43.750]And so in the aftermath of Roe,
- [00:56:47.080]right, we start getting different types of
- [00:56:51.380]legislation, things like the Hyde Amendment, for example,
- [00:56:55.540]to then start kind of chipping away at the protections that were in Roe.
- [00:57:00.330]So it is almost kind of like this immediate backlash in response
- [00:57:04.510]to that Hyde Amendment was, you know, 1976.
- [00:57:07.350]And so you have a Supreme Court decision that says you that creates a
- [00:57:14.070]trimester system first and then says you have a right for these protections
- [00:57:18.868]in the first trimester for sure, maybe in the second trimester, and maybe less in the third.
- [00:57:25.070]So they're already kind of setting their own little limits and parameters,
- [00:57:29.540]and then you have Congress that then starts chipping away at that further with Hyde.
- [00:57:34.490]And subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, again, that continue to,
- [00:57:39.399]like Planned Parenthood versus Casey, Doe v. Bolton, all of these other cases then
- [00:57:45.891]continue to kind of challenge.
- [00:57:49.230]And in some ways, like Casey, for example, both sides kind of saw it as a victory, right?
- [00:57:57.470]Because in some respects, it preserved the basics of Roe, but it also...
- [00:58:04.470]really builds the framework for what we're kind of seeing today in terms of
- [00:58:08.970]these different loops and hoops
- [00:58:11.346]that people have to jump through in order to be able to exert that right.
- [00:58:16.130]So I think it's complicated.
- [00:58:19.930]In some respects, it creates the protection.
- [00:58:24.310]And then once that is kind of out in public, it creates an opportunity for opponents of
- [00:58:31.290]that to then mobilize to find
- [00:58:34.450]ways to kind of chip at that foundation, which is, I think, what we've been seeing
- [00:58:40.130]kind of for the last 50 years or so.
- [00:58:42.070]Thank you.
- [00:58:44.690]Catherine?
- [00:58:50.810]Thank you.
- [00:58:52.010]Yes, I read your book.
- [00:58:54.250]Thank you.
- [00:58:55.290]I really liked how you helped the reader.
- [00:58:59.830]You started with, this is what I'm going to say.
- [00:59:03.650]And then you said it.
- [00:59:05.310]And then you came back around and said, and this is what I said.
- [00:59:08.110]So that was, as a reader, I really appreciate this, you know, especially when you're trying
- [00:59:13.950]to get through a book and you're trying to, you know, take notes on it and bring it down
- [00:59:19.730]to what it means.
- [00:59:20.630]And so I read it as a very new history PhD student, and I recognize almost a modernist
- [00:59:32.010]narrative of how it's getting better
- [00:59:34.410]and better and better for the people who believe that abortion and
- [00:59:43.450]that women should have the right to choose and make this decision.
- [00:59:46.330]Where I had problems with the book,
- [00:59:50.314]is how you represented the other side, how you represented
- [00:59:55.210]the side of the people who were opposed to abortion.
- [01:00:00.110]And I think it comes down to first principles
- [01:00:04.846]because if you believe that abortion is a right that a woman has, then everything
- [01:00:14.470]in your book follows from that,
- [01:00:16.330]but if a person for religious reasons or other reasons believes that abortion is
- [01:00:24.590]taking a human life, then you have a very different outcome
- [01:00:30.950]and you see things very differently.
- [01:00:34.370]So I wanted to go and talk a little bit about how you said, um, mala pro se and,
- [01:00:42.352]mala prohibita, the types of crimes, a mala prohibita crime is prohibited because,
- [01:00:50.150]the law says so.
- [01:00:51.050]And that's how you read this abortion statute that it's wrong because people said so.
- [01:00:56.250]but a mala per se crime is a crime that's wrong because it's just wrong on its face.
- [01:01:03.850]And I just feel like you didn't represent the other side of the story, who the people
- [01:01:14.030]that said this is wrong because human life is taken and, that fundamental
- [01:01:20.070]understanding that all things being equal, the people, people on the other side often
- [01:01:28.970]believe all things being equal when you have to make a decision.
- [01:01:34.330]Then the life of the most vulnerable is the life to be protected.
- [01:01:38.210]And that would be the child.
- [01:01:40.570]Do you want to comment about why you chose not to present the other side of the
- [01:01:46.870]argument on that question?
- [01:01:49.230]So thank you for that.
- [01:01:51.830]So, you know, I, I think I was trying to approach this more from, I mean,
- [01:02:03.890]really the historical perspective.
- [01:02:05.870]I mean, thinking about how historically
- [01:02:09.080]have we treated this procedure in the United States
- [01:02:12.590]and, you know, overwhelmingly in the colonial period, this was something that was not
- [01:02:20.670]really considered an issue, particularly if it was before quickening, which is probably
- [01:02:26.370]around 14 or 15 weeks.
- [01:02:28.010]And when we see, you know,
- [01:02:34.290]criminal case or trial or something in, in some of these earlier periods, it's often
- [01:02:39.550]tied to something else.
- [01:02:40.750]You know, it's, it's often tied to some other crime or criminal act.
- [01:02:45.210]It wasn't, that the person was, being criminalized because the court believed that
- [01:02:53.930]abortion was murder.
- [01:02:54.970]And I argue that this is a kind of more woman centered perspective.
- [01:03:04.270]In the sense that she is the one who quickening is,
- [01:03:07.865]was described as when you could feel fetal movement.
- [01:03:10.520]It, she is the only one who can attest to when she felt fetal movement.
- [01:03:15.430]She is the only one who can kind of dictate when that happens.
- [01:03:19.590]And for some women it's earlier or later.
- [01:03:22.070]So the court never attempted to kind of, or define through the law, you know, when
- [01:03:30.010]it was okay, or it wasn't, it was trying to regulate some of these
- [01:03:34.250]other moral behavior, um, and it really left it to the women to kind of say, you
- [01:03:39.270]know, did you experience quickening or had you experienced quickening yet?
- [01:03:42.290]And it, it kind of gave credence to her perspective and voice.
- [01:03:47.030]Now, when we start to see some of these moral arguments brought in,
- [01:03:53.250]is not until the 19th century
- [01:03:54.978]and even like California had, an abortion law, that restricted abortion from
- [01:04:04.230]statehood, but it was not framed around abortion being murder.
- [01:04:10.470]It was also framed about physicians rights and physicians practice and malpractice.
- [01:04:17.250]So the original California law that prohibited abortion, only prohibited abortion
- [01:04:23.790]if it was performed by someone who was not a medical practitioner, and it basically,
- [01:04:34.210]gave freedom to physicians to perform abortions whenever
- [01:04:39.373]they believe they were medically necessary.
- [01:04:41.870]So the 1850 and it's kind of revised again, but we came to the same provisions in 1872.
- [01:04:48.670]So even in California, when they are prohibiting abortion is very much framed as a
- [01:04:55.113]protection of women by charging with criminal activity,
- [01:05:00.072]a non-medical provider who does this procedure.
- [01:05:04.476]That is when abortion is illegal in California.
- [01:05:07.470]That is why abortion is illegal in California.
- [01:05:10.470]Only when a non-medical person does it, it's not considered murder.
- [01:05:15.130]It is not considered taking a human life.
- [01:05:18.590]They're concerned about some quack coming in from, you know, some middle of nowhere,
- [01:05:26.370]Oklahoma who decides to be a doctor in California and start performing abortion.
- [01:05:32.310]That's what they're trying to regulate.
- [01:05:34.170]That's what they're trying to prohibit.
- [01:05:36.410]So when we start to see this moral language being inserted into the abortion topic is
- [01:05:45.710]really through like Dr. Horatio Storer and some of these early OBGYNs who are specializing
- [01:05:53.810]in the 19th century.
- [01:05:56.590]But they are doing this to also assert their own professionalism and to really kind of
- [01:06:04.150]pry midwives and other women away from the field.
- [01:06:07.370]So it is kind of contextual, right, that this idea that abortion is murder has not been
- [01:06:15.710]something that is a trans-historical truth.
- [01:06:17.950]It is not something that has always existed in tandem with discussion.
- [01:06:22.670]And in particularly the California example, it was not something that was really kind
- [01:06:30.830]of considered part of the reasons or justifications
- [01:06:34.130]for making rules or regulations against the procedure until much later that that language
- [01:06:40.370]then kind of gets used to support restrictions.
- [01:06:44.810]I think it's also important to consider how changes in lifespan
- [01:06:53.340]maternal and infant mortality also likely affect our perceptions of fetuses and pregnancy.
- [01:06:59.630]So in the colonial period, in the 19th century,
- [01:07:04.110]when infant and maternal mortality are high,
- [01:07:06.710]they're probably not giving as much credence to this fetus as a potential person
- [01:07:14.110]when you already have high infant and maternal mortality, right?
- [01:07:19.650]So we can also see that in terms of like how perspectives of childhood change
- [01:07:24.930]as infant and maternal mortality kind of stabilize
- [01:07:27.750]and it becomes safer and easier for people to give birth and
- [01:07:32.700]survive infancy and childhood.
- [01:07:34.490]So particularly for some of these earlier periods,
- [01:07:38.250]when infant and maternal mortality are higher,
- [01:07:40.450]there is less of this kind of discourse about this being a potential person
- [01:07:44.590]when even people or, you know,
- [01:07:47.270]babies that are born are not living past, you know,
- [01:07:50.310]infancy or getting to childhood.
- [01:07:53.030]In terms of the malum prohibitum and the malum in se,
- [01:07:59.070]I saw that more as a way to,
- [01:08:04.070]to kind of explain because I was using vice regulation as a framework,
- [01:08:10.190]particularly because of the criminal syndicates that were attached to it.
- [01:08:14.650]And so, that is why I used that particular framework to kind of analyze
- [01:08:20.110]abortion as kind of an extension of vice crimes
- [01:08:25.470]because it kind of fits in a lot of the same spaces.
- [01:08:28.430]So because of this long history where,
- [01:08:33.970]it wasn't really about fetal life and because of my focus on
- [01:08:40.441]criminal organizations and syndicates,
- [01:08:42.630]I chose to use that particular framework because I believed it worked best to
- [01:08:47.970]kind of hold the different pieces together.
- [01:08:52.736]So I would just,
- [01:08:56.130]sorry, we have,
- [01:08:58.470]we have time for just one more question because we're going to 10:45.
- [01:09:04.030]And I want to give any other students who have a question to get it out
- [01:09:10.590]on the table for us.
- [01:09:14.411]Surely there's one more.
- [01:09:16.310]Okay. Luke, you, you have your hand up. You go.
- [01:09:22.310]Yeah.
- [01:09:23.836]I think that kind of touched on a question that I had about how the Catholic
- [01:09:29.190]Church has not always taken the same stance towards abortion.
- [01:09:33.470]And I was wondering,
- [01:09:34.740]how that the shifting perceptions that religion has taken in
- [01:09:39.490]the role of abortion kind of shaped the public's view of it and how that
- [01:09:44.870]kind of injected itself into the law throughout
- [01:09:48.520]the period that you're studying.
- [01:09:50.387]Yeah. So, you know,
- [01:09:53.390]there was really only one section where I considered talking a little bit
- [01:09:57.370]about religion and there was this really interesting case and I think it's
- [01:10:01.910]the 60's. And I think it was headquartered in New York,
- [01:10:05.070]but they had a few different branches and it was groups of different clergy
- [01:10:08.970]members from a variety of faiths.
- [01:10:13.250]They had a call center where they would help direct women to find abortion
- [01:10:17.510]providers. They mostly targeted like,
- [01:10:20.530]or were accessible to like college age women
- [01:10:23.620]usually near some type of college campus.
- [01:10:26.210]And it was these different faith leaders because often they recognize that
- [01:10:33.970]you know, these are complicated questions.
- [01:10:36.550]There is a misconception that people go into and have abortions like
- [01:10:40.630]willy nilly. That is rarely the case.
- [01:10:43.310]Often there's a lot of deep consideration and grappling with these issues.
- [01:10:48.150]And so these, you know,
- [01:10:50.230]I think really modern and progressive faith leaders decided that,
- [01:10:55.450]you know, having a call center and, you know,
- [01:10:58.410]maybe speaking with these women and kind of addressing their fears and
- [01:11:01.950]concerns was important.
- [01:11:04.410]But also potentially directing them to a competent provider, right?
- [01:11:08.950]Because there's also this discussion
- [01:11:10.983]amongst at least these particular clergy members.
- [01:11:13.430]What is the lesser of two evils, right?
- [01:11:16.550]You have someone here in front of you who is concerned,
- [01:11:21.830]who has these questions like, well,
- [01:11:23.870]maybe we can just like talk through this with you.
- [01:11:26.350]But also, if you have someone who you fear is going to harm themselves,
- [01:11:33.930]who you fear is going to, you know,
- [01:11:37.450]take one of these more dangerous routes,
- [01:11:39.090]then, you can at least help this person protect their own life by directing
- [01:11:45.110]them to someone who you believe will provide them with quality care.
- [01:11:49.090]There is a lot of nuance to this.
- [01:11:52.210]It is something that I understand is,
- [01:11:57.590]it is something people hold quite firmly, you know,
- [01:12:01.710]their religious beliefs, their moral
- [01:12:03.910]beliefs, you know,
- [01:12:06.370]I understand why, you know,
- [01:12:09.710]some people are against abortion but it is also
- [01:12:15.299]it's a really nuanced topic.
- [01:12:18.591]And I believe that it in, you know,
- [01:12:24.510]creating some of these laws that severely limit autonomy,
- [01:12:30.372]we are creating more opportunities for,
- [01:12:33.890]for harm, than we are actually helping anyone.
- [01:12:40.510]and if the goal is harm reduction, right?
- [01:12:44.090]And if we are truly interested in like limiting the number of abortions
- [01:12:48.010]that take place, for example,
- [01:12:49.450]then we as a society need a more kind of comprehensive package that
- [01:12:55.850]addresses the fact that people are going to have premarital sex.
- [01:12:58.850]People are going to,
- [01:13:01.870]you know, engage in relations,
- [01:13:03.870]but so are we providing good sex education?
- [01:13:06.910]Are we providing access to birth control?
- [01:13:09.290]Are we doing other things?
- [01:13:10.990]If you're really interested in limiting the number of abortions,
- [01:13:13.950]then what are you doing elsewhere to help contribute to that based on,
- [01:13:18.570]you know, evidence, right?
- [01:13:20.370]And so the church,
- [01:13:23.690]particularly the Catholic Church,
- [01:13:25.610]you know, they more recently,
- [01:13:27.910]I believe have kind of gone against abortion,
- [01:13:30.810]but at different points, they didn't really have an opinion about it.
- [01:13:34.110]And we can see even exceptions to kind of mainline religious dogma with
- [01:13:39.710]these individual religious leaders who said,
- [01:13:43.730]you know, this is my conviction that,
- [01:13:47.400]you know, we can talk with these young women about
- [01:13:50.975]their fears and concerns.
- [01:13:52.350]But at the end of the day, if this is something that they want,
- [01:13:55.493]at least they're going to go to someone who is trained and competent.
- [01:13:59.252]So there is a lot of nuance to this topic.
- [01:14:01.490]There is no singular, you know,
- [01:14:04.970]kind of response or answer.
- [01:14:06.670]Nuance, nuance, nuance
- [01:14:08.860]is really the only way that you can kind of think about this topic.
- [01:14:13.960]Thank you, Professor Gutierrez-Romine.
- [01:14:16.250]And I really appreciate this conversation and I'll turn it over to
- [01:14:20.740]Anne Gregory for our final word as we wrap up.
- [01:14:25.100]Thank you,
- [01:14:27.260]Drs. Gutierrez-Romine and Thomas for this conversation.
- [01:14:30.530]It's been an honor to have you here.
- [01:14:32.906]We are so grateful for your time and appreciate the way that your projects are
- [01:14:37.070]laying the foundation for the questions that we're asking at
- [01:14:40.120]the U.S. Law and Race Initiative.
- [01:14:41.913]I'd also like to thank our audience for watching,
- [01:14:44.990]for sending in and asking your questions and to
- [01:14:48.010]the U.S. Law and Race team for support.
- [01:14:49.810]You can learn more about the U.S.
- [01:14:52.270]Law and Race Initiative at uslawandrace.unl.edu.
- [01:14:56.670]Additional information about our event series,
- [01:15:00.210]as well as YouTube videos of our past events are posted at
- [01:15:03.790]events.unl.edu/USLawandRace.
- [01:15:08.130]And please stay tuned for our upcoming webinars this summer,
- [01:15:11.590]featuring presentation roundtables with our Mellon graduate
- [01:15:15.300]fellows and undergraduate researchers.
- [01:15:17.420]Thank you again and have a great rest of your day.
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