In the face of this, we continue to do the radical work of funding abortion care for those in DC , Maryland, and Virginia who need it. You can donate to that work here. Brooke Butler, Movement Building Director. The coat hanger has long been a symbol of the reproductive rights movement. The DC Abortion Fund — contrary to recent conservative media reports — has for many years given away a silver coat hanger pendant to our monthly supporters.
What does your donation go to? Helping women in need. Due to distance, cost, and other state-imposed burdens, it is increasingly difficult to access safe abortion care here in the DC metro area and around the country. As a result, we — and many other funds around the country — have seen demand for our help increase steadily, with more and more women calling us for help. Why is the coat hanger a symbol of the reproductive rights movement?
Public policy exists in words, on the books, so to speak. But where it matters is where it is carried out: in city apartments, doctor's offices, women's-health clinics, and, proverbially, back alleys. To seriously consider the meaning of the hanger, or, less abstractly, the outcome of the Republican platform if realized, is to concern yourself with that reality, with the lives of women who had unwanted pregnancies during the century before Roe v.
That's where the hanger comes in, because that's what the hanger is meant to stand for: Unsafe back-alley abortions that left women dead. But is that an accurate picture of the period? Yes and no. Here's another portrait of an abortion, this one taken from an article written by a Mrs. X from the August Atlantic. X wrote:. My visit did a good deal to quell the panic which had been building steadily in spite of my efforts at self-control.
The office seemed orderly, the tools of the trade were neatly arrayed in the glass cases dear to the hearts of the medical fraternity; the doctor's examination was brief and businesslike, and as far as I could tell identical with those performed on me over the years by obstetricians and gynecologists under different circumstances. He explained in simple and understandable terms exactly how he would perform the operation, how long it would take, that it would be painful, but not intolerably so, for a few minutes.
I gather that except for abortions done in hospitals, anesthetics are almost never used. For obvious reasons, these physicians work without assistance of any kind. They are thus not equipped to deal with the possible ill effects of anesthesia; nor can they keep patients in their offices for any great length of time without arousing suspicion about their practices.
The doctor I was consulting described precisely the minimal aftereffects I might expect. We fixed a date at mutual convenience a couple of days off for the operation. This particular M. He stated frankly that he felt the element of physical risk was negligible but that the myths and exaggerations about abortion and the hard fact that it was an illegal procedure created prior apprehensions of sometimes damaging proportions.
He urged me to call him and cancel the appointment if my husband and I felt there was any reason to reconsider our decision. Short of physical and fiscal miracles we had no right to expect, I didn't see what could alter our circumstances and told him so, but I agreed wholeheartedly about the apprehensions.
The operation was successfully concluded as scheduled. Forty-five minutes after I entered the doctor's office for the second time, I walked out, flagged a passing cab, and went home. Admirably relaxed for the first time in two weeks, I dozed over dinner, left the children to wash the dishes, and dove into bed to sleep for twelve hours. The operation and its aftereffects were exactly as described by the physician.
For some five minutes I suffered "discomfort" closely approximating the contractions of advanced labor. Within ten minutes this pain subsided, and returned in the next four or five days only as the sort of mild twinge which sometimes accompanies a normal menstrual period.
Bleeding was minimal. No meat pulverizers, no hangers, minimal blood. And that's because of this, the crucial thing the symbol of the hanger embodies: The brunt of an abortion ban falls across society unevenly. The hanger does not merely symbolize the dangers of illegal abortions; it symbolizes inequality.
That twisted piece of wire -- like the meat pulverizer, Everclear alcohol, and God knows what else -- was a hack, a tool repurposed because the proper one was not accessible.
Before Roe v Wade legalized abortion, thousands of women died attempting to end their pregnancies — most of whom were poor or women of color. But in Indiana, Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years for what the state says was her illegal abortion. I hope that the law treats Yocca with more empathy and fairness than the Tennessee police have. We know what restricting abortion does. We know how scared and desperate a woman needs to be to resort to sticking a household object up her vagina and into her uterus.
This article is more than 5 years old. Jessica Valenti.
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