Revolution Books Chicago

  WHEN ABORTION IS ILLEGAL WOMEN DIE!

SPEAK OUT! 5 pm
Thursday MARCH 3, 

Stroger Hospital, corner of Harrison and Ogden
Contact: 312-804-9121

Hidden History of Pre-Roe Septic Abortion Wards in Chicago

The Supreme Court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade or seriously restrict women’s right to abortion. Many of us who lived through a pre-Roe era know that women will seek to end a pregnancy through some very unsafe ways, especially young people, and many will die with botched abortions.

On March 3, Thursday, Rise Up 4 AbortionRights coalition and others will hold a speak-out at Stroger Hospital (formerly Cook County Hospital) to bring out the hidden history of the pre-Roe v. Wade Septic Abortion Wards.

Before abortion was legal in Chicago, at Cook County Hospital’s Septic Abortion Ward, there were 15 to 20 women brought in daily from botched, self-inflicted abortions that had become infected. Poor, Black, Brown, and rural women were disproportionately affected. An OB-GYN doctor recalls, “I called the morgue every week because somebody had died.”

A doctor who worked in an emergency room in the days before Roe said: “We had girls coming in every night with 105 degree fever, sick from illegal abortions and home remedies.” One case he recalls is of a woman searching for some way to abort who took a friend’s advice and inserted soap into her vagina. “I’ve seen tetanus infections because abortionists used dirty instruments. I’ve seen women with their bowels hanging down from their vaginas because the abortionist didn’t know what he was doing. I’ve seen all these things. Our society is so forgetful.”

We refuse to let this happen again! Our testimony will bring sharply into focus that when abortion is illegal women die. These barbaric and cruel conditions women face are today hidden from public view and cover over the horror of denying women the right to abortions. Shining a spotlight on this history will bring an understanding of these outrages and propel people into building for and participating in International Women’s Day, March 8, 3 pm at State and Jackson to demand:

WE REFUSE TO LET THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DENY WOMEN’S HUMANITY AND DECIMATE THEIR RIGHTS!
ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!