On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court established that unborn children did not qualify as “persons” and were not protected by the 14th Amendment, the right to life. Debate has raged since the historic Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide. Even as the U.S. abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level in 29 years, supporters and foes have struggled in a policy tug of war that pits child against fetus, wrangling over restrictions to abortion access, parental protections for young pregnant teens and funding for international clinics. Thirty years later, another generation of women find themselves fighting on the same medical, legal and philosophical battle grounds.
NOW
Jennifer Koehler, 32, president, Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women.
Jennifer Koehler doesn’t hesitate to use the word “crisis” when describing the threats to women’s reproductive rights.
A newly elected Republican-majority U.S. Senate will address several bills in the coming months that seek to restrict abortion services and redefine its legal meaning. Also, abortion-rights advocates fear the president will nominate conservative justices to fill new federal court seats.
“Overturning Roe v. Wade is definitely part of [Bush’s] agenda,” the attorney said.
But the administration’s attack started early, she noted: “One of Bush’s first official acts was to reinstate the global gag rule and eliminate funding for international family planning organizations.”
The gag rule, instituted by President Reagan and repealed by President Clinton, restricts U.S.-assisted health providers from counseling women on abortion or providing abortion services.
“If that’s not a smack in the face to all women, I don’t know what is.”
As the new president of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women, Koehler’s mission is to make sure women feel that sting and act on it.
Her generation is in denial that Roe v. Wade could be overturned, she said. “We have to make that seem real to people. They have to understand the need to engage.”
Koehler credits Susan Faludi’s “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women” with jolting her awake politically through page after page of infuriating information, she says.
With all the activity in Washington, Koehler believes it’s important to get the message out about abortion rights now.
“If Roe v. Wade gets overturned there would be chaos in the streets, but it would be too late.”
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Archdiocese
Mary-Louise Kurey, 28, director, Respect Life office, Archdiocese of Chicago.
For some, abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.
“I’m about to marry the man of my dreams,” said Mary-Louise Kurey, who in the 7th grade decided not to have sex until marriage.
Kurey is a national spokeswoman for chastity–indeed it was her platform as Miss Wisconsin 1999 and it’s the subject of her book, “Standing with Courage: Confronting Tough Decisions about Sex.”
Confidence, maturity and wonderful relationships are all byproducts of her choice, she says, as well as living without fear of an unwanted pregnancy.
Kurey’s mission in her new position at the Archdiocese of Chicago is to encourage a respect for life, on issues from euthanasia to the death penalty to abortion.
“We don’t see ourselves as being precious, we see ourselves as how useful we can be to the world.”
From there, it’s easy to disregard the sanctity of life, which is part of the legacy of Roe v. Wade, she argues.
“To grow up in an era where I could have been aborted, all of us in that situation are survivors and live with the fact that our lives depended on the will of another person. That’s a disturbing thought.”
Abortion is a disservice to women, Kurey says.
“Feminists are going to wake up and realize that abortion … benefits men. They can go around and sow their wild oats, and not pay child support or face any consequences of their actions, while women face all the physical and psychological consequences.”
“To be pro-life is to be pro-woman.”
THE LAW
Carolyn Frazier, 32, attorney, Baker and McKenzie.
History is repeating itself, warns Carolyn Frazier.
As a law student at Northwestern University, Frazier worked with a prominent family law scholar on a project that traced records of abortion criminal activity in late 1890s Chicago, some 30 years after the procedure was banned in Illinois.
“It was very clear from looking at this data that when abortion was illegal, all women were getting abortions and really what you were looking at was issues of access.”
Immigrant and poor women were disproportionately investigated, indicted and incarcerated. Also, medical journals admitted at the time that abortion was common among the wealthy–“the rich women’s dirty little secret,” Frazier said.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, women still will seek abortions, and poor women will die from back-alley procedures, she argues. “It will stratify who can afford a safe abortion and who can’t. I don’t know that will change much from 100 years ago.”
Policy can’t be controlled by politics if women are to remain safe, Frazier says. “It’s not liberal, it’s pragmatic.”
Frazier is working on a civil rights case and also practices corporate law, but says she intends to stay involved in this debate. “Growing up post-Roe v. Wade, you don’t question that this is a right that would ever go away, but it’s not a given.”
ACTIVISM
Annie Scheidler, 27, director, Generations of Life, youth outreach arm of Pro-Life Action League.
For a long time Annie Scheidler refused to think about abortion.
The daughter of Joseph Scheidler–the abortion foe named as the defendant in a federal case for protesting outside clinics–found the debate too contentious.
She saw the pictures of aborted babies, she held fast to her Catholic faith, but only as a college student did she join her father’s lifelong battle.
“Pro-life is not just, ‘I believe abortion is wrong,’ it’s a whole philosophy of life,” Scheidler says. “I don’t see how respect for yourself and respect for someone else can ever cause you harm. That’s what pro-life and chastity is all about.”
She is now developing a youth outreach program for the organization founded by her father, the Pro-Life Action League.
She urges teens to refrain from sex to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Scheidler says making contraception and sex education available to youths hasn’t worked.
If the law changed, and abortion becomes illegal, people would change their behavior, she argues.
“Abortion makes it easy, but if it’s banned, you keep the bar high.”
Roe v. Wade insults the preciousness of life, she says. “When I think about 30 years of legal abortion, I think about the survivors, the women who have gone through this and been silenced. … I think about all the young kids who have grown up with abortion and this culture of death.”
MEDICINE
Carolyn Bradner, 27, Fourth-year student at University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
Carolyn Bradner went to Highland Park High School, where students go on to top colleges and their families can typically afford an abortion. So Bradner was surprised when a friend who got pregnant chose to keep the baby. It turned her life around, Bradner says.
“The decision she made was the best decision for her in the long run.”
Bradner intends to practice adolescent medicine and to offer pregnancy counseling to her patients, including the option for a medical abortion, as with RU-486.
“[Abortion] is a difficult decision to make. It’s not a benign medical experience,” she says, but with counseling, “any woman at any age should be able to make that decision.”
Adoption is also a great option, Bradner says. She recently observed procedures and adoption counseling at a local Planned Parenthood clinic.
People should learn about pregnancy issues before they ever have to confront it, Bradner insists. “It’s a failure of the medical system for a teenager who doesn’t want to get pregnant, to get pregnant.” And Bradner disagrees with religious conservatives who want to limit sexual education or restrict access to condoms.
The unfortunate legacy of 30 years of legal abortion is the ideological fight over what should be a simple medical issue, Bradner says. “It’s one procedure. It gets way more attention than it should.”
A difficult choice: Living with abortion
Debbie was 19 and “a very young and foolish college student, madly in love” when she had sex without protection. It was the first time she and her partner slept together. Debbie became pregnant.
“It was a difficult situation to tell my boyfriend, who was very stoic.”
But the answer was clear, said Debbie, now 41. “There was no choice to me. I was too young” to have a child.
The procedure was unpleasant but swift; her boyfriend was not allowed in the room. “He did go with me to the clinic. We went through mandatory counseling. He was very supportive, but there was a lot of silence, I recall.”
She doesn’t think about it much now, though she stresses it was not a casual thing.
“About four or five months later, I questioned whether I should have some grief counseling. … I think about it less over the years, but I’ve always been very glad that I had that choice.”
In addition to working in communications, Debbie is an advocate for reproductive rights. “I firmly believe that it is a woman’s right to choose and that I made the right decision.”
The second time Laura got pregnant, she kept her baby. Aborting her first pregnancy was the worst decision of her life, she says.
“Your body becomes a tomb. … I felt like a living morgue.”
Laura, in her late 20s, grows upset as she discusses what is a deeply painful memory for her. Even after several years of grieving, she is not yet healed. “I block a lot of it out,” she says.
Laura grew up Catholic. Her faith figures large in her life still, even though the abortion led her away from the church for a while. She now attends Elmhurst College and is raising her young daughter alone.
Laura says she did not receive adequate information about the abortion procedure or the gestational stage of the fetus before making her decision.
With more specifics about the physical and emotional effects of abortion, Laura says, she likely would have changed her mind.
“I found out the baby was torn limb from limb. And the nurse calling out numbers? Those were body parts. … Nobody tells you this stuff. Where’s women’s rights here?”
