Abortion Underground Emerging
As legal abortions become harder and harder to obtain, there is a movement emerging to ensure that women will never have to return to the dark ages of the pre-Roe v. Wade era. In the wake of the Supreme Court's June 29 ruling, and a host of previous judicial setbacks, assistance networks like the Overground Railroad are being activated to guarantee a woman's access to an abortion.
For a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, "access" means knowing that abortion is an option; locating a practitioner; and finding the money for transportation and the procedure and maybe even food and lodging; and receiving information on how to care for herself following the abortion.
As many abortion rights activists predicted, the Court's most recent ruling did not overturn Roe but continued to increase the number of restrictions placed on a woman's access to abortion. Although the Court struck down Pennsylvania's requirement that a married woman notify her husband of a pending abortion, it let stand the 24-hour "waiting period" for all women seeking abortions, and it let stand a parental notification requirement.
Though many women already encounter significant barriers to abortion access, restrictions may become even more severe and the Supreme Court makes it easier for states to determine their own abortion guidelines.
In this state for example, the Michigan Supreme Court in June upheld a ban on Medicaid-funded abortions. Medicaid will continue to pay for childbirth.. This ruling ensures that a low-income woman who relies on Medicaid for her health care must "choose" bearing an unwanted child over having an abortion if she doesn't have the money to pay for an abortion.
Michigan is developing its own underground network to deal with the realities of the recent setbacks to abortion rights. The Michigan religious Coalition for Abortion Rights recently convened about 30 metro Detroit clerics to develop an abortion counseling and referral service by clergy. A similar stirring is occurring in several states. This activity recalls the clergy referral networks of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion that Rev. Howard Moody founded in New York in 1967. At that time, women from all over the country sought counseling and referral to reputable (thought illegal) abortion practitioners by clergy who were part of the underground network. The New York model spread by 1970 to more than two dozen states including Illinois, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, and Texas. Over 1,000 pastors and rabbis provided the information and assistance women needed to get safe abortions.
Another assistance network, the Overground Railroad, was formed in 1989 following the Supreme Court's Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision. This transportation and lodging organization now has
(see "UNDERGROUND" page 4)