Intimate Wars (32 page)

6
As of today, there are only four states that voluntarily provide Medicaid funding for abortions.

7
This eventually became a double-edged sword as the state began to use the system of regulation and licensing
to control and eliminate providers through TRAP laws (see chapter nine).

8
I went on to hold a second panel on women's health in 1976. This one was sponsored by the Medical Group Council (Marty was the chairman) and titled “‘Challeng-ing the Medical Mystique': How Can Consumers Influence the Health Care Delivery System?” May Lasker, Philip Strax, and Congressman Leo Zeferetti were participants.

9
Menstrual extraction is a method of self-help abortion that was developed and implemented by Lorraine Rothman and Carol Downer at the Feminist Women's Health Center in 1971. It is a manually-operated suction technique using tubes and syringe that can be performed by lay people without medical expertise. Rothman and Downer called the technique ME to emphasize its innocuous use in suctioning out menstrual blood and tissue. ME was also considered an important tactical weapon in the abortion wars; if
Roe
were ever overturned, or states started to substantially restrict access, women would still be able to control their fertility.

10
Ross, “Abortion: Six Years After the Supreme Court Decision, The Conflict Rages On.”

11
Bellotti v. Baird
was argued twice and ruled on after its 1979 hearing. The case involved a Massachusetts law that required minor girls seeking abortions to first obtain the consent of their parents, or a court order waiving that consent. The court's eight-to-one decision in 1979 affirmed its previous ruling in
Danforth
, invalidating all state laws that require all minor girls to obtain their parents' consent before getting an abortion. It gave states latitude to establish procedures to determine whether a girl is mature enough to make the decision. But it held
that a pregnant minor is “entitled in such a proceeding to show either that she is mature enough and well enough informed to make her abortion decision, in consultation with her physician, independently of her parents' wishes,” or that the abortion would be in her “best interest.”

12
FDA studies from the early eighties showed that of one hundred women who use aerosol foam alone, two to twenty-nine became pregnant in the first year; of those who used jellies and cream alone, four to thirty-six became pregnant.... When compared to the pill (two to three out of one hundred users became pregnant in a year), IUD (one to six) and the diaphragm (two to twenty, depending on proper use), the nonprescription spermicides seemed much less effective. (See Hoffman, “Birth Control: The Last Market That Needs Misleading Ads.”)

13
See Frances Kissling,
“
If War is ‘Just', So is Abortion.” Also see Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous philosophical tract
A Defense of Abortion
(1971).

14
Erlanger, “A Widening Pattern of Abuse Exemplified in Steinberg Case.”

15
Faludi,
Backlash
.

16
Members included CARASA, Catholics for a Free Choice, Choices, NYS-NARAL, NOW-NYC, Planned Parenthood-NYC, Radical Women, Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, the Women's Quarterly Review, Hunter College, the Puerto Rican Committee Against Racism, the Local 3882 AFT Organization of Asian Women, and Princeton University. Among many others, the individual members included Charlotte Bunch, Rhonda Copelon, Kate Millett, Grace Paley, Phyllis Chesler, Bella Abzug, and Ruth Messinger.

17
Benderly, “Feminists Fight Fundamentalist “Fetus Fetish”.

18
Ibid.

19
See Shelley, “A Sacrificial Light, Self-Immolation in Tajrish Square, Tehran,” for more on this subject.

20
Robin Morgan later hit this nail on the head with her book
Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology
.

21
Recipients of Diana Foundation grants included Andrea Dworkin, for her book
Scapegoat
; NOW of New York City; The House of Elder Artists (THEA); Community Health Care Network; Phyllis Chesler; and Edna Adan Ismail, director and founder of the Edna Adan University Hospital in Hargeisa and president of the Organization for Victims of Torture.

22
Karl Marx, from “Critique of the Gotha Program.”

23
Patrick Buchanan, one of the Republican candidates for President, told four hundred people at a New Jersey right-to-life convention that “the empire we are fighting is every bit the evil empire the Soviet Union was” (see Hoffman, “Abortion Providers: The New ‘Communists,'” in
On the Issues
).

24
I first met Norma McCorvey at the second national Pro-Choice March on Washington in 1989. She greeted me with a wan smile as activist lawyer Gloria Allred introduced her first as Norma McCorvey and then as “you know, Jane Roe.”

25
The
New York Times
, January 11, 1999: “GOLD-Martin, M.D., 80 years old, died the kind of death, in Fort Lau-derdale, Florida, on January 9, 1999, that he had always termed a ‘blessing'—one that came quickly and without great suffering. The lessons of his life can be measured by his achievements in the medical world and the gifts of loving compassion and generosity that he shared with all who knew him. As a physician, he practiced the art
as well as the science of medicine, and his patients loved him for it. As a mentor, he inspired many young professionals to move beyond their limitations and live their dreams. As a man, he was honorable, honest, loving, witty, and kind. He will be deeply missed and very fondly remembered by his loving wife, Merle Hoffman . . .”

 

 

 

 

 

A complete archive of Merle Hoffman's
On the Issues
magazine editorials and interviews, as well as her writing on current feminist topics, can be found at ontheissuesmagazine .com. See
merlehoffman.com
for further resources on Merle's life and activism.

Advancing New Standards In Reproductive Health. 2010.
Fetal pain, analgesia, and anesthesia in the context of abortion
. ANSIRH, June.
http://www.ansirh.org/_documents/research/late-abortion/FetalPain.FactSheet.6-2010.pdf

Baird-Windle, Patricia and Eleanor Bader. 2001.
Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism
. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Benderly, Jill. 1986. “Feminists Fight Fundamentalist ‘Fetus Fetish.'”
New York Guardian
, February 5.

Branch, Alan. 2004. “Radical Feminism and Abortion Rights: A Brief Summary and Critique.”
JBMW
9, no. 2 (Fall).

Epstein, Richard A. 1993. “Life's Dominion: An Argument
About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom.”
Reason
, November 1.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-14527043.html

Erlanger, Steven. 1987. “A Widening Pattern of Abuse Exemplified in Steinberg Case.”
New York Times
, November 8.

Faludi, Susan. 1992.
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
. New York: Anchor.

Fine, Terri Susan. 2006. “Generations, Feminist Beliefs and Abortion Rights Support.”
Journal of International Women's Studies
7, no. 4 (May).
http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lal/lal2009/lal2009-12.pdf

Gowaty, Patricia Adair, ed. 1997.
Feminism and Evolutionary Biology: Boundaries, Intersections, and Frontiers.
New York: Chapman & Hall.

Grimes, David A. 1991. “An Epidemic of Antiabortion Violence in the United States.”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
165, no. 5 (November).

Guttmacher Institute. 2006. “Abortion and Unintended Pregnancy Decline Worldwide as Contraceptive Use Increases.” Media release.
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2009/10/13/index.html

Hern, Warren M., MD. 1972. “The Politics Of Abortion.”
The Progressive
36, no. 11 (November).

Hewson, Barbara. 2004. “Is It Murder To Refuse A Caesarean?”
AIMS Journal
16, no. 1 (Spring).
http://www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol16No1/murderToRefuse.htm

Hoffman, Amy. 2001. “A Conversation With Abortion Rights Activist Merle Hoffman.”
Wellesley Review
.

Hoffman, Merle. 1982. “Birth Control: The Last Market That Needs Misleading Ads.”
Los Angeles Times
, August 29.

———. 1985. “Feminism, Power, Politics, Abortion.”
Journal of The American Medical Women's Association
40, no. 6 (November/December).

Joffe, Carole E. 1995.
Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and After
Roe v. Wade. Boston: Beacon Press.

Kissling, Frances. 1991. “If War Is ‘Just', So Is Abortion.”
Los Angeles Times
, April 17.

Lee, Clara N., and John M. Daly. 2002. “Provider Volume and Clinical Outcomes in Surgery: Issues and Implications.”
Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons
86, no. 6 (June).

Lewin, Tamar. 1995. “A New Weapon in an Old War—A Special Report; Latest Tactic Against Abortion: Accusing Doctors of Malpractice.”
New York Times
, April 9.

Lizza, Ryan. 2005. “The Abortion Capital of America.”
New York Times Magazine
, December 4.

McKenna, George. 1995. “On Abortion: A Lincolnian Position.”
Atlantic Monthly
, September.

Meikle, James. 2010. “Human Foetus Feels No Pain Before 24 Weeks, Study Says.”
Guardian
, June 25.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/25/human-foetus-no-pain-24-weeks

Morgan, Robin. 1996.
Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology
. New York: The Feminist Press.

Murray, Alice. 1981. “A Survey On Abortion Finds Its Illegality Would Not Deter 45% Of Women.”
Daily News
, November 22.

Pollitt, Katha. 1997. “Abortion in American History.”
Atlantic Monthly
, May.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97may/abortion.htm

Pollitt, Katha. 1997. “Secrets And Lies.”
Nation
, March 31.

Rich, Frank. 1997. “Partial-Truth Abortion.”
New York Times
, March 9.

Ross, Barbara. 1979. “Abortion: Six Years After the Supreme Court Decision, the Conflict Rages On.”
New York Post
, February 13.

Sarachild, Kathie, Carol Hanisch, Faye Levine, Barbara Leon, and Colette Price, eds. 1979.
Feminist Revolution: An Abridged Edition With Additional Writings
. New York: Random House.

Shelley, Martha. 1994. “A Sacrificial Light: Self-Immolation in Tajrish Square, Tehran.”
On the Issues
, Fall.

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. 1985.
Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Solinger, Rickie. 2001.
Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in the United States
. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Staggenborg, Suzanne. 1994.
The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict
. New York: Oxford University Press.

Steinem, Gloria. 1990. “Sex, Lies, and Advertising.”
Ms.,
July/ August.

Turow, Joseph. 1989.
Playing Doctor: Television, Storytelling, and Medical Power
. New York: Oxford University Press.

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