This much is clear, the very rich have always had the ability to terminate a pregnancy no matter where they lived. If necessary they left the Country with their own doctor and returned.
I know a little bit about what happened to the poor, before Roe.
In the Sixties, before Roe v Wade, I worked as an Intern in Congress. I lucked into this opportunity simply by attending the public high school where one of my teachers was related to a member of Congress.
I ended up as an Intern to a member of Congress doing mostly go and get stuff. The Member I worked for was heavily involved with Juvenile Delinquency and Illegal Fireworks. After the Fourth of July weekend, I was directed to go down to the largest Hospital in Washington and review the emergency admittances over the three-day weekend to see how many of the admittances were caused by accidents involving fireworks.
As best as I can recall, I went through about 80 manila files indicating why a person was admitted to the Hospital through the Emergency Room.
I do not recall a single admittance for fireworks related injuries, I recall several for knife wounds and gunshot wounds and literally twenty to thirty (maybe more) for women seeking admission for an abortion performed by some non-qualified amateur severely injuring the woman because of lack of training of the so called “provider.”
I did not personally see these women and I did not receive information on whether any died or were permanently disabled.
All I knew was that I was shocked. To say I was wet behind the ears was an understatement. I knew nothing about nothing.
Whatever the Supreme Court or the Congress does or doesn’t do in the next month, year or decade on the Abortion issue will not impact the rights of the very rich to do as they choose.
For the poor, it’s different.
Comments are welcome at tomc[at]wednesdayswars[dot]com. Comments will be addressed in subsequent posts.