Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

  An ABC radio . . .: Joanne Lipman, “Barbara Walters Radio Special on Abortion Shunned by Sponsors,” The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 1989, p. B1.

  Federal and state aid for . . .: Sonia L. Nazario, “Fertility Rights: Abortion Foes Pose Threat to the Funding of Family Planning,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 2, 1990, p. A1.

  The Vatican ordered . . .: Lawrence Lader, “The Family-Planning Ploy,” New York Times, Dec. 12, 1985.

  In 1988, United Way . . .: Stephanie Salter, “Long Line, Small Social Conscience,” San Francisco Examiner, April 5, 1990, p. A25; “AT&T Shareholders Vote Down Anti-Choice Resolution,” Reproductive Rights Update, April 27, 1990, 2, no. 9, p. 7.

  By 1990, the National . . .: Statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics, 1990. A rise in unwed teen births first registered in 1987, jumping 10 percent among fifteen to seventeen year olds between 1986 and 1988.

  In California, health . . .: Stephanie Salter, “State-created Abortions,” San Francisco Examiner, Jan. 14, 1990, p. A21; Gary Webb, “Family Planning Cuts Bring Anguish,” San Jose Mercury News, Jan. 11, 1990; “Expected Costs to the State of California as a Result of Eliminating the Office of Family Planning,” Planned Parenthood, May 10, 1989.

  After the Minnesota . . .: “Reproductive Freedom: The Rights of Minors,” ACLU Briefing Paper, no. 7, 1989; Brief for Petitioners, Dr. Jane Hodgson v. the State of Minnesota, nos. 88-1125 and 88-1309, Supreme Court of the United States, Oct. 1989, pp. 12-14. See also Virginia G. Cartoof and Lorraine V. Klerman, “Parental Consent for Abortion: Impact of the Massachusetts Law,” American Journal of Public Health, 76, no. 4 (April 1986), pp. 397-400.

  And parental consent laws . . .: “Court Ignores Failure of Judicial Bypass Procedure,” Fund for the Feminist Majority, June 26, 1990.

  Becky Bell, a seventeen . . .: Carlson, “Abortion’s Hardest Cases,” p. 22.

  After Seventeen ran . . .: Letters on file at the Fund for the Feminist Majority, 1991.

  This “judicial bypass” Appendix to Brief Amicus Curiae in Support of Appellees by the Judicial Consent for Minors Lawyer Referral Panel, in Neil F. Hartigan v. Dr. David Zbaraz and Dr. Allan G. Charles, nos. 85–673, Supreme Court of the United States, Oct. 1987; Brief for Petitioners, trial transcript, and witnesses’ testimony, Dr. Jane Hodson v. the State of Minnesota, Oct. 1989.

  In Massachusetts, twelve of the . . .: Appendix to Brief Amicus Curiae, p. 107.

  The girl’s confidentiality . . .: Ibid., pp. 99–101.

  Did she realize . . .: Ibid., p. 43.

  Judges who opposed . . .: Angela Bonavoglia, “Kathy’s Day in Court,” Ms., April 1988, p. 46.

  Or they tried to . . .: Appendix to Brief Amicus Curiae, pp. 82–85.

  One judge waited . . .: Ibid., pp. 75–77.

  By the end of the decade . . .: Philip J. Hilts, “U.S. Approves 5-year Implants to Curb Fertility,” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1990, p. A1.

  Insurance companies retreated . . .: Dorothy Wickenden, “Drug of Choice,” The New Republic, Nov. 26, 1990, p. 24.

  A 1990 Institute of Medicine . . .: Kenneth H. Bacon, “Health: U.S. Birth Control R & D Lags,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 15, 1990, p. B1.

  Sterling Drug . . .: Dr. Scott Zeller, “The Abortion Pill,” San Francisco Weekly, Sept. 13, 1989, p. 1; Emily T. Smith, “Abortion: A Vocal Minority Has Drugmakers Running Scared,” Business Week, Nov. 14, 1988, p. 59.

  In 1989, the FDA banned . . .: Wickenden, “Drug of Choice,” p. 27.

  In 1990, the makers . . .: Laura Fraser, “Bringing the Abortion Pill to California,” California, July 1990, p. 58.

  And these researchers . . .: Ibid., p. 61.

  Meanwhile, when a . . .: “Shareholder Proposal on RU-486 Nixed by Management,” Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 7 (March 30, 1990): 5.

  Only one American company . . .: Smith, “Vocal Minority,” p. 59.

  One right-to-life . . .: “Diary of an Unborn Child,” Knights of Columbus flyer, 1989.

  The Willkes’ manual . . .: Willke and Willke, Abortion, pp. 240–41.

  Dr. Bernard Nathanson . . .: Janet Gallagher, “Prenatal Invasions and Interventions: What’s Wrong with Fetal Rights,” Harvard Women’s Law Journal, 10 (1987): 57–58.

  Her body is a haunted house . . .”: Scheidler, Closed, p. 138.

  In 1982, a group of . . .: Gina Kolata, “Operating on the Unborn,” The New York Times Magazine, May 14, 1989, p. 34.

  In the waiting rooms . . .: Personal observation at the Pacific Fertility Center, San Francisco, 1989.

  Some infertility specialists . . .: Personal interviews, 1989; Robyn Rowland, “Decoding Reprospeak,” Ms., May/June 1991, p. 38.

  At the Jones Institute . . .: Jean Seligmann, “Tempest in a Test Tube,” Newsweek, Aug. 21, 1989, p. 67.

  As a 1988 congressional . . .: Infertility: Medical and Social Choices. Office of Technology Assessment, 1988. Similar findings were reached in an investigation by the House Subcommittee on Regulation, Business, and Energy in 1988. See Lisa M. Krieger, “Infertility Clinics to Release Success Rates,” San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 15, 1989, p. A2.

  Just as doctors in the . . .: Ehrenreich and English, For Her Own Good, p. 123; Susan Faludi, “Infertility: Medical Crisis or Media Hoax?” West Magazine, San Jose Mercury News, April 16, 1989, p. 14; “To Have a Baby,” “60 Minutes,” transcript, vol. xxi, no. 12, Dec. 11, 1988. Doctors using laser surgery on women’s uteruses were notoriously ill-trained. The medical literature reports at least four deaths from these doctors’ errors. See Richard Koenig, “Deadly Errors Reported During Laser Surgery,” The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 27, 1989, p. B1; Richard E. Blackwell, Bruce R. Carr, R. Jeffrey Chang, et al., “Are We Exploiting the Infertile Couple?” Fertility and Sterility, 48, no. 6 (Nov. 1987): 735; Faludi, “Infertility.” The leading fertility drug Clomid has been linked to birth defects (ironically, defects of the female reproductive tract) in mice. See G. R. Cunha, O. Taguchi, R. Namikawa, Y. Nishizuka, and S.J. Robboy, “Teratogenic Effects of Clomiphene, Tamoxifen, and Diethylstilbestrol on the Developing Human Female Genital Tract,” Human Pathology, 18, no. 11 (1987): 1132-43. Perganol, the second most popular fertility drug, has a wide array of side effects; it has produced huge ovarian cysts, massive fluid production in the abdomen and lungs, and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies.

  At least ten women . . .: Janice G. Raymond, “International Traffic in Reproduction,” Ms., May/June 1991, p. 28.

  The DiMiranda Institute . . .: Personal interview with Gina DiMiranda, 1989.

  A New Hampshire court even . . .: “Court Rules Fetus a Resident,” Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 21 (Nov. 21, 1990): 5.

  By the mid-’80s . . .: Dawn E. Johnsen, “The Creation of Fetal Rights: Conflicts with Women’s Constitutional Rights to Liberty, Privacy and Equal Protection,” The Yale Law Journal, 95, no. 3 (Jan. 1986): 599-625; Joseph M. Harvey, “Fetus a ‘Person,’ in Car-Death Law,” Boston Globe, Aug. 17, 1984; David Sellers, “Fetus Is ‘Person,’ D.C. Appeals Court Rules for First Time,” Washington Times, Oct. 10, 1984, p. A1; Nan D. Hunter, “Feticide—Cases and Legislation,” Reproductive Freedom Project, unpublished paper, May 5, 1986.

  In a 1989 divorce . . .: Seligmann, “Tempest in a Test Tube,” p. 67.

  By the late ’80s . . .: Ted Gest, “The Pregnancy Police, On Patrol,” U.S. News and World Report, Feb. 6, 1989, p. 50.

  “Surely the most . . .”: “The Most Sordid and Terrifying Story,” California Advocates for Pregnant Women Newsletter, Sept.-Dec. 1990, no. 12, p. 3.

  Meanwhile in the states . . .: Johnsen, “Creation of Fetal Rights,” Dawn E. Johnsen, “A New Threat to Pregnant Women’s Autonomy,” Hastings Center Report, Aug. 1987, p. 33; “Legislative Alert,” California Advocates for Pregnant Women Newsletter, May-June 1990, p. 2, and July-Aug. 1990, p. 3; Marianne Takas, “Eat Right, Stay Off Your Feet—Or Go to Jail,” Vogue, May 1987, p. 148; personal interviews with Dawn Johnsen, Lynn Paltrow, and Janet Gallagher, 1989. I
am grateful to the staff of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project for generously sharing its voluminous research.

  Other legislative initiatives . . .: “Statutes That Unfairly Punish Pregnant Women for Behavior,” Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 1 (Jan. 5, 1990): 4.

  By 1988, half of the people . . .: Ronni Sandroff, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Vogue, Oct. 1988, p. 330.

  Medical and legal . . .: Marjorie Shaw, “Conditional Prospective Rights of the Fetus,” Journal of Legal Medicine, 63 (1984): 67-69; Johnsen, “Creation of Fetal Rights,” pp. 607-8; Gallagher, “Prenatal Invasions and Interventions,” p. 11.

  In Seattle in 1991 . . .: Barbara Kantrowitz, “The Pregnancy Police,” Newsweek, April 29, 1991, p. 52.

  Poor pregnant women were hauled . . .: Molly McNulty, “Pregnancy Police, The Health Policy and Legal Implications of Punishing Pregnant Women for Harm to Their Fetuses,” Review of Law and Social Change, 16, no. 2 (1987–88): 285; Reproductive Freedom Project Legal Docket, ACLU, 1988; Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 3 (Feb. 2, 1990): 6; Lynn M. Paltrow, “When Becoming Pregnant Is a Crime,” Criminal Justice Ethics, IX, no. 1 (Winter—Spring 1990): 2–3, 14; Janet Gallagher, “The Fetus and the Law—Whose Life Is It Anyway?” Ms., Sept. 1984, p. 62; Gallagher, “Prenatal Invasions and Interventions;” Ellen Willis, “The Wrongs of Fetal Rights,” The Village Voice, April 11, 1989, p. 41; Susan Lacroix, “Jailing Mothers for Drug Abuse,” The Nation, May 1, 1989, p. 587.

  In Michigan . . .: In the Matter of J. Jeffrey, no. 99851, Michigan Court of Appeals, April 9, 1987; Paltrow, “When Becoming Pregnant Is a Crime,” pp. 8–9.

  In California . . .: People of the State of California v. Pamela Rae Stewart, 1987. See Angela Bonavoglia. “The Ordeal of Pamela Rae Stewart,” Ms., July—Aug. 1987, p. 92; Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Demurrer to Complain Without Leave to Amend, Calif. v. Pamela Rae Stewart, p. 3; Jo Moreland, “Neighbors Cite Mother’s Troubled Past,” Daily Californian, Sept. 30, 1986, p. A1.

  In Iowa . . .: Associated Press, “Baby Placed in Foster Home; Doctor Claims Prenatal Abuse,” Des Moines Register, April 3, 1980, p. A11.

  In Wyoming . . .: State of Wyoming v. Pfannenstiel, no. 1-90-8CR, Laramie County Court, Jan. 5, 1990; Paltrow, “When Becoming Pregnant Is a Crime,” p. 9; “Pregnant Drinker Faces Trial for Child Abuse,” San Francisco Examiner, Jan. 1, 1990, p. A13.

  In Illinois . . .: Stallman v. Youngquist, 125 Ill. 2nd 267, 531 NE 2nd 355, 129 Ill. App. 3rd 859 and 152 Ill. App. 3rd 683; Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 4 (Feb. 16, 1990): 7.

  In Michigan . . .: Grodin v. Grodin, 102 Michigan Court of Appeals 396, 301 NW 2nd 869 (1980); Johnsen, “Creation of Fetal Rights,” p. 604.

  In Maryland . . .: “Hospital Transfers Pregnant Woman Against Her Will,” Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 4 (Feb. 16, 1990): 7.

  In South Carolina . . .: “Pregnant and Newly Delivered Women Jailed on Drug Charges,” Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 3 (Feb. 2, 1990): 6.

  In Wisconsin . . .: “Girl Detained to Protect Fetus,” Wisconsin State Journal, Aug. 16, 1985, p. 2.

  Police loaded . . .: “Pregnant and Newly Delivered Women,” p. 6; Debra Lucero Austin, “Prosecution Plan Draws Fire: ‘A Cop in the Delivery Room?’” Chico Enterprise Record, Nov. 3, 1988, p. A1.

  Judges threw Ellen Barry, “Quality of Prenatal Care for Incarcerated Women Challenged,” Youth Law News, National Center for Youth Law, 6, no. 6 (Nov.—Dec. 1985): 2–4; Tamar Lewin, “When Courts Take Charge of the Unborn,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1989, p. A9. A California study in 1983 found that less than half of prison pregnancies ended in live births and 30 percent of them suffered miscarriages. In Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail, 73 percent of the pregnant women were miscarrying, fifty times the state average.

  “In my mind . . .”: Personal interview with Ray Narramore, 1989.

  In the District . . .: Courtland Milloy, “Who Will Save D.C.’s Babies?” Washington Post, July 23, 1989, p. 3.

  By the end of the decade . . .: Sonia L. Nazario, “Midwifery Is Staging Revival as Demand for Prenatal Care, Low-Tech Births Rises,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 25, 1990, p. B1.

  In New York State, a health department . . .: Ibid.

  In California . . .: “Medi-Cal Maternity Care and AB 3021: Crisis and Opportunity,” National Health Law Program, May 1986, cited in “Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Motion to Dismiss,” People of the State of California v. Pamela Rae Stewart, Feb. 23, 1987, p. 15.

  Congress held alarmist . . .: Deborah Mesce, “Witnesses Ask for More Help to Cut Drug Abuse by Pregnant Women,” AP, June 28, 1990.

  Judges proposed “life . . .”: George Will, “When Birth Control Is Troubling,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 27, 1988.

  Lawmakers advocated mandatory . . .: Monte Williams, “Legal Rights of Mothers-to-Be Pitted Against Those of Fetus,” Austin American-Statesman, Nov. 13, 1990, p. D5.

  Medical school professors . . .: Johnsen, “Creation of Fetal Rights,” p. 608.

  Syndicated columnist Charles . . .: Monte Williams, “Whose Rights Prevail, Those of the Mom or the Fetus?” San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 10, 1990, p. A30.

  And on the supposedly . . .: See, for example, Clara Hemphill, “Kids at Risk: A Tormented Cry—As Crack Babies Grow, So Do Their Problems,” Newsday, Sept. 28, 1990, p. 6; Marjie Lambert, “New Label in Schools: Drug Baby,” Sacramento Bee, Nov. 25, 1990, p. A1.

  “Crack Babies: The Worst . . .”: Douglas J. Beharov, “Crack Babies: The Worst Threat Is Mom Herself,” Washington Post, Aug. 6, 1989, Outlook, p. 1.

  “Drug addiction among . . .”: “Infant Deaths,” Newsweek, Oct. 16, 1989, p. 10. See also “Crack Linked to Infant Mortality Rise,” Arizona Republic, March 4, 1990, p. A6.

  In fact, the rate of . . .: The crack epidemic began about 1986; the slowdown and then reversal of improvements in infant health occurred in the first half of the ’80s. See Children’s Defense Fund, “Maternal and Infant Health: Key Data,” Special Report, I, Washington, D.C., March 1990; M. O. Mundinger, “Health Service Funding Cuts and the Declining Health of the Poor,” New England Journal of Medicine, 313 (1985): 44-47.

  By 1983, the number . . .: McNulty, “Pregnancy Police,” pp. 2101-96.

  Consequently, the proportion . . .: Children’s Defense Fund, “Maternal and Infant Health,” p. 4.

  The leading causes . . .: Ibid.

  Again, black mothers . . .: Ibid.

  An equal percentage of black and . . .: Ira J. Chasnoff, Harvey J. Landress, and Mark E. Barrett, “The Prevalence of Illicit-Drug or Alcohol Use During Pregnancy and Discrepancies in Mandatory Reporting in Pinellas County, Florida,” New England Journal of Medicine, 322 (April 26, 1990): 1202-1206.

  A 1989 University of California . . .: Paula Braveman, Geraldine Oliva, Marie Grisham Miller, Randy Reiter, and Susan Egerter, “Adverse Outcomes and Lack of Health Insurance Among Newborns in an Eight-County Area of California, 1982-1986,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 321, no. 8 (Aug. 24, 1989): 508-513.

  A similar 1985 Florida . . .: Paltrow, “When Becoming Pregnant Is a Crime,” p. 8.

  Less than 1 percent . . .: Williams, “Legal Rights of Mothers,” p. D5.

  A survey of seventy-eight . . .: Wendy Chavkin, Rockefeller Fellow at Columbia University School of Public Health, “Testimony Presented to House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families,” April 27, 1989, p. 4.

  The National District . . .: “National District Attorneys Association Encourages Prosecutions of Pregnant Women,” Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 15 (July 20, 1990): 8.

  In 1988 in Butte County . . .: Judith Rosen, “The Saga of Butte County,” California Advocates for Pregnant Women Newsletter, Jan.—Feb. 1989, p. 1; personal interview with Lucy Quacinella of Legal Services of Northern California, who represented the first woman targeted under this new policy, 1989; personal interview with Michael Ramsey, 1989.

  What he envisioned . . .: Personal inter
view with Michael Ramsey, 1989.

  “I don’t see . . .”: Ibid.

  The first woman . . .: Personal interview with Lucy Quacinella, 1989; Rosen, “Saga of Butte County;” “First Mom of Addicted Baby Faces Charges,” Chico Enterprise Record, Nov. 30, 1988, p. A1.

  “We went down and . . .”: Personal interview with Michael Ramsey, 1989.

  At the Chemically . . .: Johnsen, “A New Threat,” p. 38.

  In San Francisco . . .: Susan Lacroix, “Jailing Mothers,” p. 586; Reproductive Rights Update, 2, no. 3 (Feb. 2, 1990): 6.

  In a 1986 national survey . . .: Veronika E. B. Kolder, Janet Gallagher, and Michael T. Parsons, “Court-Ordered Obstetrical Interventions,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 316, no. 19 (May 7, 1987): 1192–96. More than a quarter also believed that women in their third trimester who weren’t already being treated inside the hospital system should be under state surveillance.

  Their recommendations . . .: Johnsen, “Creation of Fetal Rights,” p. 607.

  A Washington, D.C., Superior Court . . .: “In the Matter of Madyun Fetus,” The Daily Washington Law Reporter, 114, no. 209 (Oct. 29, 1986): 2240.

  A review of . . .: Kolder, Gallagher, and Parsons, “Court-Ordered Obstetrical Interventions,” p. 1192.

  Judges granted . . .: Ibid., pp. 1193–101.

  The women’s wishes were . . .: Ibid., p. 1194.

  And most of these . . .: Ibid., p. 1193.

  In a 1981 court . . .: Ibid., p. 1192; Jefferson v. Griffin Spalding County Hosp., Auth., 247 Ga. 86, 274, SE 2nd, 457, 1981.

  At a time when . . .: Gallagher, “The Fetus and the Law.”

  In Chicago, a woman . . .: Gallagher, “Prenatal Invasions and Interventions,” p. 9.

  In at least two . . .: Ibid., p. 46.

  In a 1982 Michigan case . . .: Ibid., p. 47.

  In two key cases . . .: Johnsen, “Creation of Fetal Rights,” pp. 615–17.

  “To compel . . .”: McFall v. Shimp, 10 Pa. D.&C.3rd 90, 91, Allegheny County, 1978.

  On a June day . . .: Carol O’Brien, “Patient’s Lawyer Calls A.C. Case Human Sacrifice,” American Medical News, March 11, 1988, p. 46.