I've Kept This Secret For 56 Years. I'm Telling The Truth Now In The Hope That It Will Save Lives.

Yahoo

20-07-2025

'If your period is late, here's what you do: Boil up half a bottle of red wine and drink it while it's hot. Then stand on a chair and jump off several times. That should take care of it.'
It was March 1957, and I'd just finished packing my trunk. I would be leaving the next day to sail from England to the United States, where I would marry Ezra, my soldier-fiancé. Those were my mother's final words of advice. Not 'never go to bed angry,' or 'pick your battles,' but how to abort a fetus.
Her recommendation was unusual. Knitting needles were the instrument of choice for many British women trying to abort. Fewer Americans are knitters, so before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in 1973, many women in the United States — or individuals from whom they sought assistance to end their pregnancies — used wire coat hangers. My mother believed her alternative method was a safe one.
I smiled to myself, for I was pretty sure her instructions were useless. Only married women had access to contraception in the United Kingdom, so I planned to be fitted with a diaphragm as soon as I arrived in America. I was confident I would be able to avoid any unplanned pregnancies.
The day after I landed, I looked up 'obstetricians and gynecologists' in the yellow pages and found a doctor nearby. I was disappointed when she refused to fit me, telling me I should come back after I was married. Just like in Britain, the United States only provided contraception to married women at that time. My wedding was two weeks away. What did this doctor think was going to happen on my honeymoon?
Our first child, Ruth, was born after we'd been married for two years — just as Ezra and I planned. Dan was born 21 months later. Although I was often exhausted, I found taking care of two little children exhilarating. Watching their development was an unfolding miracle. Then, three and a half years later, when we were living in Palo Alto, California, I discovered I was pregnant again.
While I was still in the throes of morning sickness, Ruth and Dan both came down with German measles, aka rubella. Everyone knew if you caught it when you were pregnant, especially in the first trimester, the baby was at high risk for serious birth defects like deafness, cataracts, heart malfunctions, developmental disabilities, and liver and spleen damage. The baby might also be stillborn.
I asked my obstetrician what he would do if I contracted rubella. 'Nothing,' he replied with a shrug. A pregnant friend got rubella from one of her children and received the same answer from her doctor. She attempted suicide because of it and spent the rest of her life in a vegetative state.
After our third child, Jonathan, was born, we moved to Berkeley, where I was fitted with an IUD.
Ezra's architectural practice was thriving, and he was teaching at UC Berkeley. His work involved frequent travel to the East Coast, and he was away for weeks at a time. I was being pulled in many different directions by three children with very different needs. I began to feel inadequate as a parent — out of my comfort zone and overwhelmed.
I struggled to hold things together for five years. When Jonathan entered kindergarten in 1969, I was thrilled to be able to return to my studies at the University of California. Kindergarten was half a day, and I was able to coordinate my classes with his. Life finally took on a comfortable rhythm.
One morning in October that year, I woke up feeling the familiar signs of early pregnancy. At first, I denied the possibility. Abortion was illegal, so I continued to rely on my IUD, considered the safest form of birth control available at the time. I had been told they were 99% effective, which meant I was now part of the unlucky 1%.
The thought of a baby growing together with the IUD was terrifying. What damage could that cause? But, more than that, I knew I couldn't handle taking care of another baby. Life was just beginning to feel normal. The prospect of dealing with a fourth child filled me with dread.
I made an appointment with my obstetrician, who confirmed I was pregnant.
'I suppose I'll have to resign myself to having another baby,' I said, my eyes stinging with tears. 'We thought our family was complete. I don't know how I'm going to manage. I'm afraid it'll push me over the edge.'
'It sounds as if you might not want another baby,' my doctor said.
'No. I really don't. I'm stretched so thin already.'
'Go home and talk to your husband. If the two of you decide you definitely don't want to continue the pregnancy, here's what you'll do,' he told me. 'Call my office and tell them you are having a lot of bleeding. They will tell you to go to the emergency room, and I'll meet you there.'
I had been looking down into my purse, groping for a tissue. I felt my jaw drop as I raised my eyes to meet his. He was smiling and nodding slowly as he spoke. In his subtle, gentle way, he was offering me a choice — one I'd never anticipated would be possible for me. A sense of relief washed over my entire body. I had thought I was trapped, and I had been offered a way out.
When Ezra and I talked after dinner, there were no doubts — neither of us wanted more children.
The next day was Saturday. I called my doctor's office and lied to the receptionist about bleeding heavily. Ezra drove me to the hospital, where we met the doctor. The two men shook hands, and the doctor told my husband, 'Not to worry — I'll take good care of her.'
As I was wheeled into the operating room, the nurse walking beside the gurney squeezed my hand. 'You'll be fine,' she said. That's the last thing I remember about the procedure.
When I awoke from the anesthesia, I got dressed and waited for Ezra and the children to pick me up in the hospital lobby. They arrived in the late afternoon. They'd gone to a football game, and the children were still excited about it.
That evening, Ezra and I hugged and shared our thoughts about how relieved we were. He was particularly attentive and brought a stool so I could put my feet up. After he washed the dishes, he slipped out and came back with a tub of butter pecan ice cream — my favorite — our special way of marking important occasions.
I didn't mention the experience to any of my friends. I had broken the law, and if word got out about my doctor's willingness to perform this procedure, his life could be ruined. The threat of legal action scared me into silence. I've maintained that silence until now.
What would I have done if my doctor hadn't opened up this window of opportunity? Friends were going to Mexico for abortions, but the status of medical care in that country was a mystery to me. I could have ended up with a botched procedure, as often happened with the illegal abortions that were performed in so-called back alleys in the United States. Or what if I didn't have access to health care in the first place or the money to pay for the procedure, as many other women and families did — and do — not have.
I also believed only a properly trained obstetrician could be trusted to remove the IUD nestling in my uterus beside my growing baby. Its removal was another opportunity for mistakes to be made. I am risk-averse and would have probably turned down these choices and carried the fetus to term. I would have been an angry, depleted mother to all my children.
Today, at the age of 92, my reproductive years are far in the past, but old age doesn't temper the anger I feel towards the legislators who exercise their power to order a woman to carry her pregnancy to term whether she wants to or not. Women seeking abortions are often portrayed as foolish teenagers, but thousands of mature women with families are being put in this position just like I was.
Our current legislators believe a few fertilized cells are more important than a woman's quality of life — a quality of life that ripples through her existing family. Right-to-lifers scream about 'partial birth abortions' while women who have suffered and wept through such rare procedures because of serious health issues are viewed as murderers.
I'm telling my story now because maybe it will help wake us up to the nightmare we've created. Had I been forced to have a fourth child, the impact would have been devastating — not only for me, but for my family. We have failed the many women who find themselves in the same position I was. I was afraid to speak up back then. I am speaking up now.
We are back in the days before Roe v. Wade, a time when women are being denied control of their own bodies. Doctors are understandably afraid to follow my obstetrician's example. Miscarriages are looked on with suspicion and without sympathy for a woman's grief when she experiences one. Women with dangerous pregnancy complications are told to wait for 'nature to take its course,' which puts their lives at risk. Many have died.
Stories about women who spend their lives regretting their abortions and dreaming about the child-who-might-have-been spread throughout antiabortion communities. My post-abortion experience was the opposite. It enabled us to have the family we wanted. I've had no regrets.
I will always be grateful to my obstetrician who was willing to risk imprisonment and the loss of his career to perform my illegal abortion. Now that we've gone back in time, women who don't want to bear a child will still find ways to abort a fetus just as they did before abortions became legal. They'll just be forced to do it in unsafe and potentially deadly ways.
We are going back to the days of coat hangers and knitting needles.
Cynthia Ehrenkrantz is a writer and storyteller. She was born in Britain and immigrated to the United States in 1957. Her memoir, 'Seeking Shelter: Memoir of a Jewish Girlhood in Wartime Britain,' is available wherever books are sold. She lives in Westchester County, New York.
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