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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
Big Blue Book No. 474
CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
by
Martin Avery
(non de plume)
Intimate Sidelights on the Secret Human, Sorrow, Drama and
Tragedy in the Experience of a Doctor Whose Profession It Is To
Perform Illegal Operations.
1939
Haldeman-Julius Company
GIRARD -- : -- KANSAS
1. EARLY DAYS AND IDEAS
Sometimes I find myself thinking wistfully of the days when I
was young and sure of myself and my future, when I thought the
solid ground under my feet was a foundation for an air castle and
when right and wrong were very definite things, and black was black
and white was white and I would have nothing to do with gray.
I had no such regrets, of course, when first I gloated
childishly over the neat little black and gold sign that announced
to the world that Martin Avery was a doctor of medicine and ready
to practice. I admired my small library of medical textbooks, my
shiny surgical instruments and I repeated over and over the
sonorous words of the oath I had taken. Much has happened to me
since then, much that I somehow feel compelled to put on paper.
Perhaps even after these years I want to prove that in my way I
have tried to be faithful to my youthful ideas.
So this is a human-interest document designed to show troubled
women that they have companions in distress, I shall not clutter it
up with medical terms. I have no patience with doctors who think
they must sprinkle Latin in every sentence and generally talk as
though they were dictating a highly technical article for a medical
journal. I am not trying to be impressive nor am I trying to
preach. This book might be called "Sidelights on Tragedy." If it
will make a few less persons look disdainful or horrified at the
word "abortion," I will have succeeded in my purpose.
I must have been a somewhat priggish Sir Galahad when I was
graduated from medical school. I saw myself curing the world of
nice, respectable diseases like measles and smallpox and perhaps
halting epidemics by quickness of thought or saving a rich man's
life by my miraculous skill as a surgeon.
I had lived a fairly clean life, almost unbelievably clean it
seems to me now. But then I never had much money. My people were
farmers. That accounted for part of my pride. I thought Myself
mighty smart to be going up a rung in the ladder, from peasant to
professional man. Sometimes I thought it would be nice if I had a
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
physician father to take me in with him and a long line of medical
ancestor's to give me an honorable tradition. But at the same time
my egotism fed itself on the thought that I was the first of my
family to have guts and ambition and brains enough to escape the
soil for a white-collar profession.
I liked to hear my mother refer proudly to "My son, the
doctor," and I liked to strut around in front of the neighbors. To
be sure, the white collar and the shiny instruments and even the
neat little office were mortgaged to my father, whose dirt-
encrusted hands had earned the money that sent me through school.
But I had visions of grateful patients showering me with gold. I
was an idealist in those days and I had plenty of illusions, too.
The sad thing about my office was that it stayed empty as did
likewise my purse. I angled after connections as hotel physician,
and I tried to get a job as a city clinic doctor; but I had no
political pull, and, being a farm boy, no influence in any other
lines. Most of my few patients had little money and came to me
because they believed I would be cheap.
So for a while I pursued my honorable profession by lancing a
few boils, prescribing for a few bad hangovers, treating a child
for a nail wound, issuing headache pills to a woman who went from
doctor to doctor seeking an audience for her complaints and dishing
out enough medicine for common colds to stock a drug store. I was
so anxious to display all my knowledge that I went in for complete
examinations no matter how trifling the complaint, tried to look
wise, clucked thoughtfully and shook my head.
At times I wished to high heaven that I lived in England,
where I could buy a steady practice and not have to sit in my
office reading and re-reading medical journal's and wondering if
I'd soon lose any surgical skill I possessed for lack of practice.
It amuses me now to recall how I felt when I first treated a
house girl who had gonorrhea. I treated the girl, and then gave her
a lecture in which, as I recall, I told her that because of my oath
I would protect her secret but that she was running a horrible
risk. I know now that she must have been choking with laughter, but
at the time I thought that she was mightily impressed. And I felt
quite the man of the world. In fact, I made up some impressive --
to me -- thoughts about how my profession brought me in contact
with the dregs of the world and how it was up to me to maintain my
purity of thought in spite of all the depravity I was forced to
see. I meant to deliver these noble sentiments to a pure sweet girl
whenever my practice grew enough that I could afford to seek this
marvelous woman who would be chosen as my wife.
I still had this holier-than-thou attitude when a very pretty
blonde came to see me. She looked like a "nice girl," and this
shocked me all the more when she told me, in a frightened way, that
she was "caught" and she wanted an abortion. Her father was dead,
and she lived with her mother and her brother, a prominent
businessman in the town. I had heard of the girl as a well-known
college student and a gay member of the younger set. She was not a
social luminary, but she was a class ahead of me.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
I made the finger examination and there was no doubt that she
was pregnant -- about two months along. She wanted a
"prescription," she said. She was ignorant about such things, but
a friend had told her that for a few dollars she could buy some
medicine that would cause a miscarriage.
It seems odd to realize that I was shocked about this. I had
heard of girls who were "knocked up" and did something about it.
There had been plenty of such gossip in the farming community where
I had lived, and I'd heard methods of causing crude abortions
discussed among the medical students. In fact, I knew one medical
student who worked his way through his senior year as an
abortionist among the lower classes of the university town. He had
told me something about the method he had used, but I had paid
little attention and had disapproved of the whole business.
I was stern and righteous with this girl and asked her why she
did not marry the man.
She burst into tears. "I can't," she said.
"Is he married?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Engaged to another man?" I asked. Those were the only two
reasons that my mid-Victorian mind could conceive why any man would
refuse to marry her.
"No," she said, "but he says that it is my fault. And I guess
it is. He asked me if I were doing anything about this, and I
suppose I was a fool, for I said that I was. I didn't know anything
to do. I asked a girl I know, and she told me to take a douche
anytime within 24 hours."
Dumb as I was, I was shocked at this ignorance. Bit by bit she
unfolded a story that was new and pitiful to me then but which I
have heard so often since that I can supply it before the girl
opens her mouth.
Katherine, as I shall call her, had fallen in love with a man
about seven years older than herself, a bachelor businessman. She
had gone absolutely crazy about him.
The man was the sort who likes sexual freedom and gets panicky
at the thought of marriage. He had given Katherine a big rush, for,
of all reasons, her look of wholesomeness. He had said that she had
a "wholesome attitude" toward sex. As a matter of fact, she was too
deeply infatuated to have any definite attitude except to agree
with everything he said. A man's idea of a wholesome attitude
toward sex usually is one that leaves him absolutely free, while a
woman's idea is one that leads inevitably toward marriage.
Because she wanted to appear worldly-wise, she denied being a
virgin. I was astounded to hear that, but I learned afterward that
a great many young girls do the same thing. Frequently they
themselves cannot explain why. Almost invariably, it is when they
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
are having affairs with older men. They seem to believe that the
man will wonder why they have not had affairs before and will think
less of them. So they try to disguise their awkwardness and
ignorance; and since many athletic girls do not have hymens, the
man does not find it out.
Katherine had talked vaguely about an imaginary previous
affair. She seemed to think that it would make her more interesting
if the man believed she was sexually experienced and had been
desired before. "A lot of men had made overtures to me," she told
me. "but I had managed to evade them. I knew that Don had had a lot
of affairs and told him some lies so he wouldn't think I was quite
so dumb."
This, of course, released the man from any feeling of
responsibility and had also made him think that she knew about
contraceptives and could take care of herself. And she was too
inexperienced to know whether he was protecting her. It was an
example of the dangers of innocence and where ignorance was not
bliss.
Naturally, when she did not insist that the man use
contraceptives, he omitted them. She told me that when she learned
she was pregnant, she had explained the situation to him and he had
advised her to go to a doctor. But I think now that she lied. A lot
of girls are overwhelmed with false modesty in such circumstances
and will go instead to girls as inexperienced as they are. Having
pretended to be worldly-wise, they are caught in a web of their own
lies.
This girl was not as stupid as she seems in this narrative.
She had sense enough to realize just what type of man she loved.
Apparently he had made it plain that he did not intend to marry her
and he expected her to take her full share of the responsibility in
this affair. She couldn't tell her mother because mother was the
type who would "rather See her daughter in her grave" than have an
abortion and she probably would try to force the man into a shotgun
marriage. Katherine was sensible enough to see that the man would
evade this, or if he married her, would hate her for the trick.
Too, since she had lied to him about her virginity, she had thrown
away that hold.
So she had gone to a girl friend and the girl had said
something about a mysterious medicine that would cause her to
resume menstruation. Then she had come to me, for, of all reasons,
the fact that she did not know me and I was new in town. She did
not want to go to her family doctor or any physician whom she knew.
It was a case of the blind going to the blind. I was horrified
and told her that, of course, I could not perform an abortion I had
heard about some of the drastic medicines given in such cases and
I warned her against them. I told her that I could go to prison for
doing what she wanted, and I was against such things personally. I
probably sounded fierce, for I was afraid someone would find out
that she'd been to me with such a request, and I feared even that
would get me into trouble.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
She left me a great deal more frightened than when she
arrived. I had told her that no decent doctor would perform an
abortion. And I had scared her pretty badly about using any home
devices. Also I'd added a little homily on her 'sins. I should have
been shot, but I felt righteous about the whole business. She had
some money. She'd been teaching school and saved several hundred
dollars and she offered me the whole sum if I would get her out of
the jam. I needed the money, but I felt a virtuous glow over
turning it down. I was living up to medical ethics. I was being a
good citizen and an honorable physician.
So she went away, and I settled back in my empty office and
read medical journals and old magazines and treated a few persons
who came in with colds and indigestion.
The next day her name leaped at me from the front page of the
daily newspaper. Her body had been found on the doorstep of her
home, at one o'clock that morning, by her brother as he was
returning from a dance. She had shot herself, and she died in the
ambulance on the way to, the hospital.
The newspaper account said she had resigned her position as a
teacher because of a nervous breakdown culminating when she fainted
in the class room. Her relatives had noticed that she seemed very
nervous, refused to eat and was unable to sleep at night. They had
tried, without success, to arouse her interest in social life. She
had left no note -- just gone out in the yard and shot herself with
her brother's revolver.
There followed several paragraphs telling how prominent and
popular she had been in school, how she had a promising future as
a teacher. Her family was. grief-stricken.
It shook me pretty badly. I tried to console myself by saying
that she had not threatened suicide to me, that I was within my
rights, in refusing to help her, and it was unfair of her to ask me
to risk my future by performing an illegal operation.
But I kept seeing that description of her. "She was a pretty
blonde girl. College mates described her as always being full of
fun and active in all school enterprises." She had belonged to
several clubs. I wondered which sorority sister had advised her to
"get a prescription."
I wondered how her lover felt. I was filled with sudden hatred
for him, taking this young girl easily and selfishly and ruining
her life, talking to her glibly about her "wholesome attitude
toward sex." Now she was dead, and innuendoes would be whispered
about her nervous condition and her fainting spells and her lack of
appetite and her insomnia. Her relatives would feel bad about it.
It might even ruin their lives, too. Of course, her puritanical
relatives were partly to blame. Had they been more tolerant, they
would have helped her. It was her own fault, too, for being so
careless. She had trusted people and life too much. She had been
too confident in the decency of others.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
In the back of my head there was a nagging thought that I,
too, was to blame. I might have found someone else to help her. I
might have made arrangements. I was not so stupid that I did not
know of a doctor whose legitimate practice was small but who, drove
around in a big car with a chauffeur and had plenty of money. It
was common talk that he did a lot of illegal operations. He was a
pretty good surgeon, too.
It was all a mess, and I resented being dragged into it, and
being made to feel guilty over the death of a strange girl.
II. MY FAMILY SPEAKS
I went out in the country to see my family every Sunday. This
meant that I got a good meal and my depressed spirits were helped
by my mother's soothing prediction that soon her boy's practice
would pick up.
The next Sunday the conversation happened to turn to the
suicide of Katherine J--.
"The poor girl," my mother said. "Sounds like she was in the
family way."
She clucked her tongue sympathetically. "I wish you had seen
her," she said. "If she'd come to you, you could have sent her to
old Ma Gooding, the one folks call Feather Sally, because she uses
a goose feather. Lots of good doctor's send patients to Feather
Sally, and she's never lost a one. Good money she makes, too."
I was shocked.
"She did come to me," I said indignantly, "waving her money in
my face as if I were a quack she could buy with a few hundred
dollars. But I refused to have anything to do with it. That's a
prison offense."
My mother looked at me queerly. "And it's no prison offense to
drive a girl to suicide?" she asked.
"It was her own lookout," I said, "She couldn't expect me to
risk my future with a criminal operation in order to get her out of
a jam."
"If you keep on turning down hundred-dollar fees, it doesn't
look as if you're going to have much future," my father said dryly.
"The drought hit us pretty bad son, and we're needing money out
here, too. Doesn't pay to be too choosy about how you earn it. Old
Doc Kennedy over at Clear Creek makes plenty of money that way.
Specializes in it. You'd be surprised to know the names of some of
his patients, too."
I felt like a badgered animal. It was not until years later
that I realized that only youth is moral in the accepted way. Youth
judges more severely and expects more rigid living up to standards.
Old age is more tolerant; it has learned to compromise and give
only lip-service to awkward convention.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
And like most youths I had the idea that my parents were very
strict. It was a shock, now that they had admitted me to adulthood,
to learn some of their views.
"Folks call it murder," sniffed my mother. "Ain't hardly
nothing more'n a germ at first. Ain't no more murder than doin'
something aforehand to keep from having children. As far as that
goes, it ain't really no more murder than bein' an old maid and not
havin' nothin' to do with man at all. If you want to argue, you can
always say that every woman could bear a child, and it's murder if
She don't do it. Talk about the child's right to be born! The child
ain't saying nothin' about it. How do all these preacher's know the
child wants to be born. I've seen some cases where if the child
knew what was coming to him afterward he wouldn't want to be born.
Her voice softened. "Poor unwanted little mites. No money and no
name and not much chance in the world."
"It was a case of professional ethics, mother," I said. "Of
course, quack doctors do a lot of underhanded business. And
probably they risk the girl's life by crude methods. But good
doctors avoid such things."
"Maybe," 'sniffed my mother.
"Some of these days the laws may be changed," I said, "and
birth-control methods and abortions may be legalized. But until
then, I must obey my oath and abide by the medical code."
This did not impress my parents. Country people are not much
in favor of laws. Laws to them mean disagreeable taxes, game laws
which preserve the quail and ducks for the benefit of city folks
who swarm over the land, shooting at everything that appears on the
horizon, foreclosing of mortgages and other unpleasant
interferences with their lives.
"Human beings come before laws," my mother said. "Some of
these laws are made by folks who want to kick others in the gutter
so's to make themselves seem higher up. I ain't never had no use
for such folks. Pull themselves up by pushing others down. I've
known some mighty good women who had convenient miscarriages and
women who were in trouble and later on made fine marriages and good
wives."
She sighed. "If I'd known that poor girl, maybe I could have
told her something to do. They're more ways of killing a cat than
choking it with butter."
My father laughed. "Ma could tell her," he said. "She'd have
had her jumping off porches and riding houses and merry-go-rounds
and climbing up and down stairs and taking hot baths and purgatives
and God knows what all."
My mother smiled. "That's all right for you," she said. "Many
a time you've been thankful I wasn't so green."
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
"I never could stand to see a poor young girl bringin' a
fatherless babe into the world," my mother went on. "Of course,
sometimes they love the children just as much as if they were born
in wedlock and sometimes they make good marriages later on. But the
run of folks are hard on them, and it's bad trying to live down
your mistakes."
My father, however, was more upset by the idea that I had let
a hundred or so dollars slip out of my hands because of ethics.
"It's dangerous," I said. "Suppose I'd done a bad job and
she'd died because of the operation. Her folks would claim that I
murdered her."
"She killed herself anyhow, didn't she?" my father said.
"Looks to me like it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other."
It was a relief for me to get back to my bare room in a cheap
Lodging house in the city. My pleased glow of virtue had departed,
and I remembered the boy who had worked his way through school with
abortions and a young interne who frankly had announced that he
meant to specialize in illegal operations.
"They're the easiest way for a young doctor to get started,"
he had said. "And they're no more dangerous than, performing any
other operations. I'll wait until I get a little money saved and
then I'll be respectable. It takes money to be high and mighty."
Some nagging prick of conscience forced me to go to Katherine
J's funeral. I eyed her weeping relatives with scorn. A little of
the love they were parading in public would have saved the girl's
life if they had exercised it in private. Some of the money that
went into the flower's, the elaborate coffin, the big monument,
could have sent the girl away on a "vacation" and brought her back
whole in body, and presently her heart would be healed. Later on,
I was to learn that while broken hearts cannot be cured by a
doctor, a little surgical or medical aid for the by-products helps
along a lot.
Since then I've seen many girls, who were as tragic in speech
as Katherine, laugh about the whole episode a year later. By then
they had put it down as a valuable lesson and forgotten the horror
and fear they first felt.
After the funeral, I drifted into a coffee shop and
encountered a doctor I admired.
"You look low," he remarked.
"I've been to a funeral," I said, and gave the girl's name.
He nodded. "Nasty business. I suppose it's the old story."
"Yes," I looked at him. "I guess you see plenty of them," I went
on.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
"Not so many now," he said. "I get about two patients a year
who want abortions. I got more of them when I first started to
practice. I guess they thought that, being a young doctor, I'd need
the money. But luckily I made money from the start. I had plenty of
friends, and so I didn't need to take the risk."
"What do you do about the ones who come to you now?" I blurted
out.
He gave me a keen glance. "Give them an examination and tell
them whether they're really pregnant. Chances are they're only
delayed by something. Up until three months, it's not easy to tell,
especially with the finger examination."
This, it might be added, was before the rabbit test was widely
used. Nowadays it is possible to tell immediately by injecting
urine, into the rabbit and examining its ovaries 36 hour's later.
"Then," the doctor went on, "I say nothing more unless the
Patient obviously is ignorant of anything to do, I may drop a hint
about the proper doctor to go to. Usually I don't do this, because
most people have ways of finding that out for themselves. However,
of course you know that some doctors make a good deal of money with
such recommendations and split fees. If I do drop a hint, I make
sure that I can trust the doctor."
"It's a problem," I said frankly, "I've been wondering what to
do about such business. People come to me for medical aid and I
have to refuse treatment. We are permitted to treat venereal
diseases and we can be called in after miscarriage --"
He grinned. "Of course. You know the stock alibi. You were
called in, and it was obvious that something had been done to cause
a partial abortion and your aid was needed to save the girl's life.
As soon as the uterus is punctured or the fetus is expelled, the
abortion is a fact. No one can prove anything against you as long
as you and the patient keep mum."
"Understand," he went on. "I'm not taking sides. I'm not the
type of doctor that crusades for birth-control legislation. A
successful doctor -- of my variety -- can't afford to. I admire the
kind of doctor who does -- but he usually doesn't make any money.
Whenever anyone asks me, I give them what birth-control data I can,
which isn't much. Anyhow, they probably won't follow instructions."
"Maybe the laws will be changed," I suggested.
"I'm not very hopeful about legislative reform," he said. "In
my opinion, the whole business will work out for itself.
Information will be spread more widely. To me, it seem's better to
send a girl to a good surgeon than to let her get an infection by
going to a quack or trying some crude home method. I knew one poor
girl whose sweetheart kicked her in the abdomen and almost killed
her."
"Of course," I said weakly. "It's the women's fault."
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
"I blame the men more. Some of these men are just like
animals. They don't give a damn what happens to the woman. They may
know all about contraceptives; but they don't want to use them, and
some of them think it's fun to fool the woman. But even those men
aren't so bad as the ones who carry disease and won't warn the girl
or take any precautions. A girl may escape pregnancy but she'll
probably get a dose. I'd Like to see all venereal-disease carriers
quarantined or branded. And if they're incurable, they ought to be
sterilized or shut up."
I grinned to myself. The doctor, in spite of his suave
exterior, was like all good doctors, a bit of a crusader when you
got him on his pet subject.
"They send habitual criminals to prison," he went on. "But a
man can get dose after dose of a disease and remain at large. He's
just as dangerous, if not more so, to the community than a habitual
burglar. He's worse, in my opinion. A burglar only rob's people
who've got plenty of dough. But a man probably will give a dose to
some poor dumb girl who hasn't sense or money enough to get proper
treatment, and she may die or be ruined for life. Reformers talk
about sterilization of criminals and the insane, but I'm in favor
of sterilization of any man who's had a disease more than twice. A
man can get a dose once without really being to blame. But if he's
got any sense, he takes care of himself after that."
He seemed to weary of the subject then, and I went home a
mighty thoughtful young doctor. I'd been so busy passing exams and
skimping along on my allowance that I'd never gone in for many bull
session's. Anyhow, a lot of the stuff that we talked at medical
school seemed haywire now. I'd gone around with a bunch of young
idealists who talked about being second Pasteur's and great
surgeons and doing good for humanity and in the back of my mind I'd
always seen myself saving a millionaire's life and bringing young
beauties back from sure death by tuberculosis.
But I was getting rid of my fancy ideas mighty fast.
III. I TAKE A CASE
Two or three days after my talk with the old doctor, a well
dressed man came into my office.
"There'll be a girl up here pretty soon for treatment for
gonorrhea," he said bluntly. "I'm paying for it. She's a dumb cluck
who got mixed up with one of my employees. He won't pay for it, but
something had to be done for the girl, and I told her I'd have her
cured if she wouldn't see him again.' You fix her up and send me
the bill. I don't want to give the girl the money because she might
spend it on something else or quit after one treatment. See that
she's clean, but if she comes back with another dose I won't be
responsible for any more bills."
He gave me his card and the girl's name. He was managing
editor of one of the local newspapers.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
"See if you can get any sense into her head," he added. "I
don't want any more trouble with her."
He went out then, looking irritated, and I grinned. I figured
it was one of those "A-friend-of-mine" stories in which the
personal pronoun is soon brought into play. I wondered a little why
he told such a clumsy lie.
But when the girl came in, half-frightened, half-angry, I
learned his story was the truth.
One of the reporters had seduced the girl, whom I shall call
June. She was a pretty business-college student, dumb but
attractive in a virginal fashion. It may have been that very docile
innocence that attracted the man. He played around with a
sophisticated, hard-drinking crowd and it probably was, amusing to
find a girl who didn't know the ropes, didn't drink, didn't smoke,
June, on the other hand, had heard about Jim, the reporter,
and she was fascinated by his reputation as a dapper man-about-
town. Jim was a handsome and entertaining scoundrel. He said that
he did not know she was a virgin until he had already started the
sex act. This may have been true, but it did not stop him then.
Afterward, he either was conscience-stricken or decided that
it was dangerous to play around with her. Innocence may be
dangerous not only to the girl but to the man. At any rate, he did
not see her for about a month.
But June was seized by the crazy infatuation which many young
girls feel for their first lovers. She telephoned Jim, she wrote
him notes asking why he was angry with her, what had she done? She
wept. She reminded him that, although a virgin, she had gone to bed
with him.
Jim told his boas that he firmly intended to stay away from
June. Whether he was deeply attracted and some remnants of chivalry
motivated his refusal to see her or whether she bored him, I don't
know. But in the meantime he had been playing around with girls
equally dumb but not so innocent, and he got gonorrhea. He was
forced to tell his wife and to refrain from any intercourse with
her. But apparently his scruples did not apply to the young girl he
had seduced, for he went back to her. She got the disease and the
whole thing began again with the girl pursuing the reporter and
asking for medical treatment. The badgered newsman had gone to his
editor for sympathy.
But his editor cursed him and told him to do something to keep
June from calling the office and coming down to the newsroom. Jim
refused, saying that he didn't have the money and anyhow the girl
had been with plenty of other men since he first seduced her.
Whether this was true, I do not know. It may have been. Frequently
girls who have just lost their virginity become promiscuous if
their first lovers desert them.
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Such girls seem to feel that since, they have lost their much-
guarded chastity it doesn't make much difference what they do and
they weakly succumb to any man who comes along. It takes some time
for the girls to recover their emotional balance and become
discriminating. June denied that she had been with any other men.
And Jim admitted that he was diseased when he was with her.
So the editor went to June and agreed to pay for her
treatments if she would promise never to see any of his reporters
again. She was grateful but at the same time she was a little
indignant about it. The editor had not minced words in describing
her lover, and she resented being forced to face the fact that
there was no romance in her seduction. She wanted the treatments,
but at the same time she would have liked to save her vanity.
Since then, I have noticed the same traits in many girls. They
will try to find excuses for their first lovers, and say that it
"wasn't all his fault." They generally have remarkably few
illusion's about later lovers, but they want a little glamour over
the first affair.
One intelligent girl talked to me about it. "It's a matter of
vanity for women to lie to themselves about their sweethearts," she
remarked. "The worst thing about breaking up an affair is that I
finally have to admit to myself that I have been kidding myself all
along. You see, I know that I am only an average girl and therefore
will attract only an average man. I know there are exceptions, and
sometimes you see a fine man absolutely crazy about a very
commonplace girl. But I, of course, have an ideal man in mind.
Whenever a man falls in love with me, I try to see my ideal
characteristics in him and I exaggerate those I do find. I try to
convince myself and my friends that he's a better man than he is.
When we break up, I have to see him as himself. That hurts, because
it shows me that I'm not attractive enough to get the sort of man
I want and hold him."
But to go back to June. I sent my bill in to the editor and he
paid it promptly. June's spirits grew better as her cure
progressed. This time I gave no lecture on morals. Instead I tried
to teach her a few principles of hygiene.
"Listen," I said, when I had pronounced her cured, "there is
no Santa Claus in this sex business, even if your case does look
like it. You were darned lucky. There are not many men who would do
for you what this editor did. It wasn't for the good of his soul,
either. He couldn't afford to have one of his men in a jam. So
don't go around expecting good Samaritans to yank you out of the
gutter. And don't try to get out of your class. You thought it was
romantic to have a love affair with a social butterfly, a dashing
columnist. But look what happened. A stranger got you out of your
jam. He did it because you were making a nuisance of yourself. If
you'd been in this guy's class, he would have taken more
precautions. He didn't give his wife a dose, but he figured you
didn't count. And to him you didn't. So you play in your own back
yard."
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She nodded. Later she married a clerk and they have three or
four kids. I don't know whither she ever told him about her first
affair. If she was smart, she didn't.
The editor was pleased, because she kept away from his men And
two or three weeks later he sent me an abortion. This time didn't
quibble, I did it.
IV. WHY I AM AN ABORTIONIST
Since then I've performed hundreds of abortions and when I did
all the work I've had no fatalities. Of course, I've been called in
on bungled jobs when it was too late; there was infection or a
hemorrhage and death was a matter of hours.
I have changed from the surgical operation, in which the womb
was scraped, to use of heat, bacteria and exercise to cause a
natural premature birth with very little danger. I discarded the
finger test for the rabbit test of pregnancy. My prices went up as
the danger went down.
I don't regret the fact that I have risked prison terms
constantly. As I went up the financial scale, I tried to use more
discrimination and to work for the sake of humanity. I have refused
to abort young society women who merely wanted to save their
figures, who shrank from the responsibilities of children. I have
turned away young women who could afford to marry and who I felt,
should mate legally and carry on the race. I have seen women whom
I felt needed children to make their lives fuller and who were
merely lazy or afraid of pain. And I have performed operations
later regretted by the women when they wanted children and for some
reason could not have them. That has made me more careful.
I am not bragging that I really made the world better. I am an
older man now and a little tired and a bit inclined to be cynical.
Perhaps all these things would have worked out anyhow. But I
believe that I have saved valuable members of the race from
disgrace or from suicide, that I have kept families from being
wrecked. And I have not had a repeat case in years,
The reformers argue that we must pay for our sins. But I do
not know that I agree with their definition of sin. There are times
when our instincts are too strong for us. There are accidents.
There are many cases in which it does not seem to me that I should
judge. I do not believe in populating the world with unwanted
children. I do not like to see the women suffer when the man
escapes without even blame. If there is some disease or some taint
of insanity, I do not believe in allowing the child to be born. And
if the birth of the child is going to wreck even one adult life, it
seems to me kinder to stop it. The people who yell "child murder"
have almost invariably never been faced with the problem.
Criminologists say that crime is caused by children being born
into families where they have no opportunity for proper upbringing.
The children turn to stealing to get money for luxuries, even
necessities. They run in the streets because they have no
playgrounds. Their minds are warped in childhood. I believe it to
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be an act of crime prevention to halt any such children coming into
the world with the stigma of illegitimacy and a mother who is going
to have a much harder time making a living after the child is born.
I am always irritated when I hear politicians talk about as
being the only land of equal opportunity. It isn't. Illegitimate
children had far better chances in the medieval days when "natural"
sons and daughters were the "natural" thing.
I have never been in favor of forced marriages. In this
complex world the married couple starts out with enough problems
without being handicapped by an unwanted child and probably
unwanted mates.
A great many cases have been like that of poor June, who fell
in love with a married man of a class slightly superior to her own.
Had she been slightly above him socially, the chances are that the
man would have obtained a divorce and married her. At least he
would have given her much better treatment. I get many girls who
have had affairs with their employer's, either married or
unmarried. The men do not want to marry them. Frequently they blame
the girl, for a great many men seem to think that it is up to the
girl to protect herself.
I have heard men who considered themselves ethical in sexual
matters say that they believe the women should protect themselves.
Some of them excuse this by saying that women cannot trust the men
and so they must get accustomed to taking their own precautions.
Others frankly admit that they will not use anything that
interferes with their pleasure.
A fellow doctor, one high in his profession and a man who
gives birth-control advice to his patients, once told me that he
received his pleasure from the thought of the risk.
"If my wife is even a week pregnant, my pleasure is gone," he
said. "And I wouldn't touch a woman if I knew she was using any
sort of protective device. Man is still primitive enough to want
copulation for conception."
He might have added that man is still primitive enough to want
to shirk all responsibility for the act and perhaps civilized
enough to regret any consequences.
For these reasons I advise my women patients to take their own
precautions. One girl told me that she was shocked when her lover
asked her if she never used any contraceptive devices. He had made
love to her several times and she thought that he was protecting
her. She came to me for a pregnancy test. Fortunately she was all
right. But she was indignant and disgusted with the man.
"I thought he was a swell fellow," she said. "I'd had only one
love affair and then the man took care of everything and I supposed
this man would do the same. He's shocked now because I won't see
him any more. But I hate to ask him to do anything and I'm afraid
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to risk dating him unless this is arranged beforehand. Suppose I
get a little tight? Anyhow, I can't carry around a medical kit when
I go on a date. And it's more awkward for the girl to do such
things than for the boy."
She laughed a little self-consciously. "It sounds silly to
talk about modesty at a time like this. But these affairs usually
aren't deliberately planned. It's one thing for a man and girl to
have a steady affair and go to a hotel room with a private bath or
to an apartment where they can have everything handy. It's quite
another thing to go to a dance and have a hot petting scene on the
way back. I take this business seriously and I'm not promiscuous.
I don't mean that I've got matrimony in my eye all the time, but if
I let a man "make" me I mean for this to be an affair of fairly
long duration and I'm fond of the man. But there has to be a first
time for it; and I'm not sure when that's coming and maybe I won't
get an opportunity to protect myself. Girls in an excited emotional
state aren't noted for using their heads."
"And another thing," she continued. "My generation may sound
hard-boiled and as if we knew what it was all about. But most of my
girl friends are pretty dumb about sex. We think we're smart
because we keep a few college boys from "making" us. And we joke
about the trade names of contraceptives, but you'd be surprised how
little practical knowledge most young girls have. A girl told me
the other day that she'd die of shame before she'd go to a doctor
and ask him about feminine hygiene. I told her that she might die
of shame if she didn't. There are a lot of jokes about how a girl
can't be raped, but if she's a little tight she hasn't got much
resistance. And most girls get panicky when they find themselves in
a difficult situation."
The answer to all this of course would be that a girl who
can't take care of herself shouldn't take a drink and shouldn't go
out with men she can't trust. But at the same time it seems to me
that men would find it easier and better to use a little
discretion. Where do they expect the girls to get any knowledge of
birth Control? Their mothers certainly aren't going to tell them --
not if they're nice girls. The girls are afraid to ask a doctor.
The other girls they know are just as dumb. They can't believe the
advertisements they read -- if they do they'll probably get caught,
either because they don't follow the direction's or because the
stuff isn't any good. They may ruin themselves with too strong
douches or they may trust some preparation applied too long before
or too long after the sex act.
Anyhow, the girl usually wants this whole business sentimental
and glamorous. She wants to be swept off her feet. Otherwise she
feels a little guilty about it. So she doesn't precede her moment
of grand passion with a questionnaire on hygiene. Furthermore, the
inexperienced girl has no way of knowing whether she can trust a
man. Usually she finds out that she can't when it's too late.
A lot of the fault lies with young boys who got their first
sex experiences with older women who knew enough to guard
themselves, or with prostitutes. From the talk of youths who come
into my office, I've decided that they don't have sense enough to
take care of themselves let alone protect the girl. They're not
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bothered by false modesty, but a lot of them think it's smart to
fool the girls, either by lying to them or using some cheap trick
to make their precautions useless. The older men have more sense,
but some of them are selfish and not much concerned with protecting
a girl, or they find it hard to believe that a young woman can be
ignorant of matters so vital to her.
I haven't any answer to the problem. Gradually hygiene classes
are becoming more liberal, but they still fall far short of what is
necessary. Doctors do what they can, but we can't go from house to
house instructing girls and boys. Like lawyers, we're usually
called in when the damage has been done. I'd like to see all high
school students given compulsory sex education.
One doctor I know says that there should be a stiff penalty
for spreading venereal disease. I asked him how he was going to get
witnesses to testify, and I said the medical profession had better
clean house first. I pointed out that doctors have been run out of
small towns for introducing disease-stricken, cheap prostitutes who
spread the disease and brought business to the physician.
"It's just like blackmail," I said, "The ones who are really
hurt by diseases are the nice girls, and they'd never testify
against a man. The list of men I've had in for treatment would
sound like a Who's Who of the town. You can't regulate sex. We've
just got to do the beat we can. Even if there were a fool-proof
contraceptive, which there isn't, people would forget to use it or
they wouldn't know about it, or they wouldn't believe in it."
The most cheering thing to me is that doctors are getting more
skillful in such matters and the present generation is becoming
wiser regarding the need for knowledge. Anne, who said she would
feel foolish interrupting an ardent love scene to arrange for her
contraceptive, did not allow that false modesty to keep her from
dashing down to my office immediately for a pregnancy test instead
of waiting and worrying for several weeks until time for her
menstruation.
More and more women are making a practice of monthly visits to
the doctor to make sure that nothing has gone wrong and to get
early aid if anything has.
In the last few years I have had fewer women patients who had
to be told that they had waited too late; that it was too dangerous
for them to have an abortion and they'd better arrange matters so
they could have the child and have it adopted. Fewer women spend
months of mental agony hoping that something will happen to cause
a miscarriage or trying dangerous home devices. The doctor's bill
may sound steep, but it's cheaper than risking an injury by home
use of sharp instruments or by violent blows in the abdomen.
I get more women whose menstruation has merely been delayed by
natural causes but who know it is wise to go to a doctor as soon as
they are a week or 10 days overdue. A hot bath, a few drinks, a
strong purgative or a simple prescription saves them from a lot of
worry and from dangerous patent remedies. A woman who is
persistently irregular needs medical treatment, anyhow.
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While I admire these self-reliant young women, I see a danger
in their new attitude. I do not mean the risk of promiscuity that
moralists raise whenever the birth-control question comes up.
Promiscuity, I believe, is a matter of taste and character and not
knowledge. Too, a woman who takes the trouble to inform herself on
these matters and who spends money to protect herself is going to
be smart enough to use discrimination. She's not going to be as
casual as the dumb girl who doesn't know what she's getting into.
Nor do I howl race-suicide and say that the country will go to
the dogs because all the big families are in the lower classes. The
lower classes have always had big families. Let them share in the
knowledge, too. Many of the women would be grateful for birth-
control data.
But I will give you an example. Not long ago a young girl came
in to see me. She was about 29, attractive, intelligent, earning
her own living. She wanted an abortion. She had the money to pay
for it and she said she wanted the best one she could get.
I always ask the history of these cases, but it happened that
I knew this girl. Her lover was a young businessman in the same
town, handsome, healthy and with a promising future.
"Why don't you marry, Dorothy, and have this child?" I asked.
"I know that when you started this affair your lover was still
married, although he was separated from his wife and the divorce
was pending. But now there's no obstacle to marriage. You're both
earning good salaries. You could afford a child. It would be better
for you. It isn't natural for two adults such as you and Bruce to
continue living with your families and have a clandestine
relationship. It's hard on you. It's making you nervous."
She shrugged her shoulders. "I know," she said. "But Bruce is
panicky about marriage. He had one, and it failed. And he hates
responsibility. I'm not sure that I'd be a good wife, either. I
don't want children and I hate domesticity."
"You're spoiled," I told her. "And even if it weren't for the
child, you ought to marry. Marriage isn't such an outdated
institution as you young folks seem to believe. There are plenty of
reasons for it, especially from the woman's standpoint. You've got
too much to risk. Here you are sneaking into my office and jumping
whenever you hear a door slam. And if I do this, you'll have to
stay in hiding for about 10 days, I don't think there's any danger,
because you're a healthy young woman. But you'll have to keep it a
secret, of course, and that's going to be a strain."
"I know all that, too," she replied. "But Bruce and I agreed
long ago that if anything happened I was to get an abortion and
we'd split the expenses. I can't go back on that now. I'm not going
to pull the weeping-woman stunt and sandbag him into marriage. I'll
admit I'd like to be married. I'm tired of this hole-in-the-corner
business. I'm as much to blame as Bruce is for what's happened and
I'm not going to have him suspect that I arranged this to trick him
into marriage."
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"You don't need to Sandbag him, as you phrase it," I
protested. "If you're in love with each other, surely you want
something more than this. You can't go on forever having just an
affair. You can be subtle about this and arouse his sense of
possession. A lot of the happiest marriages didn't start with
romantic proposals on the bended knee. People need to have a few
responsibilities. A little encouragement and he'd be proud of the
child and proud of his marriage. And a child would hold you
together."
"Maybe," she said, with a touch of bitterness. "And maybe not.
He had a child by his first marriage, and his wife had an abortion
when she was pregnant the second time. Children didn't hold that
marriage together. Maybe he'd be proud of me; maybe not. But I'm
too proud to make the first move. I've bragged too much about how
I, can take care of myself and how I want to stand on my own feet."
She smiled at me. "And don't say that Bruce isn't any good
either, doctor, I happen to love him. I'll admit that he has his
faults and he's selfish. Maybe that's the fault of his first wife.
Maybe it's my fault for spoiling him. She wanted too much and asked
for it and I ask for too little. Maybe sometime we will marry. But
I'm not going to play the helpless innocent to arrange it. I don't
blame him for not wanting to marry me. His family disapproves of me
because my reputation isn't exactly unspotted. His friends don't
like me. It would make trouble if he married me -- so why should
he? This way he can take sex as an adventure."
"It's an unhealthy state for you," I said. "You're getting to
be an emotional, nervous type."
"I know," she interrupted impatiently, "and wondering what's
going to happen all the time doesn't make me any more calm. But
then neither does having a series of casual dates and keeping
almost strangers from 'making' me. That or an affair are the two
choices I have until some man decides to make an honest woman of
me. And i'm too proud to use any of the old gags to get a proposal.
I'm used to working as a man and getting a man's salary and being
respected as an equal."
"You're not an equal now," I told her. "Your lover is paying
half the expenses but you are the one who'll be away from work,
who'll suffer the pain, the fear of discovery. In sex, you'll never
be man's equal. You've got to turn your weaknesses into strength.
But it's your own business, of course."
"Sure," she said, "and if you don't want to do this, doctor,
I'll go out of town to a strange physician and use a fake name and
a fake story."
"I'll do it," I promised, "but I don't want you back again as
a customer."
I didn't either. At first, as I said, I did abortions for the
money in them. Later I did them because I felt I was doing the
right thing. Maybe in this case I made a mistake. The girl got
along fine. But later on she told me that after it was all over,
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her lover said that he wished she hadn't had to do it, "And then,"
she added bitterly, "he said very quickly, 'but of course I knew
that it would be impossible for you to have the child.' And I
agreed that it would have been. You see, he didn't add that he
wanted to marry me."
But if all doctors had refused to perform the illegal
operation, he probably would have married her. And they might have
been happy. On the other hand, she might have tried some home
method and inflicted an irreparable injury.
That's one type of patient. There was another in which I had
no qualms at all. A young teacher with a promising future came to
me. She was about 32, and did not have a very attractive face, but
she had one of the most beautiful bodies I have ever seen. And
bodies are no novelty to a doctor.
Furthermore, she was naturally a passionate woman. But because
of her position she had to be very discreet and lead a circumspect
life. She told me that she had had sexual intercourse only two or
three times in her entire life.
That summer she had gone to a farm to spend a week. A cousin,
who was almost an idiot, was staying there. He came into her room
one night. The teacher had one of those sudden bursts of passion
that occasionally overcome women who are forced to live suppressed
lives. She had intercourse several times with her cousin. And,
unfortunately, she was caught.
Even had the man been fit mentally to be a father, it would
have ruined the woman's career to give birth to the child. She
would have had to marry her cousin, and that would have forced her
resignation.
"I hate him now," she told me. "I'd rather die than marry him.
I just went crazy, that's all. And disgrace of any sort would ruin
me in my profession. I couldn't go somewhere else and start all
over again. Teachers can't do that. The Slightest stain on my
character would prevent me from getting another job."
"Stop worrying," I said. "Everything is going to be all
right." Later on she married a fellow teacher. She came to me
before the marriage.
"I haven't told him about it," she explained. "He knows I'm
not a virgin and he can't expect me to be -- at my age. That
doesn't make any difference. But I wonder if I should tell him the
whole story."
"Don't," I advised her. "You paid the penalty for it. There's
no reason why you can't have children. No one can prove that you
had an abortion. Forget the whole thing."
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V. THEY AREN'T SO EASY
But those sample cases were several years after my first
abortion. I'll admit I was a little panicky then. I was an
inexperienced doctor and such operations were more dangerous then.
The death rate among women with abortions was much higher than the
deaths in childbirth. If the girl died, I would go to prison and my
life would be ruined. But I needed the money.
"I might as well go to prison as starve," I thought, and I
went ahead.
This girl was far different from the poor teacher who had
killed herself. A married man had got her into trouble and was
paying for her operation. She didn't seem worried about it. In
fact, she seemed rather proud of her affair with a prominent man.
"For God's sake, try to get it through her head that this is
serious business," the intermediary said. "I know that you'll keep
your month shut, but that fool girl hasn't any sense. Tell her
she'll go to jail. Tell her anything to keep her from talking."
Her lover was married to a wealthy woman, and it was necessary
to keep the story from the wife.
"She'd divorce him in a minute," the editor who brought me the
case said. "She's 'strait-laced. And to do X justice he isn't the
playboy type. He's got several children and he's crazy about them
and he loves and respects his wife. He went on a party with two or
three other businessmen. It started out as a stag drinking party
and someone suggested that they bring in some women. They did, and
this girl, Dot, was one of them. She was X's girl. Everybody got
drunk, and it wound up as a hotel party."
I grained. "The usual story. Only this time. it was a man who.
got betrayed."
"Exactly. X said that Dot, was a good sport. She isn't a
chippy or anything like that. She just went along for the party,
and it wasn't her idea to stay all night and she wasn't paid for
it. X is about 40 and he's always behaved himself pretty well. He
was flattered at a young girl liking him and he said that he wanted
to see her again. He forgot all about it, and then she telephoned
him. He felt that he owed her something for keeping quiet about the
party so he went out to see her, thinking that he'd take her a box
of candy and apologize again for the jam they'd been In. After
that, he saw a lot of her. He told me that he knew she was cheap
and ignorant but somehow that was what fascinated him. He'd seen
too much of over-civilized, inhibited women, and it was a relief to
find a girl who was pleased with whatever he did for her, who
enjoyed sex for itself alone and who gave him a good time. Pagan is
too lovely a word for it and animal sounds a little too vulgar. But
whatever she had, it went over with X."
Dot, in her way, was one of the most unusual girts I've ever
met -- and in my business I've seen all kinds. I could see why she
had attracted a sedate, prominent businessman, and I could see why
she puzzled the editor.
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Pagan was not the right word for her. That somehow implies
unspoiled naturalness. Dot used make-up far too liberally. She
curled her black hair tightly. She drank and she smoked. She was
not childish, she was not innocent and yet she was not vulgar. Her
idea when drinking was to keep on until she got soused. She took
her hangovers philosophically. She never seemed envious, never
blamed anyone, was always good-natured, enjoyed every treat with
fresh pleasure.
I suppose she was mentally a little deficient, but sometimes
I've thought it would be a better world if we were all more like
Dot. Her happy-go-lucky attitude made her helpless and at the same
time provided a protection. People wanted to do things for her
because she did not clamor for her rights.
She did not envy her lover his wealth or think that he had
hurt her. In fact, she seemed a little sorry for him.
"He doesn't have much fun," she told me. "His wife is too
good.
I do not like very good women."
I smiled. "Why?" I asked.
She looked a little astonished that I did not understand.
"Good women want to boss because they think they're always right.
They won't let people alone. When I was little, people were always
telling me to be good. Whatever I really wanted to do wasn't good
for me. And it was always bad people who did nice things for me.
And never asked anything in return."
Oddly enough, though, it was by telling her that people would
think her lover was not a good man that I got her to promise
secrecy about the whole business. She realized that it was
important for him to appear "good."
X came to me when it was all over and paid me. "I felt like a
cad not coming down with her," he said. "But Ben (Ben was the
editor) insisted that he'd arrange everything. And I guess he's
right when he says it's best for me not to see Dot again. I hate to
do it. It's like slapping a child. Dot's a sweet kid. A lot of
girls would be howling for money and making trouble and wanting
marriage. I've never seen anyone like her."
"And you won't again."
"I know," he hesitated again. "She does things that in any
other woman would disgust me. You know the sort of things I mean.
But they seem all right coming from her. She pulls tricks that I
know she must have learned from prostitutes. And with her they seem
an innocent desire to give as much pleasure as possible. I
sometimes think that if she wanted me to, I'd give up everything
and marry her."
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But he wouldn't, of course. It was the fact that she made no
demands of any kind that made him feel guilty, and he got a feeling
of virtue from toying with the idea of what he'd do if she wanted
him to. He liked to think of giving up his prestige, his money, his
respectability, as a gallant gesture. But if it came to brass
tacks, he would have decided that she was just another gold-digger
and howled like the dickens.
Since then, I've heard a lot of men make the same curtain
speeches. Sometimes I've wanted to say exactly what I thought about
them. Sometimes it's amusing. A man comes to me to arrange for an
illegal operation. He's sweating blood. Maybe he really loves the
girl and he's worried about her. He's worried about himself, too.
And he's in a hurry. He and the girl may have waited for a month,
waiting to see if she actually were pregnant. As soon as they find
out, they're in a hurry to get the abortion over, especially the
man, since he's afraid the girl will, change her mind.
The man is in a panic-stricken state until I agree to do it.
For once he has to eat humble pie. No matter how well he pays me
he's asking me a favor and I let him know that. The law can't do
anything to his girl for the operation. But it can do something to
me.
He worries until everything is over and the girl is all right.
Then the cold sweat dries off and there is a reaction. Probably the
girl cools off a little. Her, scare is over, too, but her nerves
have been shot to pieces and the usual effect is that she's
irritable and quarrelsome. What she wants is a lot of tenderness,
but the man in his relief tries to laugh the whole business off. So
the man begins to think that he hasn't cut a very impressive
figure, and he wants to justify himself.
Usually he talks a lot about what he would have been willing
to do. He figures he's safe in doing that. I don't mean that he's
always a cad, because he isn't. Men are usually a little frightened
by pregnancy. It's one thing they can't quite understand, in spite
of the graphic descriptions of childbirth that have been written by
masculine authors. He's had his nervous ordeal, too, and he'd like
to forget it but a nagging feeling of being made to appear a coward
and a fool makes him talk about it, sometimes to the girl and often
to the doctor.
Some of the men who send girls from other towns and have
friends make all the arrangements tell me that they'd have been
glad to see me personally beforehand but they couldn't get away
from business or they felt that it was too big a risk when secrecy
was necessary. And some of the men get a little sentimental abut
the unborn child and say that if circumstances had been different
they would have been glad to do the proper thing.
Even when they foot the entire bill and make the arrangements,
they sometimes have a feeling that they haven't exactly done their
share in this and that makes them angry. And they feel that they've
lost caste.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
I've seen a lot of couples who were genuinely fond of each
other quarrel bitterly after the worst apparently was over, simply
because neither of them knew enough to allow for the inevitable
aftermath of such an ordeal. In the first place the man usually
minimizes what the girl is going through. A pregnant married woman
gets a lot of attention. She complains about her health, she goes
regularly to the doctor, she is petted and pampered. She gets a
special diet. She isn't allowed to do any heavy work. She is
honored by stork showers. Her husband is supposed to be especially
gentle with her. And usually he keeps up a pose, at least, even if
he is having an affair with another woman while his wife is
pregnant. He knows if he doesn't, he'll get hell from his wife's
relatives and her friends; and while men are freer from the
domination of society than women, they're just as particular, if
not more so, about cutting a good figure in the eyes of the world.
It makes me laugh sometimes when I read masculine authors who
say wives are too strict with their husbands, just to please their
vanity and to cut a good appearance in the eyes of their friends.
Those men ought to be in my trade for a while and see some of the
things that go on under the surface.
The girl who has an abortion doesn't dare complain about her
nausea, or her pains, or her dizziness. She has to pretend to be
bright and happy for fear people will suspect what is wrong with
her. And she has to go through an operation that is a severe
nervous shock. An abortion is not the easy thing that people who
haven't had one seem to think it is. Married mothers talk loudly
enough about how they went through the valley of the shadow of
death for their children.
But these women can go to a good hospital and have the best
doctors and can lie in bed for the proper time afterward. And
they've got the child after they're through. The girl who has an
abortion frequently goes back to work or to her daily life before
she's ready. She can't explain too much mysterious absence. Her
first reaction is one of relief. Then she wants to talk about it
and get sympathy. Usually the only person she can talk to is her
lover. Naturally, he isn't fond of listening to her go on for hours
about how sick and scared she was. It makes him sound like a cad
for getting her into this condition. And sometimes he worries a
little about the money and that makes her mad and sometimes he
tries to justify himself by making her share the blame. If he's any
sort of a man, he feels that he was a worm for getting the girl
pregnant.
But the girl isn't in any mood for arguing about whose fault
it was. What she wants is to be told that she is an unsung heroine,
that her lover appreciates the gallant way she went through it,
that she was humiliated by being asked a lot of questions, by
having to admit that she was, to all outside appearances, a scarlet
woman having a criminal operation. She wants to be told that her
lover admires her for what she did and loves her all the more.
Above all else, she doesn't want to have flung at her what she
usually knows, that the affair is not serious enough and their love
not deep enough for her and her lover to throw everything overboard
and go away together, get respective divorces or eliminate any
other obstacles to marriage.
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She realizes the situation and that's why she went through a
nasty, disagreeable business. But right at the moment she wants to
pretend that this is a grand passion and worth any amount of
suffering and humiliation.
For despite what the moralists say, a lot of "nice" women have
abortions. When you consider that doctors estimate the abortion
rate in any city as being about five times the reported birth rate,
you must realize that all these cases cannot come from the dregs of
society such as gang molls and prostitutes. As a matter of fact,
few prostitutes have abortions. They are too smart, and frequently
they get so they cannot have children, even. Then they want them
Nature has made them sterile.
Sometimes I think that these after-quarrels are the saddest
part of the whole business. Usually the couples are reconciled
because they are genuinely fond of each other. But sometimes they
aren't, and there is bitterness over what nature intended as a
means of bringing a man and woman closer together.
Usually my clients try to bring me an iron-clad reason why I
should perform an abortion. Sometimes I know they're lying.
Sometimes it simply happens that an affair is drifting to a close.
And at the wrong psychological moment, an accident happens, love
has died or is dying and neither the man nor woman wants marriage.
Sometimes, as Dorothy frankly admitted, the man is not the marrying
kind. More and more young and eligible men seem to be panicky about
marriage. And it is in these cases that emotional disturbances
almost invariably follow the abortion. The man and woman resent an
accident disturbing the smooth course of their love affair. Their
love is not old enough and deep enough to stand much strain, and
when the emergency is over there is a quarrel. However, I do not
moralize about such affairs. I have seen many affairs that lasted
as long as most modern marriages. Some of the couples drifted into
marriage as they grew older. And I have about as much respect for
such liaisons as for a marriage. Frequently there is more honesty,
and more fidelity, and more genuine love than in the average legal
union.
Not long ago, I heard a young girl say glibly, "Oh, abortions
are nothing. I know a girl who had one in the morning and played
bridge that night." She may have played bridge that night, but I'll
bet she was gritting her teeth under her smile. If she did it, she
was a fool. She should have been in bed. I'll bet that after her
guest's left she burst into nervous tears. And probably for weeks
before and after the abortion it seemed to her that the
conversation was filled with joking references to pregnant women.
The truth is very rarely evident in such matters. Naturally the
girl is not going to talk about what a hard time she had. That girl
obviously had had the knife used on her. She may have felt pretty
good at the time and then weeks or maybe months later suffered
pains and discovered that she had not escaped so easily. The knife,
I maintain even in the face of those who still use it, is
dangerous.
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VI. I HAVE A PROSTITUTE PATIENT
After Dot, my next case was a country woman who already was in
a serious condition. Her husband, a hulking man with more
stinginess than sense, had given her a crude abortion with an
umbrella rib without even sterilizing it. Naturally the woman got
an infection. I brought her to the hospital and did what I could.
But she died. The man tried to save a small amount of money and
lost his wife.
He tried to avoid paying me, saying that I had caused a
useless hospital bill and his wife had died anyway. But I
threatened him with complete exposure of the case and he came
across. I had no pity for him. He was the sort of man who refuses
to either restrain himself or use any sort of precaution. His wife
was a small, dainty red-haired woman, and he was a big man, too big
for her. They were mismated even if he had not been utterly callous
in his treatment of her. He could be punished only through his
purse.
They had four small boys, the oldest only eight years old, and
his wife had rebelled against her fifth pregnancy. I gathered that
she had never really loved her husband, but he had been crazy about
her and had argued her into marriage. Later he treated with
contempt the very refinement and daintiness that had first
attracted him, boasting that there were many women who would be
glad to have him as a lover. He seemed to think it his wife's fault
that she had so many children.
"She got pregnant when I just looked at her," he said.
He married again a few months later but I never saw him again.
I managed to save a neighbor of his who had given herself an
abortion and had a hemorrhage. I packed her and put her to bed.
Some of the crude methods used are laugh-provoking; some are
tragic. I heard of a man who thrust a glass. tube into his wife's
uterus and pumped her full of air with a bicycle pump. But the
history of such cases is not completely written when the abortion
is over. The damage may not appear until the woman is pregnant
again. Women come into my office and complain of backaches, pains
in the side, general weakness. They say that they've been taking
patent medicines with no luck. Eventually I learn that they have
had miscarriages and I suspect that they were artificial.
However, I've known of natural abortions that left no bad
aftereffects. They may have been caused by sudden shocks, by undue
exertion, by a jolt, by a nervous condition.
It wasn't necessary for me to advertise that I was willing to
step over the line to help the fallen. Such things get about. A
pimp soon came in to arrange for an operation for his girl.
One of the silliest objections to legalizing abortions that I
have ever heard is that it would spread vice. Crusaders have been
trying since the world began to stop vice, and the oldest
profession still flourishes. It will continue to do so. Personally,
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I'm in favor of it, with strict medical supervision. I would rather
that my young son go to a bawdy house, where a smart girl would
wise him up to the use of contraceptives, than have him
experimenting with some dumb virgin or a pick-up. I think he run's
less risk of disease if he goes to a high-priced house. He is in
less danger of being yanked into an undesirable marriage or being
gold-dug or blackmailed.
Not long ago a boy was brought to me with a bad case of
gonorrhea, His father was tremendously shocked. The boy had tried
to keep it a secret until he grew too ill to, disguise it.
"I've warned him and warned him," the father said.
"That's the trouble," I replied. "You warned him against the
wrong thing."
The father was so goody-goody that he wouldn't face the facts.
He wouldn't admit that a boy of 17 has sexual desires and it is
natural for him to satisfy them. The boy had been warned against
prostitutes, and instead of going to a house he went to a "high
class girl" who was "giving away a million dollars worth of it
free." The girl was also giving away a lot of valuable medical
business. She didn't tell the boy, of course, that she had the
disease. Instead she let him buy her some cheap gin and they went
out for a ride in the country.
He might have got a dose at a $3 house, but I doubt it. If the
girl saw that he was dumb she'd wise him up about prophylactics.
And there wouldn't have been so much risk of the boy's trying to
make some young girl in his own set while he was diseased, if he
went to such places when he wanted only physical relief. I'm not
advising young men to go to prostitutes, but sometimes they are the
lesser of two evils,
The pimp made arrangements for the operation in a business-
like fashion and brought his girl down. She took it for granted as
one of the risks of her profession, although some girls in the
business raise hell if they're caught. I had no scruples about
performing the operation. I didn't feel then that I was spreading
vice and I don't feel that way now. It seems to me doubly important
that a house girl should not give birth to a child. Some of the
girls marry their pimps and get out of the profession when they
become pregnant. But if they don't marry, it seems to me a crime
against society to let the child be born. The girl may have a
disease that seems to be cured and the child may be born horribly
deformed. Its father may have been diseased and the girl did not
know it.
There have been some romantic tales written -- and some of
them may have a foundation of fact -- about beautiful young girls
reared in convents on the wages of sin. There have been more
unsavory stories of such young girls being pressed into service
when they were young; of children who led miserable lives because
of their mothers' occupation. Naturally, the girls usually cannot
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name the fathers of their children, so no help would come from that
source. For half a dozen reasons, I don't think a prostitute should
give birth to a child. And after she's pregnant, there is no time
for lecturing on why she shouldn't have allowed herself to get in
that condition.
Fortunately, Violet had escaped disease, so there were no
complications from that source. She derived an ironic amusement
from her condition, but resented having to pay out hard-earned
money for the operation.
"It's a helluva world," she said cheerfully. "I work all day
at this job and then for fun I get knocked up."
She told me in private that her pimp was not the father, but
that she didn't want him to know it.
"He's always bragging about how good he is to me in giving me
a rest when I get off work, and it would make him madder than hell
if he knew I stepped out on him," she said.
The next girl I got from the same house wasn't nearly so calm.
She had a hot temper, and she was wanting to get virtually every
man in town to pay for the job. Violet brought her down and laughed
at her.
"Fat chance you'd have proving anything," she jeered. "You'd
have to say, It's either Jones or Smith or Brown or Thompson if it
isn't some man I never saw before.' Just keep your mouth shut and
don't be so damned lazy."
I got quite a lot of that trade thereafter. Later, I tried to
discourage as much of it as I could. The girls might be recognized
coming into my office. They couldn't pay much, and I was out after
higher class trade. It was bad business having them sit around in
the waiting room, although most of them were well-dressed, quiet-
looking girls.
However, I will say that I didn't have to pamper along their
nerves and I didn't have to keep soothing them and impressing the
need for secrecy. Prostitutes have so many tough breaks that one
more didn't mean much to them.
One day a dainty, petite little blonde came in. She was
tearful and indignant at the same time. She had such a short vagina
that douches did her no good.
"I can't get to the bathroom quick enough," she said, "and
that fool of a husband I've got won't do anything."
She had had one child and didn't want another one. Her husband
hated the use of contraceptives, and they were constantly
squabbling.
"I tell him I'll leave him and I will," she said. "He doesn't
have to worry! The darned fool got me half-drunk or I wouldn't be
this way."
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She wanted a sterilization operation, but I refused to give it
to her. "You may want a child later on," I told her. "And then
You'll blame me."
She told me about a friend of her's who was in somewhat the
same position.
"She wants her husband to be made sterile," the woman told me.
"I've got sense enough not to ask that. But I think I'll get a
divorce. Jim is an ideal husband in other ways. But it isn't worth
it. I can't get any pleasure out of sex because I'm afraid of the
consequences. And I keep resenting Jim's attitude. He'll promise,
and then at the last minute he says that it's no fun if he has to
use anything."
"Send him in to me," I said.
I didn't bother him with any lectures on the mental strain he
was forcing on his wife. Instead I said, "Which would you rather
have, a frigid wife or a little less pleasure because you're
sensible and use precautions? If you're not careful, this abortion
will finish the job."
He really loved his wife, and this warning frightened him.
"I didn't know whether she really was telling the truth," he
said. "We had the first child because we wanted it. That's been
more than two years ago, and nothing has happened since. Part of
the time I've used contraceptives and part of the time I haven't.
I thought," he added, "that she was, just getting a lot of funny
notions from some of those cats she plays around with, and that I'd
better not humor her."
"Better try humoring her," I told him. "It's a doctor's
prescription."
"I will, doctor," he promised. "I didn't realize that she was
telling me the truth about the douches. She wouldn't let me go to
the doctor with her and I didn't know but what she was just panicky
or lazy. I have a friend whose wife is so sloppy that he has to
force her to go to the bathroom. Otherwise, she'll just lay there.
She wants him to do everything."
He looked at me. "I don't suppose Anna told you. I'd been
married before?"
"No," I answered, beginning to take an interest in Jim. It
looked as if there were another side to the story. I'd believed be
was merely thoughtless to what I deemed an almost criminal point.
"I was divorced from my first wife," he said. "And the reason
I fell in love with Anna was because she seemed to be so gay and
wholesome about sex."
"A man's idea of a wholesome attitude toward sex frequently
means that the girl is either dumb or too trusting," I interrupted.
"A woman who runs the risk of unwelcome pregnancy rather than
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
insist that a man use artificial methods to prevent conception is
going to become nervous and irritable sooner or later. A wholesome
attitude is one where you can discuss this matter and arrive at a
decision agreeable to you both."
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't mean that. I'll explain.
When my first wife, Audrey, and I were on our honeymoon, we went to
a quaint inn up in the mountains. We had a big room with a
fireplace and a bearskin rug in front of it. I wanted to make love
to her on the rug. She objected; said it made her feel like a dog.
Later I wanted to make love to her in a meadow filled with flowers.
She thought it was beastly. When we went to visit her people or my
people, she refused to have anything to do with me because they
might hear us. And she was always afraid the servants might hear
something."
"It began to give me inhibitions," he said frankly. "I'd been
brought up in a fairly strict household myself. Audrey's attitude
ruined our marriage and my love for her. Her idea of the proper
approach to sex took away most of my pleasure. Finally we got a
divorce. I was gun-shy of marriage until I met Anna. She Seemed so
free from complexes that I guess I went to extremes the other way.
I remembered Dot who had been so "natural" according to her
lover. I found myself telling Jim about her. He stared at me.
"I knew her slightly," he said. "You mean Dow' and he gave her
real name.
It was my turn to be a little startled. "Yes, but I didn't
mean to violate a confidence. I hope you'll keep this a secret. I
didn't suppose you'd ever heard of the girl."
He smiled a little grimly. "You're not violating any
confidence. Or at least you're not spilling any beans. I knew all
about it. X's wife is my sister. But didn't you know Dot is dead?"
"Good God, no," I exclaimed. "What was the matter? The
operation was a success. I'm positive of that."
"Oh, the operation was all right. And X, like a good boy, went
back to his wife and was the model husband. He gave Dot some money,
but since he became the virtuous spouse he didn't feel that he
should keep on paying money to a woman he no longer saw. And Dot
was too good looking and too carefree to hold a job long. So she
drifted from one man to another, and finally one of them strangled
her with her own silk stocking. He caught her being unfaithful with
another man."
"I don't remember seeing anything about it in the newspapers,"
I said.
"Oh, it wasn't in this town," Jim told me. "But she'd kept a
card of my brother-in-law's all these years. So they notified him
of her death. He was in a funk. He was afraid they'd learn of the
old affair. So he sent me to keep him out of it, arrange for the
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funeral and send her some flowers, anonymously. I told the
officials that he'd helped to get her a job once. And I managed to
get her a quiet funeral and send her some flowers without mixing
him up in it."
He was more impressed by my connecting Dot with his wishes
regarding his wife than by any lecture I could have given him. I
saw his wife later and she seemed perfectly happy. She told me that
her married life was now perfect.
I had not lied when I told Jim that abortions sometimes made
women frigid. The same thing often happens with childbirth. Memory
of the pain soon fades, but there is a vague emotional hangover,
especially if the woman feels she has been unfairly treated. Women
who are naturally a little under-sexed may have their emotions
drained by the experience.
On the other hand, sometimes it makes women more passionate.
They feel that they know the worst that can happen to them. And
usually they have acquired better knowledge of birth-control
measures, either from the doctor or from realization that previous
carelessness must be stopped.
I talked to a woman recently who had been having an affair for
several years. Her nerves were shaky. She asked me several discreet
but leading questions about abortion's.
"Do you need one?" I asked bluntly.
She shook her head. "I don't think so, but this is one of my
worrying days. I worry constantly for about the last half of my
period. I feel safe during menstruation and for some reason feel
quite safe for the first week or so thereafter. I suppose it's
relief from having passed another period without danger. But along
about this time I get nervous and wonder if something could have
gone wrong and figure out what I'd do if anything happened.
Sometimes I think I'd feel better if I were caught and had to go
through an operation. Then Id know that there is no fool-proof
method of contraception. I'd know what to do in case anything went
wrong again and just what it would be like. And I could decide once
and for all whether to go on with this affair."
"I don't see how women stand it," I said frankly. "Of course,
we doctors have our worries, too. But we've got a good stock alibi
ready if anything slips and we get paid well for our worrying. It's
bad enough for married women. However, most of them plan to have
children when they marry. But girls like you --."
"Some of us don't stand it." She gave me a wry smile. "I could
give you a list of some who haven't borne up under it too well. The
thing that saves the majority of modern mistresses from nervous
breakdowns is that the affairs don't last more than a year or so,
and then the couple either marries or they break up and the girl is
so sick of uncertainty that she marries the first man who comes
along with a proposal in his hand."
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I grinned. "And by then, I suppose they're so tired of
worrying that it's almost a relief when they get pregnant and stay
that way."
She nodded. "That's why you see a lot of attractive young
businesswomen -- girls in their late 20's and early 30's -- who
have been going around with equally attractive men suddenly marry
sappy-looking eggs who can offer them a home and security but no
romance. The ones who don't -- well, a friend of mine is in a
hospital now recovering from a nervous collapse. Other girls drink
too much. I know one who has taken to drugs."
I never have become calloused to hearing stories like that. Of
course, I took them much more seriously when I first started to
practice. For a while it seemed to me that I was peculiarly lucky
in being first too poor and then too busy to have much to do with
sex except in a professional way.
VII. MY OWN ROMANCE CRASHES
After I had launched myself into the illegal side of my
profession I began to take it for granted. Of course, I solemnly
warned my sub-resa patients of the danger of talking. But my name
was mentioned because many of my later patients came to me on the
recommendation of friends who said that I was discreet, efficient
and reasonable in price.
I didn't object, because such advice was given in confidence
to persons who were not likely to broadcast the information in the
wrong quarters.
However, it was not until I met Rose that I saw how the change
in my professional attitude might effect my private life.
I had more money now, and could afford to have more
recreation. I had a bank account, and I was slowly paying my father
back the loan he had made me. I felt that I was entitled to a
little fun. So I looked up a friend of college days and he invited
me to a party. Rose was there.
It was a case of immediate mutual attraction. I was girl-
starved and I was still idealistic as far as my personal life was
concerned. That was in the days of the short skirts. Rose wore a
frivolous blue taffeta frock coming just to her knees. Above it her
blond curls, blue eyes and rosebud mouth looked like those of a big
doll. Nowadays I probably would dismiss her as insipid. Then I
thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.
I had just acquired a car and was very proud of it. I took
Rose home. I think she was thrilled by her conquest. Women like to
display their power, a trait that frequently gets them into
trouble. They will encourage a man just to flatter their vanity and
then try to retreat when he gets serious.
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I gave Rose a big rush. My intentions were honorable, as the
old-fashioned phrase has it. I thought it was a good idea for a
doctor to be married and I thought Rose would make me a perfect
wife. I see now how foolish that was and how lucky I was to escape
her, but at the time I was youthful enough to consider beauty all-
sufficient.
I met her father, a pompous businessman, and her mother, a
minor society woman. The whole thing seemed ideal. I would get a
young and pretty wife. I would be allied with a respectable family,
and that would help me in my profession. A few women like a good-
looking young doctor, but the majority of the patients want a
middle-aged or elderly man with a lot of dignity. The young doctor
may be a better physician, but patients believe that the older man
can be relied upon more because of his experience. However,
marriage lends an Aura of respectability.
Mothers feel better when their children are being examined by
a gray-haired man with the manner of a priest at confession. And
with men there is it jealousy of a young doctor. I think they would
prefer the old Chinese custom of having eunuchs to wait upon their
women. I have had women tell me that their husbands and lovers were
jealous because "strange doctors" give them examinations. I know of
such cases in my own practice, when men reluctantly gave permission
to have their wives or sweethearts examined, or treated, or even
submit to an abortion. They seemed to feel that in some fashion I
have ravished them or had a sexual experience that they had been
denied.
But to go back to my romance. I paid court in the traditional
fashion. I sent Rose flowers and candy. I took her to the theater
and to parties. I restricted myself to a few kisses and embraces.
I intended my marriage to be free from any emotional hangover. I
wanted a virgin bride, and I wanted an aroma of orange blossoms
around everything.
I had been going with Rose for about six weeks when she
telephoned that her mother wanted to see me. Rose let me in the
house and avoided my hasty kiss. She looked pale and somehow
indignant.
"Aha," I thought, "the old lady's been inquiring about my
intentions and Rose is peeved because I haven't popped the
question. I'll soon put that right."
I felt a little irritated as I smiled in an encouraging
fashion at Rose. The Garners seemed to be rushing things a little.
I wanted to propose and receive her acceptance in the best 19th
Century romantic style -- my literature was old-fashioned -- and
then go to her father to ask for her hand. I was in favor of
marrying as soon as possible, but I wanted to arrange the whole
business in my own way.
Mrs. Garner rose from her chair when I came into the room. She
didn't invite me to sit down.
"I'm sorry to have to say this to you, Martin," she began. "I
understand from Rose that you have always treated her with respect
--"
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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"Of course," I said hurriedly. "I want to marry Rose, Mrs.
Garner. Perhaps I should have declared my intentions sooner, but I
was not sure Rose returned my affection. I can support a wife. I
haven't much money now, but my practice is growing. If she's
willing to start humbly --"
Her face hardened. "Don't add insult to injury, Dr. Avery. I
know all about your profession. I didn't want to have to drag that
in. Fortunately, you hadn't mentioned it to Rose. I have not told
her the details. As for her affections, she will get over this
foolish infatuation quickly enough. I have, caught it in time,
thank heavens!"
I was stunned. "What's the matter with my profession?" I
demanded. "I'm a doctor. I'm not a very good one yet, but I'm
making a living. It's an honorable calling."
"You," she was almost stuttering with cold rage. "You're a
child murderer! My husband told me all about it. And you want to
drag our daughter into the filth and slime of your work! You who
help the hardened creatures of the world with their sins -- only
you are worse than they are. If it were not for people like you,
they might reform."
"It isn't murder," I retorted angrily, forgetting that I had
once very nearly shared her view. "It isn't murder any more than it
was murder when you and your husband decided not to have any more.
children after Rose was born."
"Get out," she shouted furiously. "I won't bandy words with
you. Get out, and stay away from my daughter!"
I got out. I was mad enough not to try to see Rose, either.
I'd wanted me drama in my romance and I got it. And in my anger I'd
hit the sorest point in the armor of the righteous.
There are very few women who want their children, and there
are fewer yet who want an unlimited number. I've met a few young
wives who wanted children immediately, but most of them don't want
to be tied down. They want to arrange their children. That's
reasonable and natural. And the crusaders usually don't have many
children. If they did, they wouldn't have time to run other
people's business. A lot of them are equally indignant about the
large, families among the poor. They're not so much against big
families as they are against the parents having any fun.
I used to marvel at the twisted, perverted forms that sex
took. Nowadays I marvel that there is as much naturalness connected
With sex a's there is.
Mrs. Garner hated me because I helped girls out of their
mistakes. She wanted them to suffer because she hadn't enjoyed
herself. Probably she was one of those unfortunate women who spend
the early part of their lives dreading pregnancy so that they never
enjoy the sex act, the sort of woman who thinks it somehow cheap to
be caught on her wedding night. Then with her menopause, she
probably found out that she'd waited too late for sex enjoyment.
Either her passion had died a natural death or her husband was
impotent.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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Since the time when Mrs. Garner arbitrarily decided that I was
not a fit companion for her daughter because I faced the facts
about sex, I have seen a lot of peculiar things and developed more
tolerance. Then I was furious at her. Oddly enough I probably
treated-her daughter with more respect than most other men would
have, partly because I was still young and idealistic and partly as
a reaction from the sordid part of my business.
I would have made Rose a much cleaner and more romantic
husband than some man who had not seen the results of sexual
abnormalities and irregularities and flouting of conventions.
Eventually, Mrs. Garner married Rose to a small-time
businessman who made a household drudge out of her. Rose grew fat,
peevish and complaining. She came to me several times with minor
ailments. She didn't have good health. She virtually ruined herself
by taking too strong medicines and using too harsh disinfectants.
I could have saved her all that. But her mother was a good woman!
Afterward, I was thankful that I'd escaped Rose. She and her mother
drove her husband half mad complaining because he didn't make
enough money. Finally he became a habitual drunkard. He was weak
and so was Rose; and Mrs. Garngr ruined their lives by prying and
dictating. Rose felt that she committed a crime when she became
pregnant and felt equally guilty when she tried to prevent
conception.
But that day, of course, I didn't know anything about that. I
went on a binge and wound up in a house of prostitution.
And there, ironically enough, I found myself in a room with
Violet, the first house girl I'd had for a patient.
"What the hell are you doing here, doc?" she demanded. "I'm a
cash customer," I laughed. "What do you think I'm doing, picking
daisies?"
"You're drunk," she told me.
"Of course," I agreed amiably. "My girl's mother told me to
get the hell out of there. She thinks I live in the gutter with
girls like you. So here I am."
Violet sniffed. "Probably her old man comes here, too, for
half and half. That's what good women do to men." I sobered up and
went back to work the next day and knocked a lot more silly,
romantic ideas out of my head. At lunch I met a doctor friend of
mine, one who sent me some business occasionally. I hear you're
going to marry," he said.
Eventually," I told him, "but I've no prospects in sight just
now.
"What's happened to the big romance?" he asked. "I saw you
beaming at the Garner girl like a love-sick calf the other night."
"The love-sick calf has had a good dose of salts and is
cured," I told him. "Mamma and papa disapprove of the way I
practice my great profession."
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He grinned. "You've got a clean job compared to some
psychoanalysts I know. They really get the sex dirt dished out to
them. I've just been talking to one. A woman came to me and asked
to be examined, said she wasn't getting any kick out of her married
life."
"Tell her to be glad she's a good woman," I grunted.
"I told her she had nothing organically wrong with her," my
friend went on. "Then I asked her the usual questions. Everything
seemed all right to me. She said the sex act was completed, she
loved her husband, nothing is wrong with him, no trace of
perversion. From her description, it sounded like a perfectly
normal coition. But she wasn't satisfied. She thought she was being
cheated out of something. So she went to the psychiatrist. And you
ought to hear the pay-off."
"Go on," I said. "I'm listening."
"That was her trouble, too. She'd been listening to a gal in
the same apartment house, a divorcee. The other woman got a divorce
because she couldn't or wouldn't sleep with her husband. She
doesn't have much to do with men nowadays, and when she doe's,
she's a teaser. Gets a big kick out of the preliminaries, but won't
go any farther. However, she's been driving two or three of her
married women friends crazy with descriptions of how thrilling the
sex act should be. As a matter of fact, she's never got any kick
out of it at all, not even the normal kind. And she's not a pervert
or a practicing one at least."
"Nice woman," I muttered.
"Very," said my friend. "The psychiatrist had a hard time
convincing my patient that she was getting everything there was out
of sex and that she should pay no attention to her neighbor.
Advised her to move, in fact. I'd rather have an out-and-out
pervert try to Convert my wife than have one of those dirty-minded
wenches around. They're worse than the so-called good women who try
to tell a woman that enjoyment of sex is sinful. It's pretty hard
to convince a woman that it's wrong for her to have a good time.
But when someone tells her that she ought to be having a better
time, she's liable to start trying out other men."
"The whole business is crazy," I said. "Seems to me that we'd
be more sensible if we had rutting period's as the animals do and
got it all over with in a few days."
He grinned. "We're the higher order. We can think! We can
reason!"
I went back to the office pretty well soured on the whole
thing. A woman came in and tried to convince me she was pregnant.
Most women fight against the idea and keep hoping that even the
doctor may be wrong, But once in a while there's a nut who's so
full of symptom's, both genuine and imaginary that she wears a path
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
to the doctor's office. This woman didn't want a child, but the
fear of pregnancy obsessed her. If she gained a pound and it showed
as it usually does, on her breasts and hip's, she decided that She
was caught and rushed right down to see me.
I got rid of her and settled down with a magazine. Then two
well-dressed, pretty young women came in. One of them looked as if
she had been crying. Both were nervous. I recognized the symptoms.
The prettiest girl introduced herself and her companion. She
was tall and slender without being either skinny or curved in the
wrong places. Even in the awkward knee-length dresses of that
period she looked graceful. She had intelligent-looking gray eyes,
dark brown hair, combed simply and lips with a tendency to curve
upward. Her companion was sweet-looking rather than beautiful and
she didn't have the competent air of her friend.
Norma, the prettier of the two, did the talking for herself
and for Pearl. She came right to the point. She said she understood
that sometimes I helped girls out of trouble.
I was cautious. Neither girl wore a wedding ring. They didn't
look like street-walker's, but I had to be careful. I told them to
tell me the whole story, adding that it would be in strict secrecy.
"It's a simple story," Norma said. "Pearl is in a jam. She
isn't married, and so it's important that she get rid of the child
and do it as quickly as possible. I've heard that she can register-
in at a hospital and say she's married and have the operation as
essential to her health. But I don't know how to go about it."
"Better not try it," I advised. "It's too risky. In the first
place, in this State three physicians must certify that the
operation is essential to her health, And the case would be
investigated. A good doctor isn't going to risk putting his name on
record in such a case."
"Then what do you advise?" Norma asked.
"Where's the father of the child?" I asked. I always want the
men in the case to appear. In the first place, the men usually foot
the bills. In the second, I want to have a clear understanding
among all concerned before I risk my career for an operation. A
hysterical woman may -- and sometimes does -- rush into my office
and want something done right away. Later She may discover that the
man would have married her and she blames me. Or the man may have
scruples against such operations or the family may raise hell.
Sometimes wives try to get abortions when their husbands are
absent. The husband may stir up a devil of a mess when he finds it
out, and the woman may not be able to pay and there may be charges
that the doctor induced the woman to undergo the operation. If
something happens to the woman in such a case, the doctor may as
well buy his railroad ticket and leave before he finds himself
behind bars.
"He's on a business trip," Pearl said, "and it's important
that I don't bring him back for this."
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
That sounded fishy and I said so in as tactful a fashion as I
could manage. I told her that his presence was important. Then the
story came out. The man was married to an insane woman now in an
institution. The wife was a Catholic and so were all her people.
The husband made her regular visits, and he was on one now. He
occupied a position in a firm largely controlled by his wife's
relatives. He couldn't divorce his wife, and so they we're waiting,
patiently hoping that her failing health would end her life.
The man's job took him away from our city much of the time. He
had been gone for about six weeks and it would be several weeks
before he returned. Pearl wanted to get the whole business over
before he came back.
"I'll tell him, of course," she said. "But it's almost
impossible for him to return now and it would do no good. I've
plenty of money and Norma will look after me. He's got troubles
enough without my adding to them. If I let him know now he'd
probably dash back here and the whole story might come out. We've
gone through too much to risk endangering everything because of
this unfortunate happening.
I believed her. She was in a bad spot.
"All right," I said. "I'll help you."
"We'll pay you in advance," Norma told me eagerly. "Then
you'll know we're all right."
Of course, it is customary in all these cases to get payment
in advance. No abortionist is going to take the risk without being
paid, and paid well, in advance. Once the abortion is over, the
doctor has no hold over the woman. It is the surgeon who commits
the crime, not the girl.
No girl needs to be blackmailed by a quack abortionist if she
will keep that in mind. He may threaten to expose the whole thing;
may produce documents from his files. But if she pays him in cash,
pays him in advance, and then bluffs, she'll be all right. He won't
dare say anything about it. He'll not only let himself in for a
prison sentence but he'll also kill his practice at once. Once he
has come out in the open about one abortion, no one else will trust
him.
But that day I forgot my strict rules. "No hurry about that,"
I told them "You can take your time."
They looked a little relieved. I learned afterward that they
had brought every cent they had in the world and were prepared to
offer it to me. My charges then were not so high as they are at
present, when I never accept anything less than $125, and sometimes
my fees are as high as $500.
The girl had arranged to take a short vacation. She moved into
a small apartment with Norma. It may be that I called there oftener
than professional purposes required. But the appreciation expressed
by the two girl's helped to soothe my vanity, wounded by Mrs.
Garner's outburst.
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
"It's ridiculous," Norma exclaimed, "that we have to hide in
here in order to prevent a tragedy. Oh, I know we have to do it,"
she added quickly. "But here is Pearl, trying to get a little
happiness. Here you are, trying to do some good. Here I am, just
standing by. And all three of us would be disgraced if this got
out. If someone wrote a play about the situation and a beautiful
woman did it on the stage, she'd be a heroine. But in real life the
fiction Situations don't work out so well."
"I know," I said. "Camille is a figure of romance and all the
women in the audience weep when she dies. But if Camille were
working hard to earn her living and trying to have a little
pleasure in the evening and got caught and went to an abortionist,
she'd be that 'wild little French girl' and the good ladies would
sniff and say it only went to show that foreigners couldn't be
trusted and they've been thinking that their husbands should fire
that dark-haired, dark-eyed girl in the office. She's too pretty to
be a really efficient typist."
I told Norma about my brief fling with Rose Garner.
"Even my love affair aborted," I Said grimly.
But Norma was laughing. She choked and waved her hands. "I
don't mean to laugh at you. It's just that I remembered what Mr.
Garner does."
"He's a druggist. He's something in a wholesale company."
"And he's also a big stockholder in a company that
manufactures hot water bottles and syringes," Norma replied. "It's
all right to buy a douche bag. And you can buy all the salves and
jellies and everything else for 'feminine hygiene' that you want.
A lot of them may be dangerous; a lot of them may be worthless. But
nothing is done about that. The ounce of prevention is perfectly
legal, and if the prevention isn't any good, the manufacturers are
safe. Mr. Garner sells plenty of disinfectant that is less powerful
than soap and water and some that's so harsh the solution ruins
your hands. But when people actually need help, he's moralizing
somewhere."
"Well," I said, "no statues are being erected to me. And a lot
of the time I don't get any thanks for what I've done."
Of course, no doctor expects thanks. He's supposed to do his
best even if he feels the patient isn't worth saving. He's supposed
to work when he feels that he isn't going to get paid. But he isn't
risking his future and a damned disagreeable prison sentence for
it.
A lot of my patients come in virtually on their knees. They
continue to be abject until the operation is a success. Then they
may hear about a quack who would have done the same thing for $10
or $15. Why shouldn't he be cheap? He hasn't had any expensive
medical training. He hasn't got half as much to lose as I have. He
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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CONFESSIONS OF AN ABORTIONIST
may be good. There are men who can perform abortions skillfully and
can't do anything else. Some of them are doctors who have already
lost their licenses to practice; Some are premedical student's who
dropped out. And there are old women with an uncanny skill at the
business.
So when it's all over and the money has been paid in advance,
a patient, or more often the man who footed the bills, may get to
thinking that that was a lot of money for what little was done. And
he feels wronged. An abortion has no permanent effect like the
removal of an appendix or tonsil's. The man wants to blame somebody
for this business just to get rid of surplus irritation that he
hasn't dared to take out on the girl. So he treats me as a quack
and a sharper and a few other disagreeable things.
It reminds me of a man I knew who went on periodical drunks.
"I stay sober for weeks and nobody says that it's fine I'm
restraining myself," he told me once, "but as soon as I go on a
toot, everybody says, 'Look, he's drunk again."
I told the story to Norma. She didn't laugh. "It's funny, I
know. But look at us. I mean, Pearl and myself. Outwardly we're
good girls, nicely mannered, hard working. Nobody brags on us
because we are behaving ourselves. That"s natural. We're all
supposed to behave ourselves. But let us, make one slip and we're
marked for life. Oh, I know, people don't talk about scandal
constantly as some girls seem to think. And lots of girls who have
been naughty become nice. But always there's someone who's going to
say, 'I remember when she got into a jam and they say there was a
hush hush operation.' Probably that person doesn't mean anything by
it. It's just casual gossip. But did you ever notice the peculiar
glint women get in their eyes when the subject of pregnancy is
introduced. They invariably count the months if the woman is
married. And if she's not, they lower their voices and start
discussing the possible fathers."
I grinned. Norma and I were good friends by now. I enjoyed
blowing off steam to her and she talked with amazing frankness to
me. I told her how I'd started doing abortions.
"I suppose vanity was one reason why I hated it," I remarked.
"Any starving doctor could look down upon me for violating the
ethics of the profession. Same way any physician rather looks down
on a dentist. The dentist may be making a lot more money but he
never has ranked quite so high."
"I know," Norma said. "I knew a girl who fell in love at first
sight with a man. But when she found out he was a dentist, she was
humiliated and refused to see him again."
She looked at me. "I'm not noted for any piety," but I believe
that your credits and debits will balance on Judgment Day."
It was about this time that I turned down my first case. I had
always told myself that I meant to use discrimination in this
business and the only way I could maintain my self respect was to
take only such case's as I felt worthwhile.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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A very pretty, richly-dressed young woman came into my office,
accompanied by her mother and her sister. This was unusual. It had
so happened that my previous clandestine patients before had
consisted of girls anxious to keep news of the operations from
their families. It is an indictment of family life and the much-
touted mother love that girls will tell their troubles to friends
before they will confide in their parents.
Of course, there are several other reasons for that. Sometimes
it is merely a desire to spare pain and worry. The girls are not in
a mood to listen to maternal anxiety. It is the same thing that
causes many girls to want their lovers or husbands away when they
are going through an abortion. They sometimes prefer the more
impersonal kindliness of a nurse or a close friend. They know that
they are going to be in a great deal of pain, that they are not
going to be at their best and vanity keeps them from wanting anyone
really close to them around.
But I was pleased at the sight of the mother. I felt somehow
that she lent more respectability to the visit. This thought
disappeared in a few moments. The girl, I learned, was the wife of
a wealthy young man in a nearby city.
She was annoyed and petulant over her pregnancy. She was just
starting to have a good time as a young wife in a smart young
married set, and she hated to have her fun interrupted by
motherhood.
"I know just how Frances feels," her mother told me. "She has
all those lovely new clothes and the season is just beginning. And
she has such a beautiful figure. It would never be the same again.
Men are so selfish about such things."
"Then her husband doesn't approve of the operation?" I asked.
Both mother and daughter burst into tirades against the
general selfishness of mankind. Finally I managed to extract the
information that the young husband did not even know his wife was
pregnant.
"And he isn't going to," Frances said firmly. "He'd probably
raise the dickens and insist on my going through with it. Men are
foolish about children, They don't have to get all ugly and clumsy
and ridiculous-looking. Of course, I did tell Jack that I wanted
children. But I don't want them right away. Later on, I'd like a
boy and a girl, right together so they'll be cute to dress."
She paused, apparently admiring herself as an attractive young
mother.
"Later on it may be harder for you to have children," I
remarked.
She dismissed that. She was the type who regards everything
beyond tomorrow as being vaguely in the far distant future and not
to be taken into consideration.
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Both women annoyed me. They irritated me further by saying
that they would pay any price "so long as it's reasonable." They
seemed to regard the whole business in the light of pulling a
disfiguring tooth. There also was the attitude that they were
really doing me a favor by bringing the job to me.
"I can't do anything about it," I told them. "If your husband
should find out about it he could send me to prison. Even with his
consent, it would still be too dangerous. Later, you'll want a
child, and if you can't have one you'll blame me. You're young and
healthy and you have plenty of money. Your husband will love you
even more if you have the child. So go home and forget about it."
They burst into torrents of rage then, but I shooed them
firmly out of my office and gasped with relief. They were the worst
type of patient. In the first place, they would have made trouble
all through the case, complaining about any pain and having to be
pampered.
"I usually try to send the mother home," a doctor told me
later. "She'll raise hell all the time she isn't telling you what
to do and how she had her children. Mothers make the worst possible
nurses because they want to do whatever the patient asks instead of
what is good for her. They'll feed the girl the wrong things,
refuse to make her exercise and spread the news around at the tops
of their voices."
Another danger is that patients of this type are babblers.
Secure in their moneyed and social positions, they don't give a
damn what happens to the doctors. Afterward they are likely to
regard all abortion in the light of an interesting tea-table
conversation subject, along with nervous breakdowns and trips to
Europe. They tell the whole thing, including the doctor's name and
address.
Such frivolous women may manage to keep the abortions secret
from their husbands for a while, but when it's all over they get
careless. And when they can't have children, the husbands blame the
doctor and think he probably performed a sterilization operation in
secret or did a bad job. There is something mysterious about an
abortion to the lay mind, anyhow. I've heard people inquire if I
actually cut out some of the organs. An abortion is simply what the
name implies, a premature birth, before the woman is more than
three months pregnant. After that it is more dangerous and comes
under the term of miscarriage. But I have had girls come to my
office and expect to go under ether and have ugly abdominal sears.
A successful abortion does not prevent a woman from having
children later on. But some women are not very fertile and one
pregnancy exhausts them. Or society women, such as Frances, may
keep their vitality at low ebb by reducing diets or by high nervous
strain and be unable to bear a child. Or they may ruin themselves
by use of too strong contraceptives. And in all such cases the
abortionist is blamed.
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In Frances' case, the fault lay in the lack of understanding
between husband and wife. It may take some of the roses and
moonlight and glamour out of young married life to discuss such
things cold-bloodedly, and one woman told me that she grew to hate
her. husband because he insisted on analyzing their emotions before
and after the sex act, but there would be fewer husbands and wives
drifting apart if they talked things over.
Frances probably lacked the courage to tell her fiance that
she didn't want children for several years. She may have been
afraid that he would not marry her if he knew her true views. I
don't think she wanted children at all, but there are other wives
who actually desire a family but want the first year or two of
their marital companionship without the complications of a child.
A man came to me once for examination. "I want to know if
there's anything the matter with me," he said. "I've been married
two years, and we haven't had any children. If I'm sterile, I
should know it because it isn't fair to my wife. She wants
children."
I suppressed a laugh. I knew that his wife used contraceptives
regularly because she had come to me about them.
"Is she in a hurry for a child?" I asked.
"No. She's very nice about the matter. But when we were
married we both agreed that we wanted children. Of course, nothing
definite was said about when, I thought we'd just let nature take
its course."
I told him there was nothing wrong with him and advised him to
talk it over with his wife. I also told him to send her to me. She
came in a few days later.
I didn't bother about giving her an examination. She was a
friend of mine, and I simply told her what her husband had said.
She sighed.
"I didn't know he was in a hurry about having a child. Of
course I'm willing. I want children and I told Leslie so. But he
never said anything definite about the matter and didn't appear
very eater to be a father, So I thought I'd enjoy being carefree as
long as possible."
"You see," she went on, "I know husbands who talk about how
fond they are of children, but then when their wives become
pregnant, they are peeved because she doesn't feel well and she
can't be gay and a good sport. And when the child comes, It's the
woman's responsibility Even if the man is a good father, it's the
woman who has to take care of the child all day. I'm not going to
be one of those women who complain about being tied down by a
child. Leslie is tied down to a desk all day supporting me, and I
ought to do my share."
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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She grinned a little impishly. "I don't take that too
seriously, either," she added. "Leslie was tied down to that desk
before he met me. The only difference is now he has more
responsibilities. But I didn't see any point in adding to those
responsibilities unless I thought he wanted them."
I smiled at her. "You're a smart woman, Jane. But be careful
of being too smart and figuring things out too closely. There's as
much danger in making a slip in too close calculations based on
human nature as there is in being too careless."
"You're telling me," she replied. "I thought I was being smart
in saving Leslie from the results of his vagueness, and here he is
dashing around to doctors to find out if anything is wrong with
him. But you see, Martin, when we were going together, Leslie was
cursed by a desire to evade being definite about anything. He was
the sort of man who telephoned and said he might call me later that
night if he could get away. That kept me at home all evening
waiting for his call, because I'd rather take a chance of being
with him than go somewhere else and disappoint him if he did call.
Or he'd say that he'd call me about the middle of the week and I'd
stay at home Wednesday and Thursday nights. And he'd say, 'I'll
come by between seven-thirty and eight-thirty,' leaving me
twiddling my fingers for an hour."
I nodded. Such things often seem unimportant to the man who is
busy until the time he goes to see a girl, but they may make or
break the romance. I knew a girl who broke off a love affair
because of such treatment.
"If he can't make up his mind when he wants to see me when
he's courting me, what will he be like after we're married when he
feels that he can take me for granted?" She, had said.
But Jane was still talking. "And he had a beautiful habit of
just dropping by in the morning to see me. He'd be out and around
town on business. He'd find me looking like hell and busy. But he
thought it nice to surprise me. Same way, sometimes he'd drive by
at night or call at an hour when I had either decided to stay at
home or had made other arrangements. I was so much in love that
this seemed petty. But I decided that after marriage I would take
things into my own hands a little more. So I did. Leslie was j