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Mrs. Jones tells her story
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| I'm 71 years old. I was
born in 1930 in Chicago, in the middle of a bad
winter. I was next to the youngest in a family of
9. My mother was 46 when I was born and almost 48
when my youngest brother was born. My mother finished
high school one month before she married my father.
She was barely 18. In 30 years my mother gave birth
to 9 children, miscarried five times fairly early
on in the pregnancies and she experienced 2 later
miscarriages, when she was 6 and then 5 months along.
The last miscarriage was about 7 months before I
was conceived. |
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| Before my mother died
she also told me about 2 abortions she had, abortions
my father never knew about, the second one a year
after her ninth child was born. |
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| In 1953, the day after
college graduation, I was married. My husband and
I both were about to begin our teaching careers,
I was a going to teach 3rd grade and my husband
was going to teach high school history and science.
We were still newlyweds and we could not afford
a baby yet. We had used a condom but we hadn't used
it correctly. We got better at it but suffice it
to say, we had a problem. |
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| It was several weeks before
Jack, my husband, found a doctor through someone
who knew someone who knew someone at the State University
we'd attended. Jack was assured that though this
man obviously operated in secret, he was not what
is referred to today as a back alley butcher but
we both worried about whether that was really true.
We were both very scared. |
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| I traveled a long way
by myself, precisely following the instructions
on how I was to get there. I took three different
taxis and then a bus into the rural countryside
to this Doctor's home. My husband wanted to go with
me but the doctor had said just I was allowed to
come so my husband stayed at home and didn't expect
me back home till late in the evening. |
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| When I walked into the
parlor of Dr. Townsend's home, it smelled of spices
not sterile alcohol as one might have thought, and
it felt very homey with a definite country farm
look. |
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| We went into what had
been a bedroom and I was asked to undress and put
on a sterile gown and climb upon the table. The
table was a large homemade dining room table that
had been converted into a medical table with a thin
mattress placed on top and homemade wooden stirrups
nailed onto one end. I was surprised and
comforted by the sterile gown. As I lay upon the
table in that sterile gown, Mrs. Townsend was taking
a last look around to be sure everything was just
the way it should be, I took another deep breath
and suddenly felt like I was safe, in the hands
of a caring doctor and all would be alright.
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| Dr. Townsend entered the
room.as he began to scrape my uterus; a commotion
erupted out in his parlor room. It was the police.
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| In spite of protests and
pleadings by Dr. Townsend to finish my abortion,
they pushed him aside and handcuffed him. They forced
me off the table, bleeding profusely. They allowed
me, in the presence of a policewoman, to get dressed
and put on several pads to soak up the blood. Five
other women were in the house, two that were resting
after their abortions and three who were waiting
to have an abortion performed. We were all taken
away out of the house in handcuffs. Doctor Townsend
and his wife were arrested and their 5 year-old
son was taken into custody by the social services
department. |
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| Outside there were newspaper
photographers; their flashes blinded me as we were
pulled to the cars. I was terrified. I had seen
pictures in the paper of the same thing happening
to other women. I knew I was being treated so horribly
to force me into telling the police anything they
wanted to know. To warn other women who saw the
pictures to reconsider if they were thinking abut
having an abortion. |
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| I hid my face in my coat,
tripping on the stairs and scratching up my knees,
forcing the police to practically carry me, leaving
a trail of blood flowing from between my knees,
but no one got a clear picture of me. No reporter,
no newspaper got a picture of me, I made sure of
that. |
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| I was bleeding bad and
was in pain. I was taken to County Hospital. There
I along with the other two women who had already
had their abortions were told we didn't have to
submit to a gynelogical exam but if we did our husbands,
boyfriends, and parents names wouldn't have to be
released to the press, they wouldn't have to be
publicly embarrassed. I didn't have a choice. Not
just because of the police's threats but because
my abortion needed to be completed before I bled
to death. |
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| Three months later we
were in a courtroom. |
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| When I testified I tried
to look at Dr. Townsend but I couldn't. I felt so
guilty. He'd been good to me. He was a capable abortion
provider and he hadn't hurt me. But I had no choice.
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| I was humiliated and degraded
by a prosecutor trying to make a name for himself,
trying to make examples of me and the other patients
of Dr. Townsend, and it seemed, trying to give the
courtroom and the press an X rated sex show. Neither
my husband nor I were prepared for what happened
in that courtroom that day - what happened to me
- to us - something no woman or family should ever
have to endure nor something any doctor should have
to endure for simply helping women safely terminate
a pregnancy they wanted to terminate. |
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| The district attorney
asked me embarrassing and unnecessary questions.
And representatives of the press taking down every
word because they knew this would sell more of their
newspapers tomorrow than had been sold today.. |
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| I was on the stand for
several hours. . |
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| He asked me to describe
exactly how I undressed in Dr. Townsend's office,
describing every piece of clothing including how
I took off my underwear. I had to describe how I
got upon the table. He asked me how I was positioned
on the table, "Were your legs raised and your knees
spread wide apart?" I choked out an answer. "Louder
for the jury!" he demanded. I looked over at the
judge but his stern face, penetrating eyes, and
his affirmative nod told me there would be no empathy
from him and no mercy, so I repeated my answer louder.
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| He asked me, "When Dr.
Townsend began you said he inserted a rubber tube
into your vagina and up through your cervix into
your uterus - now I don't mean to be unpleasant
about it but I want to know if he inserted his hand
or finger into your vagina to do this?" I said his
fingers. The district attorney approached me. "His
fingers what? What did he do with his fingers?"
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| I wanted to scream, I
wanted to run away, and I nearly vomited all over
myself. I struggled to hold it back. I answered
that he'd put his finger in my private part..."
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| "Somebody may not know
what you mean when you say your privates. What do
you mean when you say your privates. Which of your
privates was it that he injected his fingers and
his instruments into?" |
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| I hesitated; it was so
humiliating, my heart was pounding I felt cold and
flushed - I thought I was going to die. This,
I thought, is what it must feel like to be raped.
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| He yelled at me, "Well
if you can't say, can you point?" And he crossed
the room and unveiled a crude and graphic picture
of the female genitals upon a chalkboard and stood
there waiting for me to cross the room to the chalkboard.
It was the longest few feet I've ever walked. Once
there, he glared at me. "Now |
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| point to which of your
private parts Dr. Townsend inserted his fingers
and his instruments." I pointed to the vagina drawn
on the chalkboard. "Now tell the jury what you pointed
to." No one stood up to object that I was being
badgered or humiliated and degraded. No One. Not
a single soul. |
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| I said "I don't know how
to say it to you." |
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| The judge then spoke.
"Well," he snapped impatiently and loudly, "Was
it between your fingers?" I couldn't stop crying.
"No. Between my legs" I SCREAMED. "Well, what
part of your body did Dr. Townsend insert his fingers,
that is between your legs?" |
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| My dignity was in shreds
now. They weren't going to relent and no one was
going to stand up for me and make them. I lowered
my head, "He inserted his fingers and instruments
into my vagina." I finally said. I went back to
the witness chair, never once looking up.. |
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| My feelings of guilt and
anger grew as the hours dragged on. This, I kept
thinking should never happen to another woman, to
another family. How can this be happening in a country
like ours?.. |
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| Doctor Townsend.went to
jail for several years and then I never knew what
happened to him after that. |
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| He went to jail just because
he was helping women safely terminate a pregnancy
they would have terminated someway, somehow, somewhere
no matter the law and no matter how dangerous it
would have been to their health or life, why couldn't
they understand that? Why? |
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| I've never gotten over
that experience, the unfairness of it, the threats
to publicly humiliate our families and send me to
jail. I've also never forgiven myself for sacrificing
Doctor Townsend for myself. But what else could
I have done? |
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| For my husband and I,
not having a baby at that time in our lives was
the right decision - then and now. We have
no regrets about the abortion - not even one regret.. |
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| Our years of activism
are coming to an end - we have been there - seen
the horror of illegal abortion and tried to make
you understand. We have to pass the baton to you
now, please - take as good care of it as
we have. |
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