You’re on Your Own Kid: DIY Abortions

Hello, welcome to You’re on Your Own Kid: DIY Abortions – a podcast about women taking matters into their own hands. I am your host, Ella Baker-Dekater. Today, we will be talking about abortion from the 1960s to today in 2024. We will be focusing on three aspects: pre, during, and post Roe. v Wade and the challenges women faced obtaining abortions around those times.  Now, get yourself comfy and enjoy. 

Before the Supreme Court issued its decision on the case Roe v. Wade in early 1973, abortion was illegal in most of the United States. This meant that many women didn’t have access to abortion and would have to find a doctor to provide one secretly. And if they couldn’t find a doctor, they would do it by themselves. A lot of the time the abortions were unsafe, leading to severe complications. Or, the doctors who would do them would want certain “favors” in return. It was a terrible situation, but what else could women do? They had to be resourceful. 

This all changed in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago in the 1960s when civil rights activist Heather Booth helped a friend obtain an abortion. After that, she kept getting more and more requests to do the same for others. Eventually, she decided to create the Jane Collective in 1969. The Jane Collective, also known as Jane, originally started as a referral service but once Jane found out one of the doctors was faking his medical credentials, some members learned how to perform abortions themselves, thus changing the game and offering women a safe way. If a woman wanted an abortion, they would call Jane. 

To research for this podcast, I looked through the Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History at Smith College. There, I found this series of pamphlets called (quote) “The most remarkable abortion story ever told”¹ (unquote). These pamphlets, written by the collective themselves, were issued in the local newspaper after Roe v. Wade with the mission to tell the story of the Jane Collective. (quote) “We worked with, not on, the pregnant women that came through our service.” (unquote) That is what Jane said in the first edition of the newspaper. This shows how the Janes cared for their patients. The group even says their foundation was rooted in women’s liberation. They believe that all women are equal and their peers. Jane’s outlook on abortion allowed women to take control of their bodies. It gave women the power to choose to have an abortion, allowing them to be doing the abortions to themselves, in a sense, instead of being done to them. 

The Jane Collective closed down their services in 1973 since abortion was now legal due to Roe v. Wade. Criminal charges against some of the members, who were caught during a raid, were dropped. It seemed like Jane did their part, which they did.  But, even though abortion was legal, the story of fighting for abortion rights throughout the country wasn’t over.

In 1992, there was a pamphlet called (quote) “Do It Yourself Abortion”² (unquote) that was passed around at a march on Washington organized by NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood. This pamphlet talks about how in 1992, even with abortion being legal, women still don’t feel empowered to protect their right to choose and abortion is still seen as a taboo. The pamphlet starts by talking about the Jane Collective and how them giving a voice to women was incredibly important and helped set women free. Then the pamphlet goes into talking about what’s going on in the time it was written, 1992. It talks about how abortion rights are threatened and that people need to do something about it. The message is that women need to do what Jane does and take abortions back into their own hands. This is evident when the pamphlet says (quote) “Letting go of the belief that we need doctors to perform abortions will set us free” (unquote). So, on the back of this pamphlet, is a detailed guide on how to perform an abortion. It’s giving women the tools they need to take back their power.  

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court knocked down Roe v. Wade in a case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case, which originated from Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban, leaves it up to states to decide whether abortions are legal or not. This has now led to many states greatly restricting abortions to outright banning them.

One would think that since a large portion of the US bans abortions that the rate for them has gone down, but it is in fact the opposite.  Research has shown that women are still getting abortions. Research has shown that abortions are up over 20% since Dobbs v. Jackson. According to the August, 13, 2024 Ms. Magazine article by Carrie N. Baker³, there was a 21% increase in abortions between April of 2022 and January of 2024. In April of 2022, there were 84,690 abortions while there were 102,350 in January of this year. 

So how are women getting these abortions? Especially the ones in restrictive states. Well, a large component of this rise in abortion is medication abortion or abortion pills. There are two pills that are known to cause an abortion: mifepristone and misoprostol. According to another article of Ms. Magazine from Carrie N. Baker, two-thirds of all abortions obtained through the formal medical system are done by medication. But there are many restrictions, making it hard to obtain these pills. A large way women obtain these pills are through telehealth, which makes up one-fifth of all abortions. There are many services that provide telehealth abortions to patients in states where abortion is banned or restricted. 

First, I want to explain how these abortion pills even work. Mifepristone is the first pill a woman would take when trying to end her pregnancy. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which is needed for a pregnancy. Then within 48 hours of taking mifepristone, the woman should take misoprostol. Misoprostol causes cramping and heavy bleeding, emptying the uterus. It creates a process that is similar to an early-miscarriage or extremely heavy period. A woman could take misoprostol alone, but it is recommended to take both abortion pills.  These pills can be used up until 11 weeks of pregnancy. 

As I said before, there are many services that provide telehealth abortion. In a July 19, 2024 edition of Ms. Magazine,⁴ Baker said (quote) “Eight states have passed laws allowing clinicians to provide telehealth abortion care to out-of-state patients and shielding them from criminal and civil liability in anti-abortion states.” (unquote). This means a clinician can provide telehealth abortion to a patient in a red state without fear of being prosecuted. Some states that have provider shield laws are California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. 

There are multiple practices that provide telehealth abortion. For this podcast, I decided to focus on a more local one called the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project-or The MAP for short. 

To start the process of obtaining the medication, a patient completes the intake form to request pills. All of the information that is shared is confidential. After that form is reviewed, the patient will be sent an email with links to medical history and consent forms that need to be signed. After that, and within 24 hours, the forms will be reviewed by a licensed clinician. Then after that, if eligible for the pills, an email will be sent with instructions for payment. In other scenarios, it is asked for further information or that the patient obtains an ultrasound. Once payment is received, the medication is shipped with instructions. When the patient receives the package, they can now take the pills. 

The MAP’s service doesn’t just end there because they follow-up after the pills are received in the mail. One to two weeks after taking the medication, a questionnaire will be sent out and then another will be sent out five to six weeks after the initial dose.  As for payment, the minimum is $5 but after that it’s a pay-as-much-as-you-can-afford-to-pay model. But, if you’re requesting the pills for future use, it costs $250. 

Isn’t it all so easy? That’s how obtaining necessary medical care should be. There shouldn’t be all of these unnecessary hoops that a woman has to jump so she can obtain what should be a right. 

But sadly, that is not the reality in which we live. There are all of these challenges that prevent women from getting abortions. Those challenges are going to get worse now that Donald Trump was just reelected to office, the president who is responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  And to make matters more dire, all of Congress is controlled by republicans. There is this thing called Project 2025, which is an initiative made by conservatives in the hopes of what Trump’s second term will look like. Under Project 2025, access to medication abortion is threatened. Abortion laws are going to get even stricter, especially in cases of emergency. 

“Once a right is taken away is it almost impossible to win it back.” (unquote) That is a sentence in the Do It Yourself Abortion pamphlet. But we will get the right to an abortion back. With all of these current challenges, we as women and people need to continue to do what we’ve done for years: take matters into our own hands. That is what the Janes did back in the 1960s. That is what that pamphlet was aiming to do in 1992. That is what we’re doing now with organizations like The MAP. And that is what we’ll continue to do even with all of the challenges that we’re going to face in the upcoming years. We will do it ourselves like we’ve done for a long time.  Because while we may be on our own, we’re really not. 

Baker, Carrie N. “Abortions up over 20 Percent since Dobbs, Driven by Telehealth.” Ms. Magazine, August 13, 2024. https://msmagazine.com/2024/08/13/abortion-pills-increase-mifepristone-telehealth/

Baker, Carrie N. “Massachusetts Abortion Provider Serves Patients Living in States Banning Abortion.” Ms. Magazine, July 29, 2024. https://msmagazine.com/2024/07/29/massachusetts-medication-abortion-provider-angel-foster/.

Bernstein, Anna, Amy Friedrich-Karnik, and Samira Damavandi. “How Project 2025 Seeks to Obliterate Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.” Guttmacher Institute, September 24, 2024. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/how-project-2025-seeks-obliterate-srhr.

CRHC. “The MAP | CRHC,” 2024. https://www.cambridgereproductivehealthconsultants.org/map. 

Do It Yourself Abortion, 1992,  SSC-MS-00434, Box 24, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, Smith College  https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/482975.

Hey Jane. “The History and Impact of the Jane Collective | Hey Jane.” www.heyjane.com, n.d. https://www.heyjane.com/articles/jane-collective-abortion-history.

Northup, Nancy. “Supreme Court Case: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.” Center for Reproductive Rights. Center for Reproductive Rights, March 19, 2018. https://reproductiverights.org/case/scotus-mississippi-abortion-ban/.

Planned Parenthood. “The Abortion Pill.” Plannedparenthood.org, 2019. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/the-abortion-pill.

“The Most Remarkable Abortion Story Ever Told” articles from the Voice, 1973,  SSC-MS-00820, Box SSC Shared 30, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, Smith College https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/454107.