On the Supreme Court and abortion
Phillips, Maxine
In the early 1970s, when I worked for a child welfare agency, a Catholic colleague told me that she became prochoice the day she was called to find foster homes for five children whose mother had...
...The political mobilization to elect prochoice legislators has intensified...
...Or take a chance and send us your article...
...This assault on women is one with the assaults on minorities, the poor, and recent immigrants led by the government and carried out by this court with a vengeance...
...I came of political age when such stories were common, and they fueled our efforts to make abortion safe and legal...
...In those days I heard the stories of desperate women who borrowed from friends to go to other countries or other states...
...Their rights were abrogated years ago...
...5) We're usually quick in giving editorial decisions...
...Thus, poor women and young women, those most at risk in their pregnancies, have had to find money not only for an abortion but for travel and lodging...
...they're the author's responsibility...
...No dot matrix submissions, please...
...3) Type your ms double-spaced, with wide margins...
...I've never been to a demonstration in my life," she said...
...But I'm going to this one...
...THE EDITORS 424 • DISSENT...
...6) Please bear with us—we have accumulated quite a backlog of material, and you may have to wait for a few issues before you see your article in print...
...But since 1980, poor women in most states have been unable to receive Medicaid-funded abortions...
...In this mobilization we have an opportunity to build alliances across class lines, to campaign for real choices, not just in childbearing but in childrearing, as the battles for health care, day care, and education unfold...
...And please remember that we can't return articles unless they're accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...As we're not an academic journal, we prefer that they, wherever possible, be dropped altogether or worked into the text...
...The right of women to decide whether they will be forced to bear children can no longer be taken for granted...
...If there's a delay, it's because a few editors are reading your article...
...For too many of our sisters, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services won't even make a difference...
...q To Our Contributors: A few suggestions: (1) Be sure to keep a copy of your ms—the mails aren't always reliable...
...2) Please don't write to ask whether we're interested in such and such an article—it makes for useless correspondence...
...A young neighbor handed me a leaflet for a prochoice rally...
...Look at our last few issues to see if your idea fits in...
...The recent Supreme Court decision, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, which allows states to further restrict access to legal abortion, is part of the relentless erosion that began soon after the 1973 decision that established abortion as a constitutional right...
...They lived to tell the stories...
...Cases that the court will consider in its next term could put safe abortions beyond the reach of most women...
...Some 82 percent of the counties in the United States lack abortion services...
...4) Notes and footnotes should also be typed double-spaced, on a separate sheet...
...Check all your figures, dates, names, etc...
...And the government's and medical establishment's refusal to aid these women has not been matched by any generosity toward their children...
...It is time again to tell the stories...
...Now the middle-class inhabitants of urban areas are threatened...
...Many of them ask where we were when that happened...
...Money has always been a deciding factor...
...Now, a generation of women has grown up without the stories, taking for granted what once meant so much suffering...
...One case will look at whether states can mandate expensive licensing requirements for freestanding clinics, where most early abortions are performed, thus driving up the price of a simple procedure...
...In the early 1970s, when I worked for a child welfare agency, a Catholic colleague told me that she became prochoice the day she was called to find foster homes for five children whose mother had just died from a botched, illegal abortion...
Vol. 36 • September 1989 • No. 4
