The possibility that America might return to those repressive days has been rising like a whiff of nightmare, the stench growing stronger and stronger.
How far are we now from all that? Vice President Mike Pence, a man who has already shown his eagerness to restrict abortion provisions, is one impeachment away from the presidency. Paley writes, “Your life, a woman’s life, was simply not the first thing that hospital had on its mind at all.” Eventually the cause of the friend’s bleeding was discovered: not a pregnancy, but a tumor in her womb. When a friend arrived at the emergency room of a Catholic hospital, she was told she couldn’t be treated until a test confirmed she wasn’t pregnant the test would take two days. When Paley herself was experiencing a miscarriage, the doctor she telephoned begged her: “No! Don’t come,” lest he be suspected of having induced a termination. No woman over 10 or under 60 could expect to receive good health care, especially if she arrived at an emergency room with menstrual problems or uterine hemorrhage. Her essay “The Illegal Days” is precise and vivid on the way that criminalizing abortion affected the life of every woman, young or old, pregnant or not, sexually active or celibate.
Grace Paley’s collection of nonfiction writings “Just as I Thought” contains a brief memoir of what it was like to live in the United States back when abortions were illegal.
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