Judy: In light of the leaked
supreme court opinion that would
reverse the landmark supreme
court case roe versus wade, the
country faces the prospect of a
future where abortion will no
longer be legal nationwide.
Amna nawaz is back with a report
based on her talking with women
who remember what life was like
before roe.
Reporter: It was just not -- >>
It was just not something that
any woman should have to go
through.
It's just as simple as that.
Reporter: Decades ago,
now-81-year-old Roberta Brandes
Gratz was a reporter in New York
City, in her 20's, when she had
an unplanned pregnancy.
She traveled to a clinic in
Puerto Rico for what was then an
illegal procedure in New York
state and across much of America
-- an abortion.
Roberta: It was the kind of
hospital where women gave birth
as well as had abortions. So you
heard babies crying and you saw
women who were there for the
same reason you were.
I had an anesthetic and it did
not totally take.
So it was partially painful.
It was humiliating because I
knew I was doing something
illegal.
Reporter: Before the 1973
supreme court decision, roe V.
Wade, abortions were prohibited
in 33 states and only allowed in
special circumstances in 13
others.
But women in those states still
had abortions.
Some, through unsafe so-called
back-alley procedures. Others,
tried to induce abortions
themselves.
>> We had almost no options, you
would either put yourself at
risk by self inflicting an
abortion using knitting needles,
crochet needles, anything that
can stop.
Take big black pills.
There was no other option that I
knew anything about.
Reporter: Byllye Avery is a
health care activist.
She's been working on
reproductive rights issues since
1971.
At the time, women would also
travel to terminate their
pregnancies abroad or to new
York, where abortions were
legalized in 1970.
But Avery says that kind of
travel just wasn't possible for
many women she counseled in
Florida, where the procedure was
illegal in most cases.
Byllye: A black woman came and
we started giving her this
information.
She said,
"I don't have any money to go to
New York.
I don't know anybody there." And
about a month or two later, she
died from a self-induced
abortion.
So that really opened my eyes
that even if we had access to
abortion, if women didn't have
the means by which to pay for
it, they still didn't really
have access.
Reporter: Throughout the 1950s
and 1960s, an estimated 200,000
to 1.2 million illegal abortions
were performed a year in the
United States.
Hundreds of women died every
year from botched procedures. In
the early 1960s, in New York
City alone, abortion counted
for half of all
childbirth-related deaths among
nonwhite and Puerto rican women.
Heather: Before roe, there were
septic abortion wards in
hospitals of women who had tried
to either induce their own
abortion or went to someone who
wasn't reliable, wasn't
trustworthy, and had done damage
to them.
Reporter: As a graduate student
in 1965, Heather booth
co-founded an underground
abortion service in Chicago
using a code name.
>> I said, we can use my phone
but change it so they don't ask
, for Eleanor.
How about Jane?
Nobody is called Jane anymore.
>> We had phone numbers on
bulletin boards across Chicago.
Pregnant?
Called Jane.
Reporter: A new film, "The
Janes" airing on HBO and HBO
max, tells the story of those
women - who called themselves
the service.
Between 1969 and 1973, using a
network of secret communications
and safe houses to protect each
other and the women seeking
help, the Janes performed
thousands of safe and affordable
abortions.
>> Women would launch into these
stories, "I have three children,
I have no more money, my husband
is leaving, or my husband is
sick, or I don't have a husband,
I'm 17 I want to go to college,
I've got this scholarship and if
I don't do this now."
They were really cogent and
important reasons, but we would
really try to make clear to
them they didn't have to justify
themselves.
>> It was but the question of
creating the community, ensuring
the cost was feasible, providing
the care at all, and that it was
accessible to anyone who wanted
it.
Reporter: In 1972 the Chicago
police department arrested seven
members of the service and
charged them with eleven counts
of abortion and conspiracy to
commit abortion.
One of the "Janes" Judith arcana
remembers that day.
>> They took me out to the
parking lot where they cuffed
me, and then they took me into
this van, you know, an ordinary
police van, metal cold.
I was nervous.
I was physically uncomfortable,
literally shuddering from the
cold.
Reporter: Arcana was the first
of the Janes to be let out on
bail because she had recently
had a child, and was still
nursing.
What do you remember about going
home to your baby after that?
>> I went and stood, maybe I
have to cry.
I went and stood next to his
crib and he woke up.
So I picked him up and nursed
him, and while I was nursing
him, I could feel the tension,
which I had not even been
conscious of, just streaming out
of my body, mostly down my arms
and legs.
Reporter: A few months after
their arrest, the supreme court
legalized abortion nationwide.
The charges against the Janes
were dropped.
Nearly 50 years on, the leaked
draft opinion that would reverse
roe worries many activists who
lived in an America before the
landmark case.
>> Women's lives will be
thwarted.
They will be lessened.
They'll be diminished because
their freedoms are diminished.
It means if you're raped, if
you're a victim of incest, in
many states, you won't have an
option to have another direction
in your life.
Reporter: When you heard about
the leaked supreme court draft
earlier this year, and it looks
as if roe could be overturned,
what did you think?
Byllye: I was devastated.
I think it's going to be worse
for worse for a lot of women.
It's going to be worse for women
who live on lower incomes.
Reporter: Nevertheless, Avery
believes like in the days before
roe, women will find a way
around restrictions.
Byllye: This might seem like a
step backward, but I think it's
going to have a different kind
of effect.
This is an unjust law and these
young women are not going to
take a backseat to anybody.
They were going to do it.
I have faith in them.
Because their lives depend on
it.
Reporter: Back in New York,
Gratz says getting her own
illegal abortion motivated her
to report on other women's
abortion stories.
And just months after the 1973
roe V. Wade decision, she wrote
a groundbreaking piece in Ms
magazine - illustrated with a
gruesome photo of a woman who
died years earlier from a
botched illegal abortion.
The headline was "Never again."
Roberta it was entitled "Never
: Again," because ironically, we
thought never again would women
have to go through what Gerri
Santoro did, who is pictured in
the photograph that accompanied
the article, dead on a motel
room floor.
We thought never again. Whoever
thought that the whole thing
could be turned around?
Reporter: The future of abortion
access in America now rests with
the supreme court, and a
decision that's expected in the
coming days.
For the pbs newshour, I'm amna