‘It was a nightmare’: life in the US before legal abortion

Saturday marks the 49th anniversary of the supreme court's Roe v Wade decision, the landmark ruling that guaranteed the right to an abortion in the US. It could be the last anniversary before it is overturned.

During oral arguments for Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization last year, a majority of the court appeared ready to severely weaken or overturn Roe v Wade, allowing dozens of Republican-led states to acutely restrict access, or ban abortion entirely. A decision is expected this summer.

Such a reversal would be historic. Many Democratic-led states are now likely to pass laws cementing abortion protections, creating oases of access to the procedure in safe, legal settings. But options would still be far more limited.

The 19th spoke with people across the country about their memories of life before the landmark decision, as well as how things have changed in the years since.

The illegal abortion was in 1966. I had just turned 20. It was the first guy I slept with, and I did not know shit about birth control or any other thing. I was living at home with deeply conservative parents who I simply could not tell. I had a very good friend who was at Goucher College, in Townsend, Maryland. It was a girls' school and they had a network, a pipeline to a gynecologist in Baltimore.

So I got myself to Baltimore. [The gynecologist] was a lovely lady. She gave me a little tiny folded piece of paper with a phone number on it.

I call the number and some guy answers, and the arrangements are made - it's supposed to be $600 in cash. We agree on a date and a pickup point, which was on Utah Street in downtown Baltimore, in front of a movie theater. We pick the date and the time. And then I have to find $600. I mean, that was a lot of money in 1966.