Oops, zine != book.

I finally read the zine this summer. Interesting stuff. Starting to worry that I might need to revisit it for practical tips in the coming years. (yikes)

See also: pamphlet of documents

http://www.eberhardtpress.org/catalog/jane.php

This was such an eye-opener for me – a whole chapter of the pre-Roe v. Wade fight for women to control their own bodies that I had no idea even happened. I spent the whole read text-screaming random bits of it to my friends, my mind was so blown. More people should talk about this – about how it happened, why it was necessary, and why it’s so important to protect the abortion access we have now so we don’t have to go back to this era. Women deciding that begging male doctors and male hospital boards for permission to have an abortion was dangerous and messed up and deciding to do something about it! Realizing the underground market for abortions was just as dangerous and doing something about that! Bullying an abortionist into working on their terms and also into teaching them the procedures! They had a tangential relationship with a network of the clergy who referred women for abortions and used their societal status to lobby for legal abortion access (where did those guys go?)! We can’t even get people to call their reps on a regular basis these days, and these women helped an estimated 11,000 women over the course of the organization’s run. I can’t even imagine directly helping 11,000 people – I definitely shed some tears on the train over the narratives.

Because once you get over the sheer, mind-blowing factor of the work they were doing, you’d have to be heartless not to be affected by the emotional burden they carried. It’s one thing to know statistics on how many women have abortions, some facts about the era, and quite another to read about these women being absolutely buried by women seeking their service. Desperate women, whether they were seeking to protect their health, their relationships, or just their lives in general. Desperate enough to seek the underground abortion market when with a lot of it you ran the risk of butchery or assault. They not only provided safe abortions, they educated women about their own bodies, how birth control worked, and how the abortion was actually going to work. They made sure the women left feeling like they had actively made an important choice about their future and were a part of the whole process, rather than leaving feeling condescended to and patronized like in the medical system of the time. And they did this all while working underground and virtually unsupported by anyone else. It just really drives it home that women come to a need to control their own bodies from many angles, and it was really important for me that this book took the time to detail the backgrounds of the women involved so you could see that reproductive rights effect every woman, regardless of age, marital status, or race, and yet all of those factors need to be addressed when providing care to women. It was important to me that the members of Jane from the start made their service available to women of color, took steps to make sure it was accessible to them, knew that the optics of a group of white women providing abortions to black women could look bad, attempted to address it, and continued to put the needs of the individual women who came to them first. It was important to me that the focus in Jane was always on how to best serve the women who came to them for help. It was important to me that it was about the work that needed done, and not just the ideals and politics involved.

I could go on about this book for ages, and probably will if anyone ever gets me started on it. I definitely recommend it – it’s got a really compelling style and it just keeps throwing emotional hooks and mind-boggling events at you. It really hit me that this so easily could have been me, had I been born in another time – either as one of the counselors who got involved in the organization (one of them graduated from IU before getting involved) or as a woman who needed that service. It makes me so grateful who put in the work and pushed for the awareness and movement so that I don’t have to live under these circumstances. I want to buy 300 copies of this book and start chucking it at people’s heads while screaming “Banning abortion does not end abortion!” We can’t go back. We won’t go back. ( )

This is just a great, great piece of feminist history. It's more than just a straightforward history of Jane, the Chicago abortion service, from its development as a referral line to women training themselves to do the abortions. It sets Jane squarely within its women's liberation context--Jane was about empowerment and the right to control one's own body and hence her future. Without the ability to control her body, a woman cannot ultimately be free.

Kaplan, who was herself involved with Jane, doesn't shy away from the complexities--Jane's place within the feminist scene in Chicago, or its evolving relationship with the women it assisted. As abortion became more accessible in the early 1970s for those who had the money to travel to New York, Jane's service became increasingly utilized by poor women of color, while its members remained primarily middle class white women. It also suffered from organizational and power issues--while ostensibly non-hierarchical, it was in practice controlled by an inner clique.

The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision became the end of Jane, but also changed the relationship again between women and healthcare providers. Jane's members wanted independence and self determination. Roe returned control of abortion as a practice to the medical establishment. While this ultimately has had advantages for women who can be assured of minimum training and competency, it took away the equality that Jane had sought.

It's a powerful read and reminds us all of why abortion and reproductive rights remain so crucial to feminism. The women who sought abortions from Jane knew exactly what that decision meant for them and why it was necessary. Women today still do. ( )

Wow! This was such a great read. It really got into the nuts and bolts about how the group operated and transformed. It was especially great for me, as someone born after the passage Roe V. Wade, to really be thrown into those years leading up to the ruling (and loved all the "rap sessions," "consciousness raising," and "scenes"...so 60s/70s!). I'm also reading this as a practical guide to possibilities for the near future. ( )

An exciting and informative read from start to finish, Jane is the story of an underground feminist abortion referral service which moved to providing abortions themselves four years before Roe v Wade. The book is based on interviews with many people who participated in the group, all woven into an engaging story. The way the book was written made me invested in the people and what they were doing - from running from a police raid to the excitement and tension of moving from a referral to an abortion provision service to the stress, frustration and will to survive coming out of their encounters with the state.

On top of the story itself, I found some of the most thought-provoking parts of the book to be when the author examines instances of group dynamics and practice in an intentionally non-hierarchical setting. Much like groups that I've been involved with, the group featured in the book experiences issues with informal leadership, skill sharing, burnout, and racial inclusion/exclusion. I found it fascinating to hear how these dynamics played out and changed over time and with the different circumstances encountered by the group. ( )