The “back-alley” is a dingy, treacherous, terrifying. The back-alley is a dimly lit street, tucked away from greater view, deemed shameful enough to be hidden. It is a physical space inhabited by all things seedy, illegal, or even monstrous. The back-alley is also the metaphorical space people are forced to inhabit when they are turned away from the public sphere. The back-alley isn’t just one, two, or a billion places found in an urban landscape but – rather – the threat of dying a suffering, shameful death.The “Back-Alley” is the reality of a disempowered woman, pushed once again out of liberty and into desperation.
Back-alley abortions greatly varied in safety and success. There is very little documentation on the practice, due to its illicit nature. All that can be sure of is that the procedures do not always look like screaming, bleeding, maimed flesh on a dirty kitchen table. To liken all means of self-induced abortion to the grotesque imagery of “back-alley butchers” is to deny the delicate care shown by and for women in these circumstances. Women have always found their own means of care, hygiene, and self-medication when the medicinemen fall short. The knowledge of which roots to pick, what to eat and when, this expertise passed from woman to woman. This knowledge is omitted from traditional (see: patriarchal) medical discipine and is therefore expelled to the fringes. Abortifacients have their forms ranging from flowering herbs to low-doses of poison. The back-alley butcher can vary from a well-intentioned licensed practitioner to an untrained hand reaching for the wallet of women at their most vulnerable.
The cruelest, ever-present threat of a back-alley abortion, is that of a lonely death. A woman can walk in and out of the back-alley, pills in her pocketbook, and bleed out slowly in the back-alley of her own bathroom floor. The terror of the back-alley is not relegated to the dismal matrix of fire escapes and potholed streets. The back-alley is the shame, the secret some women carry to their graves. The back-alley is slipping tampons into your pocket hoping no one will notice, the back-alley is deleting your period tracking app out of fear of government surveillance, the back-alley is knowing you are once again pushed out of safe medical spaces into a hard, cold street– made to find your own solutions. The back-alley is the space women’s health comes to occupy when its pushed out, all over again.
A bright spot in the back-alley can be found with the Jane Collective of Chicago. More formally known as the Abortion Counseling Services of Chicago, the collective was formed with the intention of giving chicagoan women affordable and safe access to abortion. Callers were told to ask for “Jane,” and were referred to those able to provide her with the procedure she needed. The system became increasingly intricate and sophisticated, all members of the collective operating under the code name of “Jane” – the everywoman. The Jane Collective changed countless women’s lives, especially those most socioeconomically vulnerable.
However, the threat of the back-alley persists. Ask any woman of a certain age, and she will have a story. This may be the one instance in which anecdotal evidence is the truest depiction of the horrors and realities of human desperation. Anecdotes of patients “who had gotten a catheter into her cervix and poured turpentine through it, literally cooking the inside of her uterus” or putting dissolving tablets “in their vaginas to induce bleeding.. that could easily eat through the vaginal lining, causing hemorrhage and destroying the cervix.” Even if these women escaped death, their physical and mental health is forever changed, and scarred. These stories speak to the utter desperation felt by those seeking to end their pregnancy.
Ultimately, the back-alley represents much more than just a place. The back-alley represents society’s condemnation of women and their reproductive autonomy. The repeal of Roe is unquestionably a regression, pushing women back into the alley and away from the light of legality. When there is no help for women in the daytime, they will find solutions in those dark alleys. This will lead to thousands of women’s unnecessary and preventable deaths. Abortions will never stop, but sooner or later, women will refuse to occupy the back-alley any longer.
References
Colburn, M. (n.d.). Chicago’s Forgotten Pro-Choice Warriors. Chicago Magazine. Retrieved April 21, 2023, from https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/April-2019/Chicagos-Forgotten-Pro-Choice-Warriors-the-Janes/
Edwards, S. (2014, November 18). The history of abortifacients. Jezebel. Retrieved April 21, 2023, from https://jezebel.com/the-history-of-abortifacients-1658993381
Gordon, F. (2022, July 31). Mid-1960s: ‘back-alley butchers,’ underground network provide illegal, often unsafe, abortions to the desperate. Winona Daily News. Retrieved April 21, 2023, from https://www.winonadailynews.com/news/mid-1960s-back-alley-butchers-underground-network-provide-illegal-often-unsafe-abortions-to-the-desperate/image_29543ff3-4368-545e-9d26-979a8f472c9d.html
Khazan, O. (2018, October 11). When abortion is illegal, women rarely die. but they still suffer. The Atlantic. Retrieved April 21, 2023, from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/how-many-women-die-illegal-abortions/572638/
Koerth, M. (2022, June 2). What the history of back-alley abortions can teach us about a future without Roe. FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved April 21, 2023, from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-history-of-back-alley-abortions-can-teach-us-about-a-future-without-roe/
Warren, S. E. (2018, January 21). Senator Elizabeth Warren on Roe v. Wade’s 45th Anniversary. Time. Retrieved April 21, 2023, from https://time.com/5110722/elizabeth-warren-roe-v-wade-abortions/