Shattering the Abortion Silence

An excerpt from Clara Bingham's new book, The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America

The Movement: How Women’s Liberation Transformed America, 1963-1973 by Clara Bingham

We stand on the brink of a historic moment for women’s rights in the United States. In under 100 days, the country could elect its first female, Black, and Asian President. If elected, Kamala Harris would become the most vocal advocate for reproductive freedom and women's rights to reach the White House. Less than a decade ago, such a possibility may have seemed unimaginable. To grasp the significance of this moment, we must reflect on the past. Clara Bingham’s newly released book, The Movement, offers the first oral history of the decade that shaped women’s rights in the US. Through firsthand stories from the leaders and trailblazers of this movement, you’ll gain insight on how we got to the current moment, while being reminded of the struggles that still remain.

We hope you enjoy this excerpt from the book on the first abortion speak out in the US. Go to your local bookstore or click here to purchase a copy of The Movement today!

xx Tamar and Jill

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Shattering the Abortion Silence

In the five weeks between Valentine’s Day eve and the ides of March in early 1969, three events altered forever the politics of the abortion-rights movement. On February 13, a public meeting of New York’s Rockefeller Commission to Review New York State’s Abortion Laws was disrupted by radical feminist members of Redstockings who objected to the all-male (and one nun) panel of experts.

The next day, February 14, the brand-new National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) held the first-ever abortion rights conference in Chicago. Amid activists strategizing to repeal state antiabortion laws, Betty Friedan made a passionate proclamation that without reproductive rights women cannot have freedom or equality.

Five weeks later, on March 21, the Redstockings radicals shattered decades of silence when they staged the first abortion speak-out.

BARBARA MEHRHOF
Women’s liberation put the whole issue of abortion on the map. The first Redstockings action took place at a hearing about reforming New York State abortion laws. There were fourteen “experts” on the panel and they were all men except for one Catholic nun. They were giving expert testimony to six male members of the New York State legislature about the implications of reforming the abortion law in New York State.

SUSAN BROWNMILLER
On the morning of the February 13 hearing, a dozen infiltrators camouflaged in dresses and stockings entered the hearing room and spaced themselves around the chamber. They called themselves Redstockings.

ELLEN WILLIS
At the hearing, I was nervous. I had deep feminine inhibitions against being nasty and making myself conspicuous. But as the testimony proceeded—a decrepit judge was advocating legal abortion for women who had “done their social duty” by having four children—my adrenaline rose. Then a member of our cadre got up and shouted, “Okay, now let’s hear from the real experts!” When she finished talking, I started, and I had never felt less inhibited in my life. In another minute, most of the women in the room were angrily demanding to testify. “Won’t you act like ladies?” a legislator pleaded, but no one was listening.