In a bonus edition of Off-Ramp, hear a profile of abortion rights pioneer Carol Downer, 89, who taught women how to do their own very early term home abortions, and who says today's news is 'a kick in the gut.'
"The women at UCLA," she remembers,"were having a protest because there was no birth control services on the campus, and I, right in this very living room we’re sitting in, watched it on TV and said, 'Well, what are they expecting, something for nothing?'”
"I was in a typing pool, and I had joined in in action with the black women because they were being discriminated against, so we were close friends, and I asked them, and they referred me to an abortionist on Central Avenue in Downtown L.A. In a D and C, the cervix is dilated, and metal curettes are used to scrape out the uterus. Downer’s D and C was performed without anesthetic and was extremely painful, but she counts herself as one of the lucky ones:
Dr. Brian T. Nguyen at USC’s Keck School says menstrual extraction is not safe enough by today’s standards. He says there could be bleeding and infection, so it’s a job for trained professionals in a clinical setting. Nguyen admits he hasn’t seen cases of complications from menstrual extraction, but because it’s a secretive procedure, complications may go unreported. Nguyen says it’s still being practiced abroad, and Downer says it’s still happening here in the U.S.
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