What It Was Like to Work at Jane, Chicago’s 1970s-era Underground Abortion Network

By Allison Yates

January 22 marks the anniversary of Roe V. Wade, the now-overturned monumental 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in the United States. Before 1973, women across the U.S. were still having abortions—and facing unsafe conditions, intimidation, and harassment in the process. Groups in places like Boston, Los Angeles, and Bloomington, Indiana were doing reproductive rights work, educating women and providing resources where our healthcare system failed. In Chicago, a group of women—some activists, many average Chicagoans with family, children, and responsibilities—came together around the idea that women deserved access to reproductive healthcare, and the right to make decisions about their own bodies. They started a referral service they called “Jane,” and later began performing abortions. In 1972,

After our Running Tour of Jane in September 2024, guide Kaylee Tock moderated a panel discussion with two former Janes, Dorie Barron and Benita Greenfield, and Scout Bratt of the Chicago Women’s Health Center, which formed from an iteration of Jane. Watch the video below to hear about their experience working for the “service,” the legacy Jane left, and what we can do today to continue ensuring equitable access to healthcare.

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Transcript

[ 00:00:48 ]I am Kaylee. I think I have. I don't know. Is this working? Oh, you have low. I mean, I don't know. Oh, no, I need this. Yeah. Whole thing. Yeah. Okay. Well, I would love to know. But you all know Kaylee. Do you all know Kaylee? No, I do not. Hi, I'm Kaylee. My name tag fell off because it was sweaty. Yeah, it happens. I normally don't get name tags until the end, but I was like, you know what, let's try it. All right. Yeah, prove that sometimes doesn't work. Not always. Great. Well, Kaylee will be leading our panel. Okay, so you already know me. Immediately to my left, we have Benita Greenfield. She is a former Jane, retired attorney who worked in legal publishing rather than in practice.

[ 00:02:03 ]She now volunteers at a local animal shelter. She was with the abortion counseling service called Jane from the time she moved to Chicago from San Francisco in 1969. As a member of the group, she counseled women who wanted an abortion, worked at fronts and places, and worked as the person returning the calls and scheduling visits, aka callback Jane, if you read the nonfiction. We refer to the positions as Big Jane and Little Jane. Big Jane and Little Jane. And I did both of those jobs at various times. Well, thank you. She frequently drove women back and forth to and from both places. All right.

[ 00:02:54 ]Okay, in the center we have Scout Brecht. Scout They Them is the Outreach and Education Director at Chicago Women's Health Center and provides queer-inclusive, gender-expansive, comprehensive sexual health education in Chicago public schools, community-based organizations, and area universities. As part of a feminist health center, CWHC's sexual health programming is rooted in frameworks of reproductive justice and harm reduction, and works with 4th through 12th graders, college-age students, adult allies, and adult community members. Scout focuses on popular education as key to building healthy engaged communities and enjoys dancing, dancing, dancing in their free time. All right, and then far left, we have Dory, is it Baron? Yes. Okay, Dory Barron. Dory she/ her has been a political animal for 50 years. I love that term.

[ 00:03:55 ]She is a retired Cook County Department of Public Health senior health educator and materials designer for 22 years. She misses that terribly. She also owned her own public relations firm, volunteered with Jane for several years, including referrals for abortion counseling, adoption choices, medical monitoring of pregnancies, and performing pregnancy tests to local residents. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you all for making the time to be here. Thank you. Right? Super exciting. Okay. So what was that? It's our pleasure. It's your pleasure. Well, thank you. It's probably more my pleasure because I feel like you guys are celebrities. You are. You're local celebrities, right? I keep forgetting. Okay. I want to know for both of the Janes how did you first find out about Jane?

[ 00:04:59 ]You want to go first, um, sure, um, let me have it. I think that's better, um. It says when I came back from California, but it's when I came back; I had I lived in California for a few years but not for very long. This is has always basically been my home even if I don't want to know when I came back that from that life. Jane was already in existence, and my sister Ruth was one of the main founders of the Abortion Counseling Service. And we did not refer to ourselves as Jane. Jane was the name of the person who answered the phone and the name of whoever happened to call back. But we were the Abortion Counseling Service of the Chicago Women's Union.

[ 00:05:53 ]But my sister was working with it, doing all the stuff and being a primary person there. And I figured, hey, you know, this is important stuff. I would do it too, you know. And so I got involved doing all the things, all the parts of counseling of the service that we did. When the bust happened, I had been, when I was not in, I wasn't busted, but at that point I had been starting to learn how to do the procedure myself. But when we got busted, things changed really a lot. We didn't stop, but we didn't do much training. And so I was involved with it that way. We had lots of meetings. You know, we'd meet, I don't know, probably weekly, maybe. I don't even remember. We thought of ourselves as a group.

[ 00:06:44 ]Ran by consensus but of course we have leaders and so when we do say this is the right thing to do the consensus is the same it was a an incredibly important part of my life and the people who almost all the people I'm closest to, even though I don't live in the same area, they're the people who I am still closest to and we're talking 50 years later; they are They are very important in my life, and they always will be, as you people all are, because you're supporting what we tried to do and then got undone a couple years ago. I'm going to give it to you, Dori. Sure. Okay, good morning. How I came to Jane was not very pleasant because I had gone to them for an abortion.

[ 00:07:37 ]Have any of you seen the film? Oh, you've seen it. All right. Well, I'm in the beginning that went to when I found out I was pregnant the first time. Unfortunately, I had two pregnancies that I ended in an abortion. So the first one was done, as you can see in the movie, was done by the mob. It was a nightmare, but I didn't know any better. I had a small child and a disabled mother at home. So having another baby, you know, this is interesting. I when people say, 'How do you feel about abortion?' I think there's merit on both sides because I used to think I was very much against it, that's the way I was raised. But there's merit on both sides, which is why it's so controversial anyway.

[ 00:08:21 ]So, the next time when I found myself pregnant and then I had heard about Jane-Jane was with a Chicago newspaper called The Chicago Reader, I think you all know The Reader; Jane always was in there with a phone number. And the cops always knew about them. A lot of people didn't know. The cops knew. They were pretty well protected. Yes. And so people just stayed to mind their own business. Anyway, so when I had the abortion, because of my experience as a youngster with women, which was not pleasant, I didn't know that women could care that much. I didn't know the word sisterhood. When I got that abortion, I was in shock from the kindness. The concern, the information, the follow-up, the organization, I was blown away.

[ 00:09:13 ]It changed my thinking about myself, the world, and women. So I called them after and said, can I do something? And that's when they told me that they were bombarded with phone calls. And they needed some kind of something, like a phone bank, because people were calling them and they were trying to make plans to help women. So I got a hold of a couple of women that I knew were, you know, same-minded. And we went; we was in Hyde Park. And we went around to the churches and asked who can donate a room. It was a charity organization for women's health. That's as far as we went. And one of the churches, you know, a lot of churches, they'll give you a room if you, you know, if you need it.

[ 00:09:55 ]They're very community-minded. So we had a room once a week during the summer, from 9 to 12, and we did pregnancy testing. So all the women that called, our people answered the phone when they referred them to us to come get a pregnancy test, find out what their options were. It was certainly not just abortion; it was adoption counseling. If you wanted to keep your child, let you know that there were all sorts of wonderful agencies out there to support you. So we wanted the women to be informed as much as possible. And that was. I'm telling you, it was so rewarding because when I worked at the health department as a health educator, I remembered how horribly, how much women did not know about their bodies. I mean, I was blown away.

[ 00:10:48 ]They believed the stupid remarks. They didn't know what to believe. Their mothers didn't, a lot of them, their mothers didn't talk to them because their mothers didn't know how to say it. You know, no fault there. It just happens. But it was a wonderful experience. I met some of the women. Now, you just gave me a hold on, I'm sorry. I'm holding it in my hand. I just want you to know that you just gave me a wonderful shock. Your sister. Ruth Sergel? My heart. Ruth Sergel was one of the most incredible women I have ever, ever met. Now there's two of the women that you saw in the movie that we have lost and Ruth was one of them. The rest of us are spread all over the country.

[ 00:11:36 ]We have a newsletter that we just keep private to ourselves and we keep in touch. I email her all the time. I never met her. In the documentary, they talk about Dory was interviewed and had all the stuff, and I'm going, 'Dory? Dory?' And it's because you did other things. And how far before the bust were you involved? About two years. I'm sorry. It was about two years. By the way, if you know how the bust happened, the reader did a great coverage of it. And what had happened was a woman went there for abortion. Her sister or her sister-in-law, somebody knew about it. And the more she thought about it, the more she got upset and she called the police.

[ 00:12:28 ]Because all of a sudden she said, 'I can't have her doing this.' So the police show up at the apartment, knock on the door, they let them in. And the first thing that the police say is, 'Where's the doctor?' We heard there was an abortion going on, where's the doctor?' Of course, there was no doctor there at all. Anyway, one of the women got out the back door, but the rest were inside. That was the abortion seven. And then they were prosecuted. And then, of course, New York saved the day because when abortion became legal in New York, the case was dropped and everything was well. But it was a very difficult time. The case was not dropped until Roe v. Wade. Oh, was it? Oh, absolutely not.

[ 00:13:14 ]I didn't know that. In fact, when New York passed the law making abortions legal, abortion counseling service ran into a problem because we had been treating people from all classes. And once we had New York possible, people who had money went to New York and got abortions there. And so the counseling service was working with a much poorer community, which meant that there was no way on earth people could afford. Um, the same amount of money as and we had always been a we would like this but give us what you can and that became a harder kind of thing to do but we had to do it so we did it and they; the reason the um attorney for the for the women um knew that there was a case in front of the Supreme Court And she had, of course, as people who are in the know and those kinds of things, was aware of what was going to happen.

[ 00:14:16 ]And so she kept making all kinds of requests at court to put it off until Roe v. Wade came out. And when the decision came down, the state stopped it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize it was open all that time. But anyway, it seems like a long time ago, but I do have major memories that are very strong. And I learned so much. Let me just tell you about how great Jane was. If any of you have ever had an abortion, not by professional people, you know, there's a big chance of you getting an infection. That's normal. When Jane was finished, they took our phone numbers and they gave us antibiotics. If you think you have an infection, please take it. Call your doctor.

[ 00:15:08 ]I got phone calls at least for once or twice a week as a follow-up. Are you okay? The syndicate wouldn't do that. So I was so impressed, and I learned the word sisterhood, and I learned that women are not my enemies, and women can care about other women. So that was the greatest thing that I got from working with these women. dynamos, all of them. I just want to add and say that people who had enough wealth to go and fly to New York could do so. Same thing today, totally. Which is why abortion funds, practical abortion funds, all of them are so crucial. And then the other piece that you're talking about, which is like, I work at Chicago Women's Health Center, which was born out of Emma Goldman's Women's Health Center, which was born out of the Jane Abortion Network.

[ 00:16:03 ]We still do that today. That's sort of like before, during and after any type of care, there's an intentionality around like, how are you doing? What are your priorities? What are your goals for your health care? This is not just responsive. This is not just like fixing the symptoms. It's actually getting and working with people about how to fit their health care goals into their lives so that after you leave an appointment, someone's going to follow up with you because it. Your health doesn't end when you leave the appointment. Our investment in community care doesn't end at the hour, right? So I think that's what we've learned from Jane, is it being like about being part of community care.

[ 00:16:44 ]I would like not talking about the Emerald Men's and Women's Health Center, which I was part of because that's what happened right after we dissolved. We did self-exams so that we were telling women how to observe their own bodies by, you know, giving them, you know, we'd use mirrors as well as speculums that we'd use plastic ones. It was really not comfortable. I expect all of you women know that. I expect you guys don't. But it was. It was really fascinating to watch us change, to see what women were able to do for themselves, to keep themselves. I will say we will run self-exam workshops at the health center to this day. When you come to the health center, we support people in inserting their own speculum and using a mirror to see.

[ 00:17:51 ]In 2024, it's from y'all. In 2024, people are not everyone wants to do it, but when people do it, it's like a revelation, absolutely, yeah, that's absolutely true. And if you if you've never done it, you should do it just to see to see what you look like because it's really fascinating. Um, and one of the things I learned over time that I don't think was related to this is that um body changes daily, so that the cervix will look one way one day and if you keep following that looks different another day, so that even when you have tests taken they won't necessarily show exactly the same thing because one day it looks very healthy and another day it looks like oh maybe not.

[ 00:18:39 ]I also think part of what I learned about Jane and Emma Goldman was that it was taking similar to our bodies ourselves, the book the publication. Taking our bodies into our own hands, our healthcare into our own hands, that is, no, there's no doctor here. We are the care providers. We are the clients. We are Jane on all sides. And that it's, we take care of ourselves and that we also like deserve to get space and time to do that and to continue to invest in that. Even today, ever more so today, we need that. And I think it is about like mirror in the flashlight. dynamic of like feminist tools of a mirror, a speculum, and a flashlight, which is also the name of Chicago Women's Health Center's podcast.

[ 00:19:26 ]No big deal. Right. Is about saying this has historically been hidden from people. The gown that was used to separate someone's own body from the face, the hands, the eyes of the care provider who is inserting something into your body, it's a power move, right? And so when we take away the gown, when you are able to look at your own body, when you are the one inserting something, or you are able to insert semen for an alternative insemination procedure. You're the one who is able to look at the test results and decipher what that means with your care provider. That is a radical redistribution of power, right? That is what started with Jane. That's right. Yeah. I wanted to just reiterate a little bit the way we were talking about the Chicago Women's Health Center.

[ 00:20:17 ]We had that name, what, in the 70s? Yes. That's not an old, that's not a new name. But, um, wait a minute. Dr. Captain takes time; go ahead, Chicago Health Center. You stop yourself getting old is a pain in the um one of the things I think I, I think we should do and talk about here which I think you're probably the best one to do is talking about where the needs are, what we can do particularly for women who come from other states or people who in the area who don't have money. That's where donations can go to there are organizations here and all over that help women find ways to get to the state that they can and that they can get an abortion, and of course Illinois is one of them; um as is New York; um but it's very expensive, and so there are these you know where when as you pointed out people who had money could go to New York and people who didn't had to deal with

[ 00:21:18 ]with us or the kinds of things that you had to deal with Dory; um now because of the how public the fight is; um there are organizations that that find ways to help women get where they need to go not only to provide abortions; um there are still women around the country who are doing what we do in jail; um and they're hidden because it's Very illegal and it's publicly illegal where it was just not talked about when the service existed. I think you're the one who-I can share more. Dory and I used to do, and Dory keeps up with the literature and sends it out to us. I'm going to work with you. Some of you might remember consciousness-raising groups. Remember those? It was very popular for a while.

[ 00:22:27 ]I thought it was really healthy. You'd get six or eight, maybe ten people together in somebody's living room once a week, or I don't know how often they meet, and we would just talk. Just talk. Well, a number of those women in my consciousness-raising group were also helping me with jade; we were all a team so then somebody came in and talked about the speculum and looking at your cervix and we said 'oh okay you know whoa yeah sure' so we got a flashlight, a speculum, and a mirror and we each looked inside ourselves and when it came to me it was so funny somebody said 'Dory, you have a smiling cervix, okay So, yeah, cervixes do change. But it was such a freeing thing to look inside your body about the things that you've heard about.

[ 00:23:13 ]You never knew what they looked like. So that was very, very freeing. So it sounds crazy to look inside your body, but it's wonderful. It's wonderful. And you're actually seeing inside your body other than when things are happening and just the doctors do and stuff like that. And what you do, or at least what I do, is. In my head, I see what's going on and so I follow it. But when you're looking at your cervix, you're really looking at what your body is. Yeah. I mean, I think that other piece of saying, what are the ways in which in our world today we are doing things for ourselves, advocating for ourselves, or supporting in a peer-led way access to basic health care that we deserve and need?

[ 00:24:03 ]To me, that's what the abortion landscape is all about today is out of the model of Jane is peer education and peer advocacy. And that includes doctors as peers working with one another. So there are a couple of organizations here in Chicago I would totally highlight, one of which is the Midwest Access Project, which trains folks are familiar map. They train. Care providers who are not trained in medical school to give abortions they train yes Kaylee knows okay you want to speak to it I just they're they're about us literally highlights the fact that so many care providers go to religious-based schools and there are just aspects that are not included even if they are taught gynecological sciences they are not told to do certain things. Yeah.

[ 00:24:59 ]And that's like, they're not allowed to be told that based off of their school's regulations. You want to share something? I have a question. So does that mean that if you go to a medical school in a state like Kansas where abortions are not legal in those contexts, like are, so are medical students there just not taught? Absolutely. They are not. Yeah. What did you just say? Kentucky. Kentucky. Yeah. They, Right. And even schools that are not religious-related, in states, and probably not so, in states where abortion is legal, but because the law says they can't do it, the medical schools, medical people get very concerned, and so they're not taught.

[ 00:25:58 ]Bye.

[ 00:26:34 ]It's functionally, it's the same thing, so in terms of like I wouldn't again, it's awful, like don't get me wrong, like the you know concept of you know uh, especially if Opi providers aren't being given the full breadth and uh, the scope of you know what should just be like basic health care for uh women um, I will say they do have like some form of knowledge in terms of like what to do uh in this situation and I don't know and I think it would also include vacuum like did you guys do a vacuum? We did start learning to work with vacuum stuff. Somebody came out from California where it was just starting.

[ 00:27:26 ]I would think that would be safer to use vacuum than using it. that far along yeah well because the the the skin of the of the uterus would be so so much thinner that the vacuum would be safer than going into it so i will say like you know caveat is and the only other thing i would add though is like that's great and that's a loophole to know about and having an abortion is different than having to have contents removed because a pregnancy ends. And that piece of like, wow, so that means that if it's not taught in schools, that's not part of the conversation for care providers. It's not part of the conversation for people who are coming to support folks who are navigating pregnancy in any of those ways, right?

[ 00:28:19 ]Which I think is about like abortion companions that ideally for us, all people in relationship with people in the world have a concept of, how to support people before, during, and after pregnancy, pregnancy ending, pregnancy, variety of options, pregnancy continuing, and that includes abortion. So abortion companions for us is an attempt to, a training we do, an attempt to say like, what was it that Jane members were doing as peers before, during, and after abortion procedures? How might we need to replicate that today when someone from Indiana might not be able to come and like, Get access to their own uh in their own home and abortion might need to travel here be away from home how do we support them what does it mean if someone does get access to mail via mail abortion pills and then are navigating abortion in their home right or self-managed abortion might be what folks are hearing because care providers aren't necessarily the ones that we have historically been able to go to or currently so

[ 00:29:22 ]some we are for sure I just asked a friend who went to medical school in Indiana she said that she they got sent across the border to Illinois for that part of their training yeah wow and that is super super important about the where Illinois is because we are on the border with so many states that do not have access to abortion right so we'll see people coming in which is also why Midwest Access Project can be crucial because they can help with that training right and we're located in a place that is close to Ohio and Indiana and Missouri right yeah comments or questions

[ 00:30:15 ]That's right. You're right. And of course, when performing an abortion, you don't really know until you're there. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you read Laura's book, you're talking about infection and the amount of infection there was when abortions were being done. And probably is happening again today. Infection was very high. We were so careful that we had one person who we would not take care of because she was clearly infected and we sent her to the hospital. We did not have any serious infections at all, and we did thousands of abortions. I think we were just so careful. No, no, no, no. You're keeping it. Comments, questions, anything?

[ 00:31:37 ]Do that too, yeah, oh great question! So we don't do prenatal care. Thank you. We used to um, we do alternative insemination so supporting folks and creating pregnancies specifically for people who don't have access to sperm, so we're talking about single people, trans folks, queer couples not necessarily around fertility. When talking about like creating pregnancies and helping them navigate or think through what their options are for prenatal care and for birthing care, I really think like birth centers are trying to really uphold that sort of peer-led or peer-peer-based but client-led approach, and the notion that also like it's about as much communication and trust building as possible. And I think outside of the mainstream medical model, that allows for more space and time for an appointment.

[ 00:32:32 ]As opposed to I think the urgency-based rush insurance-driven state of mainstream medical care that's one thing I would say. I think the other piece that I would really highlight is healthcare that's focused on access to trans health, specifically hormones. So, you know, if you're a trans person, everything is trans health, right? But in terms of accessing hormones, a lot of that model from the Gene abortion service is what we use in our trans health services, which is about like, again, sitting down and talking with people before, during, and after what are all their options, which I really appreciate you both highlighting. It wasn’t just access to abortion. It was about testing. It was about adoptions.

[ 00:33:17 ]It was about options, and about clients getting enough information that they can make their own informed decisions so every step along the way it is about how we navigate power dynamics and flip them right; so no I'm not going to tell you what you should do, I'm going to tell you all the options stay, wait, hear your questions, and then ultimately you make the decision about what's going to be best for you right which I think is again it’s about a model that we don’t see today; we still don’t see today. I’m getting angry. That’s it. I'm remembering things. I'm going to bring them up. I agree with everything that Scout is saying. And I think I would also like to remember or mention that we need more doulas around. And doulas, they can help even when it's not when you're not just focusing on yourself you have someone who who really is there for you and is probably your peer and I just want to we don't have enough tools

[ 00:34:48 ]I have just heard. Yeah. I would like, I think that there is, you know, I'd love to donate money when I can, but I feel like there's a lot of us who have these skills that we would like to help, especially women who are coming or pregnant people who are coming from out of state. And I have put my number into a couple of places and I haven't heard back and I know they're swamped, but I just. I think that there are so many of us that have skills and we want to contribute in some way. So before we leave, if somebody could just speak to, like, collecting our names and phone numbers. That's great. Because we do want to be more involved. Okay. Thank you.

[ 00:35:28 ]I have only recently read about end-of-life doulas and going, oh, wow, it's really wonderful. So thank you. You can learn from her. Yeah. I think that the end of life component also is, and specifically menopause as well. Not that that's end of life. I'm so sorry. But what I mean is, I want for us to be mindful of at the health center is like, oh, and actually we stop sometimes at birth, right? When we think about women's health or, yeah. The idea that we actually need continuous, peer-focused, collaborative care throughout one's life that actually I primarily orient as a sex educator. And end-of-life care, menopause care, the way we talk about puberty, menopause, birthing, abortion, end-of-life is all connected. And the way that we imbue ageism into our healthcare settings, our healthcare world is showing up.

[ 00:36:35 ]And that's why we need end-of-life doula and doula approaches for all stages of life. That's what you're saying. I just wanted to say what's – oh, she's gone. All right. That's all right. But anyway, she was mentioning about how far along can you be for a safe abortion, safe in quotes. But anyway, when I did that first abortion with those horrible people, I was almost five months pregnant. I didn't know it at the time because I was in my early 20s, and I just knew I was pregnant. I didn't know how to measure it. I mean, when you're 22 and 23 years old, and I came from an intelligent family, but I knew nothing about my body. But anyway, so what they did, they came in, they put a clamp on the inside of your uterus, and then you start to abort.

[ 00:37:28 ]And then they told you just go sit on the toilet, and they left. And I was there with another young woman, and when we were both finished and we were bleeding, we both got a cab and went home because that was all we knew to do. That's all we knew to do. All right. Anyway, when I got home, of course, I was bleeding. Had to go to the hospital the next day and get a proper DNC. But that's how the mob did it. They just clamp on to the uterus so that you go into labor, and they left. They didn't care about you at all. But anyway, the other thing that I wanted to tell you about is, now I forgot again.

[ 00:38:07 ]Well, I think what you're describing, thank you for sharing, and apologies if this is flip, is Dirty Dancing is an abortion movie. It certainly is. A hundred percent. And that's what that movie is all about, if you're paying attention to the movie. I've got to watch that again. Great dancing. Right. And that idea, I think, also of people who want to support, people who are interested, who have the skills, which I'm like, oh, you mean someone who's going to listen, who's going to think about resources, who's going to be an advocate for what you want and you need. One, we can teach those skills for sure. We want to teach you those skills. Two, I definitely will get your contact information

[ 00:38:49 ]There are organizations that, like Chicago Abortion Fund, like Midwest Access Coalition, that are based here in the city of Chicago. But also other abortion funds or hotlines in the neighboring states that would also want contacts based in the city of Chicago, right? I will say that the abortion networks that I know of are well connected. Like Hoosier Abortion Fund works very closely with the Midwest Access Coalition. And that being, we are a hub. There's been something like 800% increase since Roe v. Wade was overturned for folks coming to Illinois for accessing abortion, the majority of them coming to Chicago. Right, so the need is there, and I don't want to say bottlenecking, but the like what are we doing to make sure access is widespread? Folks are thinking really creatively.

[ 00:39:41 ]The other thing I would say sorry i'm just like plugging is the Chicago effort for abortion rights is an organizing effort that's based here, that I'd be happy to talk about, and they're again like people who are trying to figure out how do we spread the word about opportunities to support abortion access being safe and sustained? Access being safe right here and sustaining that in this state, and also putting pressure on other states. So just thoughts. I was going to say, oh, go ahead. What? I just want to be mindful of time. I know some folks need to head out. Oh, okay. But I was going to ask, are you able to stick around a little longer? We can close out and then anybody who's able to stay.

[ 00:40:23 ]I know everybody wants to say, but like I know people have to get going so is that okay real quick if I do sure some quick announcements I don't need to do don't go ahead don't go did you remember no okay oh no did you remember and then I said no don't repeat it it's all right it'll come back might not be till next week but I will get it I am so sorry hopefully you will I will okay um I wanted to just say like so you know you know what we did was like kind of run around well Kaylee guided the runners around Hyde Park through the story of Jane and so we don't often get to meet the real-life people behind the stories so this was like an incredibly special opportunity for people and you all have had such a wealth of knowledge about all of these things that connected a lot of things for all of us.

[ 00:41:16 ]I'm going to wait before I close out, though. I want to pose the question. So you might need to think about it. So, like, ignore us while I'm doing my announcement and like think about your answer. Because my question that I wanted to end formally like with the group was like the funniest thing that happened to Jane. Because what you get in a lot of the story is like there's some really funny shit in there. Like you were doing really important and dangerous things, but very funny. So, I'd love for you to think on that while I give my announcements okay okay so everybody thank you so much for spending the time and being here and Haley, you did an amazing amazing months of research and preparation for this, thank you for guiding us through this story, thank you.

[ 00:41:59 ]And Haley has like I mentioned in the beginning created a blog post of different like the merits of different media and books around this topic, so you should definitely continue your learning. And I know that I can already think right now we're going to put out some more stuff about the resources that were mentioned today. So stay tuned for that. I'll put it in our newsletter. If you're not subscribed to the newsletter, definitely subscribe. FreedomAtChicago. com slash newsletter. Thank you. Okay. I wanted to talk about two different things. One, our next two events are next week. We have on the 18th, it's a Wednesday, a Historic Chicago Bakeries one with our programs manager, Fernanda. You'll be getting – bakery treats and learning about history, celebrating Latinx Heritage Month next Wednesday.

[ 00:42:44 ]And then next Saturday, John will be leading a run in Back of the Yards all about Stockyard's history and that whole very fascinating world. Station for that you can find out using the QR code that's right over there on the table. Otherwise, I'm going to be sending out an email next week with a post-run survey and with all the photos and videos we put today, so definitely if you have time, I would love your feedback. We work really hard to make these events, and we want to make them as best as possible, so if you have a moment, we would love to know what you like, what you didn't like, etc. I also wanted to make sure you knew that Madison Free Books from Selena from Madison Street Books is back there.

[ 00:43:25 ]Yay, yay, yay. Women-owned bookshop in Westwood. Please, if you don't have the books, please grab them. Or if you want to grab them for friends, they make great gifts all year round. It doesn't have to be a major holiday. And we have tons of stickers and buttons and pins. Please take them. For your friends, for your co-workers, for whoever. I don't want to leave with them, so please take them. And then finally, we have tons of cookies. If someone has a sweet tooth and wants to take a little box, do it. Thank you very much. And also, shout out to all of our volunteers. I really, really appreciate all of you taking the time. Thank you to that really good income. And Fernanda, who's our provost manager, in volunteering today.

[ 00:44:06 ]Thank you. And I forgot to mention Kat. If you didn't know Kat, look at her. Can I add a really quick addendum? I'm old. When I was younger, I never heard the word abortion. I didn't even know if I knew that word until I was either late teens or early 20s. We never knew that. That was not a word said. Now, what I want you all to think about and I think about is the word abortion is all over the news. Our young kids are hearing it. For the kids that belong to a progressive family and they have to go and say, Mommy, what's an abortion? You've got to think about how do you describe that to a child, especially today's children, who I want them to be enlightened and not frightened.

[ 00:44:53 ]So and think about the future of our girls that now today they're getting exposed to a lot of it's very scary, but they're going to they're going to learn things that I never I didn't know until I was in my 20s. So, think about what your definition of abortion is. If a kid came up to you and said, 'What's an abortion?' Because the future is our children and they're getting bombarded with a lot of information, including, you know, the orange morons, the lies. And they don't know who to believe. So just keep remembering that we've got to remember not just our young women, but the kids, the boys and the girls who are hearing this word and they don't know what's going on. So true.

[ 00:45:32 ]Well, I was just going to say, so before we close out, and then we'll let you go if you have commitments, but did you think of anything funny? I don't, but I do have a comment. That is the only thing that I can think of that way. When I would do counseling, many women came with friends and parents and their boyfriends. I had a dog who was not fond of men. And so we always had this issue of telling Alex that it was really okay. And if he had to, I had to put him away in another room. But that would always be, oh, my God. But it's actually on the side. Little dog

[ 00:46:16 ]though Alex wasn't one little dogs that frequently um have trouble with men I think they're too tall oh well I can tell you um we found a source on Le Mans street which was a very far west street I'm an East side of Chicago I didn't even know anything about the West side but anyway I made my way there because that was a scientific laboratory that made tests for all kinds of things. And if you pass the building, you'd never know that that was going on there. So I was sent to go pick up the pregnancy tests, which I think we ordered like 50 at a time or something like that. So I remember walking in. Keep in mind, I'm still in my mid-20s. I'm still fairly naive, not as naive as I was, but still.

[ 00:47:06 ]So I go up to the counter, and I show the guy the order. He goes, and he brings out this big box. And he looks at me and he says, 'You must know a lot of pregnant people.' And all I could do was just smile and pick up the box and leave, because I didn't know what to say to that. I was walking out with 50 pregnancy tests. But anyway, that was a learning curve for me. All right. Oh, you got one. All right.

[ 00:47:42 ]What did you do after Jane? Oh, after Jane? Yeah, after. That's a good question. Well, one of the things that I was, what I learned as a result of going to Jane and educating myself and reading our bodies ourselves, I mean, that became a Bible for a lot of women because you couldn't find that information anywhere else. And I went after a job at the Cook County Department of Public Health, which serves all of suburban Cook County. And I became a health educator. And the one thing that I really enjoyed, I just told Scout about it, is that we had a grant about pregnancy and how to teach women how to plan their families. So I went to, I did this for 10 years, and I cannot tell you how wonderful it was.

[ 00:48:35 ]And it sounds strange because it was a very touchy situation. I went to a men's rehab house in Blue Island once a month for 10 years. I went to a women's rehab at 171 Dixie Highway and talked for about an hour and a half, gave out tons of condoms and answered their questions. I can tell you this is a perfect example. And it's sad. It's funny, but it's sad. When I would have, just like we were told here, if you have questions, raise your hand. And I was in the middle of giving a presentation about women's bodies, and a woman raised her hand. Mind you, the women that I talked to were all ages, about 25 to 30 women every time, all walks of life, all education levels, the whole bit.

[ 00:49:19 ]So I talked to everybody, fine with me, because I like to talk to everybody. So now, a woman raises her hand, and I say, sure, okay. And she said, can you get pregnant from kissing? this is a grown woman and of course everybody laughed and i said ah no not no funny there's nothing funny here everybody can ask whatever you want no no one's embarrassed you can ask anything so it was that just that stayed in my mind it's like how can a woman ask that in this day and age that just shows you how much ignorance is out there that women are being kept from information and it's also hard when you hear on uh you know like debate stages that you can get an abortion after the nine months yeah of pregnancy like uh which i will say is why sex education is important throughout hell alive yeah yeah what about this talk about you can reverse an abortion have any of you seen that or heard that that's

[ 00:50:31 ]that's one of those terrible things that's going around it's like well You can, you can get it back, what yeah, what yes, you can't just to clarify not true, well great if you have an abortion that will not impact future pregnancies, maybe that's a like positive twist, yeah that's probably what is meant by it. But in order to turn people against anything that happens with their body, they'll say it the wrong way. It's just exactly what Orange Face did the other night talking about abortions after nine months. Because I just read where it came from. I just saw that this morning that it came from a change in a law that said: 'care for an infant'. If the infant's going to die, just care instead of life and care.

[ 00:51:31 ]Care wasn't the word in the original one, but because with the change in the political climate, there was the fear that life meant that you would have to put all this money into a child who was going to die in some amount of time rather than just do palliative care. It was like, at least I found out where it had come from. It's like, I mean, he's crazy, but it was just. Do palliative care. Keep them comfortable. Well, then people dying is killing. You know, I mean, it's that kind of nonsense. Are we ready to let people go? Guys, I could talk all day. Anyway, when I was teaching sexual health at the rehab houses for both men and women, all walks of life, let me tell you something that I learned 20 years ago, 30 years ago, working with poor communities.

[ 00:52:40 ]Just because you're not educated does not mean you're stupid. I met so many people that didn't have any education that were so on top of things. The brain was there. And when we gave children what was it called? Parenting classes. We made arrangements when I was at the health department and I organized it. We went to all the churches and said, 'We have parenting classes.' We did it for like something like 10 weeks. These women, no education, not even working for it. Some of these people, they lived on food stamps. They struggled every day to take care of their kids; constant, I mean, it was just a constant in in their in their lives but what happened was, yes, thank you.

[ 00:53:30 ]When we stopped after the 10 weeks of the parenting classes, I got phone calls from these women: 'Why did you stop? Where is it next These are poor women, uneducated women, but they know what they need for their families. And they try to take advantage of what agencies offer to them, even though most of them don't even know what's out there, unfortunately. But it's just amazing. It's just an amazing experience. And I think what I feel about Jane and our bodies ourselves is really challenging this notion of like, Who is educated? Who knows? What do we actually mean by education? Are we actually talking about the like ivory tower of cis hetero white able-bodied well-educated men who created the medical textbooks which, in fact, does not speak to through about with all their experiences outside of that quite narrow one.

[ 00:54:26 ]That's what I think peer health work is all about. What Jane/Emma Women's Health Center Chicago Women's Health Center is all about is that we speak about ourselves for ourselves and we need to create community spaces where people get the power to do that and sustain those community spaces. So it's not people talking over or onto or behalf of, it's speaking from and for oneself. And tell women that you know your friends, your family, your neighborhood, tell them about this the services that are available. Because word will spread and it'll eventually hit a couple of women that had no idea what existed and they needed help. So we need to, you know, just spread the word, keep talking about what's available out there. And there's nothing we can't talk about.

[ 00:55:12 ]We can talk about everything. Thank you for being here and listening to us. And I hope you don't feel like we're holding you in because we keep on going. We always have more to say. But feel free to leave if you need to get somewhere or if you want to get somewhere and away from here. While I was dealing with my cough, Scout was talking about Our Bodies, Ourselves. And one of the things we did, Our Bodies, Ourselves was published originally in Newsprint. While we were still doing the service. And we gave out copies of it. I don't even know if it's on sale anymore, but I watched it grow bigger and bigger as more information became available. But we gave it away in its original form, as well as the VD handbook and the birth control handbook, which came from the same group from Boston. No, actually, I think the two handbooks might have come from Canada. But they were little pamphlets. That was part of the way we helped educate with the limited resources we had. I'm going to stop and let other people talk. Please talk from among you, your experiences, things that we could share, that we could learn from you.

[ 00:56:47 ]Down. And obviously Roe v. Wade was already a decision based on privacy rather than women's right to their own knowledge and their own bodies. And put in a lot of limits that a lot of people would not go along with. Exactly. So I feel like now it's almost a current fight but very similar to the previous one before Roe v. Wade was, before that decision was made. Now we're trying to get women's rights to their bodies and abortion rights enshrined in the Constitution or just in more legislation, do you have anything that you think people should hear as they're trying to work towards something like that?

[ 00:57:31 ]I've become very aware because I do send out press releases to the Janes. Like I say, they were spread out all over the country. There's five of us, I think, in the Chicagoland area, which I'm glad to say. But anyway. Anything people should think about or know as they're advocating for the expansion of abortion access? What can we do to help change the law in more places? Oh, got it. What I have discovered in reading, because I'm a major, you know who Catherine Graham was, but she used to run the Washington Post, and I absolutely adored the woman. So I'm a Washington Post fan, and they do have some incredible articles. And the ones that I've been reading about that I know it was out there, but I just never really gave it any thought.

[ 00:58:19 ]And it's the women who find out when they're two months pregnant, maybe three, that they have a horrible, horrible pregnancy. I mean, some of the things that the body can do and not do are amazing. And what these women go through to get a proper abortion, because it means they could hurt their life, take their life, that this child has no chance. It's going to cost a lot of money and time and pain. I had no idea that it was that extensive. So I'd like a lot of people who think abortion is simply ending a pregnancy by a woman who said she couldn't afford having another baby or just didn't fit in her life. All right. Much more than that. These women, I have been bleeding to death.

[ 00:59:05 ]They've had women that have tried to get into a hospital and on the lawn they bled because the hospital wouldn't let them in. And they had serious, serious conditions. Horrible things that I didn't realize could happen in a pregnancy. They've been denied care all over the country because of the abortion laws and the ones in the states that are even more stringent. Boy, they really endorse it. They will leave a woman, and not care. I myself am going to go up and get some of those freebies. Yeah. I want a cookie, but yeah. To be continued. Yes. Awesome. Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you.