Abortion in Early 1960s California - Illegal for Most, Possible for Some
Abortion was 100% illegal in my home state when I was in high school, and before, and quite a while after. Hell, even contraceptives, such as they were, were illegal if you were under 21 and unmarried. A guy under 21 couldn't buy condoms back then. They were only legally sold by pharmacists. In my small town, the only pharmacist knew your parents, and your girlfriend's parents, too.
Here's a secret: Teenagers were having sex anyhow. Maybe an older friend would buy condoms for you, or you'd stock up when you traveled to Arizona or Nevada, where there were sold in every gas station restroom. Or you used alternative contraceptive practices, but those only worked if you were very, very careful.
Guess what? Girls got pregnant. Teenagers are not very good at following safe sex practices without contraception. So, girls got pregnant. How many? Well, my high school class had just 104 students in i. Of those, about half were girls. I personally know of 8 who got pregnant from my class alone. No doubt there were others I did not know.
What did a pregnant girl do? Well, sometimes she got married, if she was over 16 and could get her parents' permission to get married. Three of my classmates went that route. Oddly enough, all three are still married to their boyfriends of that time, more than 50 years later. Other girls went to "visit their aunt" in some other place for a while. "Where's Judy?" "Oh, she's staying with her aunt for a while."
No abortions were available, so a teenage pregnancy was definitely a life-changing thing. Except for a few girls. They had well-off, influential parents. Their parents could come up with enough money and influence to get one of the local doctors to "make the pregnancy go away." It was very expensive. It wasn't an option unless you had money and influence. But it was an office procedure, so nobody was the wiser. Except we were.
We all knew which doctor it was. Everyone knew which doctor it was. But, few could afford those services at the time, and the doctor was very careful about only doing abortions for the daughters of people he knew could never tell on him. Doctors know all sorts of things about their patients. Enough said.
So, if you were wealthy and had some sort of influence, your daughter didn't have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. For everyone else, though, safe, medical abortions were impossible to obtain.
We are in danger of returning to those days. Let's not, please.
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