Between 1973 and 1975,
Mildred Jefferson often spoke to the press about how little Roe v. Wade did for women. Jefferson was
the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, and
she was something of a media darling, described by the press as charismatic and
accomplished. In discussing Roe,
Jefferson argued that abortion rights at most gave women a false sense of
autonomy. The true power, she suggested, belonged to the doctor.
Along with most
activists on either side of the abortion issue, Jefferson later adopted a
different account of abortion rights, linking them to second-wave feminism and
condemning both. Jefferson’s recent passing gave me reason to think
about why we came to associate abortion so much with abortion rights. Reva
Siegel, Leslie Reagan, and David Garrow are among those to trace the arguments
about physicians, women, privacy, and equality that set the terms of the debate
before Roe. Jefferson’s story,
though, shows us something important about how the meaning of Roe itself might have changed.
Jefferson’s reasons for describing the holding of Roe or the meaning of abortion rights differently were strategic.
Talking about Roe in a different way
made sense as a means of raising money or winning new recruits.
Those on both sides
made arguments for similar reasons. Jefferson’s movement realized in the mid-1970s
that it needed to do more to recruit and reassure women. Describing Roe as a decision about physicians
worked well for a movement seeking to show women that abortion rights did
nothing for them. Mainstream abortion-rights organizations initially addressed
medical rights arguments. While not believing that Roe had resolved conflict about abortion, major abortion-rights
groups still saw the debate about the meaning of Roe as counterproductive. Talking further about abortion rights
would suggest that the question was still open and would call into question an
otherwise respectable rationale for abortion.
When women’s-rights
arguments gained currency in the later 1970s, strategic reasoning again played
a role. The abortion-rights movement had to respond to the successes of
abortion opponents in recruiting women. Abortion opponents took the same
position as part of an effort to cement a new alliance with the New Right and
Religious Right. The newly reconfigured
antiabortion movement criticized second wave feminism as much as did abortion
and closely connected the two.
It seems that we owe
our understanding of Roe only partly
to the Supreme Court. Activists like Jefferson also played an important part in
the change. Why we still think of Roe
as a decision about women’s rights is a separate question, especially at a time
when pro-life feminism is back in the news. Phyllis Schlafly fondly remembers
Mildred Jefferson as an ally and effective orator at antifeminist rallies.
Today, Lila Rose and leading abortion opponents proclaim themselves to be
feminist. Now that activists on both sides again claim to speak for feminism,
popular understandings of Roe may
well change again.
