detailed the lengths that immigrant women would go in order to terminate a pregnancy<\/span><\/a>. The reality is that many women were jailed, injured and even died because there was no safe access to abortion in Detroit\u2019s immigrant enclaves before Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\nKeep in mind that the majority of women seeking abortions were married women who already had kids. Meaning that many women who wanted to get an abortion to avoid becoming destitute and unable to care for children would risk their lives for the procedure. And in many cases, that risk would leave a family without a mother.<\/p>\n
The article relays a Polish-language sermon by a conservative catholic priest named Fr. Justin Figa. In the sermon, he details what Majewski sees as a worst-case scenario when no safe access to abortion is available. The sermon itself is meant to be a horror story, with the intent of convincing women to not pursue an abortion. However, Majewski included Fr. Figa’s words because they challenge the narrative of who actually would get abortions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the thirty-one-year-old wife became pregnant with her seventh child in seven years while her husband could barely keep food on the table, a helpful neighbor told her about pills she could buy at the nearby pharmacy,\u201d Majewski writes in the article.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen these did not work, another neighbor advised her to go to a local midwife, who could commit \u201cinfanticide\u201d for fifteen dollars. \u201cThe operation is simple, no more serious than getting a tooth pulled,\u201d and was performed in the midwife\u2019s kitchen. Twenty-four hours later, the mother of six came down with a fever, and died within a week. Things like this happen every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Majewski sat down with the Yemeni American News to talk about her research on abortion access in Hamtramck and Metro Detroit. Since it was such a taboo subject back then, she says, her only way into the research was arrest warrants and death certificates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re researching abortion, especially back then, it\u2019s really difficult because the only time you know about it is when something goes wrong,\u201d Majewski said. \u201cSo you don\u2019t know how many women out there face this situation and found another solution, you only find out about it when somebody dies or somebody gets prosecuted. And I thought it was really important just to humanize those cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another point that Majewski wanted to stress in her research is that before Roe v. Wade, women were pushing back against social conventions around abortion, even in immigrant communities. In one response to the radio sermon by Fr. Figas, a woman wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cDoesn\u2019t my health mean anything? I\u2019ll raise a daughter, for what? So she can be abused or wander the world in poverty? Aren\u2019t there enough people in the world dying of hunger? I have a son. For what? So the government can give him a uniform, a rifle, and order him into the trenches to murder another person, or be torn apart by a cannonball? I know how my mother cried when my brother went to France and returned in a coffin. Without children I am free and I know that I\u2019m alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Majewski and many other women, this spirit of resistance against social conventions never ended. As the United States Supreme Court seems to be preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade, leaving states to decide the fate of women\u2019s access to abortion, many women are prepared to fight back. At the root of that fight, Majewski says, is destigmatizing the procedure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that there’s been a tendency, because of the stigma, to ignore the fact that literally one in four women have had abortions,\u201d Majewski said. \u201cYou know people who have had abortions, I’ve had an abortion. So it’s not like that 16 year old girl who, you know, gets taken out of school and whisked away and you never hear from her again. No, they’re your neighbors, they’re your family members or your friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
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