[SIZE=+3]T[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]hroughout history, women have had unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. And throughout history, women have found ways to terminate those pregnancies.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But what has not always been guaranteed is whether they can do so legally, with the medical care necessary to protect their health--or if they must seek illegal, "back-alley" abortions.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]In the years just before abortion became legal in 1973, hospital wards were filled with women seeking abortions--who either had been injured or become sick obtaining an illegal abortion under dangerous conditions, or who had tried to induce the abortion themselves.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Desperate women used a number of dangerous means to terminate pregnancies. Some sought abortions from back-alley abortionists, with usually humiliating and sometimes deadly results. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Other women tried to induce abortions with homemade means--such as a bleach douche, or inserting sharp instruments into her cervix. This is why the now almost forgotten image of the wire coat hanger became the symbol of the abortion rights movement. - [/SIZE][SIZE=+2]ELIZABETH SCHULTE[/SIZE]