The Procedure | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

I'm Finley schaef a retired Methodist Minister it's Reverend I practiced in four churches
in New York City for 40 years and a woman that I didn't know and was not a member of my church came to see me
in my office I can still see her sitting there and she told me that her husband raped their daughter a teenage girl
and the daughter became pregnant and did I know where she could her daughter could get an abortion and I
didn't I did not know what to do or what to say uh I didn't know I couldn't help her and
she left before the 1970s it was very hard to get a legal abortion in this country
different states even different hospitals had different rules rules that kept shifting over time
but for the most part you could not get an abortion unless you were going to die
Connecticut was the first state to criminalize the procedure in 1821 and state by state the rest of the country
followed suit In 1902 the Journal of the American Medical Association endorsed a popular
practice among doctors they'd refuse to treat a woman suffering from abortion complications until she quote confessed
to Breaking the Law wealthy women would leave the country and fly to Japan where abortion was
legal but a woman without the resources to fly around the world had to find another way some tried to induce a
miscarriage on their own most Methods at the time were incredibly dangerous the other option was to pay
someone to help them quietly maybe a doctor but maybe not oftentimes women would be given
instructions like meet me at X Street Corner this is Gillian Frank historian of sexuality and religion at Princeton
and then they would get in a car be blindfolded get up on the table sometimes we put in stirrups and have
the procedure performed on them with the blindfold on never see the doctor's face
and sometimes the procedure would work but often it would mutilate a woman it would leave her they would leave her
without an abortion and take her money some women would find themselves sexually assaulted by the person
offering the abortion whether they were skilled or unskilled first of all she had to have a password
to get into the place where the abortion was going to happen she was met by a man
with a mask on Reverend Barbara gerlock is talking about a friend who got an underground abortion in New York city so
she couldn't even see the face of the man who was providing the abortion and was sent off
with nothing um so there was it was just very dangerous I mean the numbers of women who were dying you know
some coroner is reported as early as 1951 that he had seen 1200 women die in the course of his career and this this
was a national I mean they said National implications women were dying because of these what were called back
alley or Backstreet abortions women who'd gotten hurt by a back alley abortionist or by trying to induce a
miscarriage would often wind up in the emergency room because of an infection or hemorrhaging
as doctors were confronted with the reality of the situation some felt justified in breaking the law to perform
a safe abortion a sociologist named Carol joffy gave them a name doctors of conscience
but then after World War II there was a shift men returned home and went back to
work many women who'd been working stopped working a record number of babies were born this was the so-called
baby boom and what many employers would do is that they would fire women after they became pregnant to enforce these
norms and this is called pronatals and this sort of idea that everyone should have children and this is pushing the
baby boom families were having three and four children in quick succession birth
control wasn't easy to get abstinence was encouraged illegal abortions increased and so did the number of
deaths and injuries in order to get a safe abortion some pregnant women would go to a
psychiatrist and say they were going to kill themselves a handbook even circulated to teach women how to fake a
suicide attempt and if they were convincing enough a psychiatrist might refer them for an abortion
in 1962 a psychiatrist named Sydney boulter wrote an essay in the American Journal of Psychiatry warning doctors to
stay out of it he wrote we know that women's main role here on Earth is to conceive deliver and raise children
foreign it's an amazing chapter Leviticus 19. it's called the Holiness code in the
whole Bible it's in the middle of all these rules about priests and what they should do ritually Rabbi Harold kudan of
Glencoe Illinois and it talks about how we should act in terms of others the stranger the Widow the orphan
one of the most famous is love your neighbor as yourself but I thought today that not the most important sentence the
most important sentence is do not stand idly by the blood of your brother we cannot be idle when our neighbor is in
distress we just never questioned the fact that motherhood should be a free choice a
woman shouldn't be compelled to become a mother if she didn't want to be we had pastoral confidentiality we could
talk to women in a way that our conversations were privileged and I thought well this is something that I
can do I can help women a number of clergy and a number of congregations began to see abortion
as a choice that women should make it was a difficult Choice one that she should struggle with but they believe
that you know we need to prioritize the people who are already living and that there are higher laws
that need to be followed because the consequences will be tragic for women and their families otherwise they
decided to take matters into their own hands secretly and women seeking an abortion found help in a very unlikely
place rabbis and ministers all over the country formed an underground network of
doctors willing to provide safe abortions they call themselves the clergy consultation service and in 1967 they
got to work I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] the clergy consultation service was
helmed by Howard Moody senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York he held secret meetings in church
basements and traveled around the country to meet with clergy in their homes and explain the plan
they also needed to get the word out to women so in May of 1967 they issued a public statement parts of it were
published on the front page of the New York Times they wrote We believe it's our religious
duty to give Aid and assistance to all women with problem pregnancies and they listed a phone number women
could call and that phone number was hitched up to an electronic answering device and the tape on the machine would
have a woman's voice recorded on it and it would simply tell them the names and phone numbers and times in which a
clergy was available for counseling and it would give them different locations I
would say for example if you were calling in New York they would say Okay so-and-so is available in the Bronx
so-and-so is available in Brooklyn so and so is available in Manhattan and then the woman would call that Minister
a rabbi directly to make an appointment to see that person in their office and so when a woman came in she would have
to get a note in advance saying that she was pregnant and how far along and then
she would come to the office a clergy would sit down with her and they would review options do you want to continue
with being pregnant and have the baby and keep the baby do you want to adopt the baby out or do you want to have an
abortion and if they chose abortion and most women came in knowing they wanted abortions and choosing this the clergy
would have a list of providers ready and they would help women plant every detail
of their trip the trips would never be in the same state or city in which they met with the
clergy and the reason they did this was their lawyers had advised them saying if
you send them over state lines it makes prosecution more difficult if you send them out of the country it makes it even
more so were they putting themselves in an illegal threat so some states made it illegal to even
talk about or give abortion information or referral information like Florida and
so it wasn't just giving an abortion but talking about abortion giving abortion information
that made this a criminal Enterprise and so clergy felt that they were taking great risks they worried that their
phones were being tapped they would say don't say the word abortion over the phone they would say use the word
problem pregnancy and they were worried with good reason that they were being surveyed by police
or district attorneys the network grew quickly and they started getting calls from clergy all
over the country some wanted their names on the list but others weren't so open it depended on
the congregation and it depended upon their location somewhere wide open and so senior ministers often would do this
for example in Unitarian congregations with the full knowledge and support of their congregations other clergy did it
covertly kept their heads down did the referrals and some paid the price some ministers were fired from their posts
never to work as a minister again there's a couple cases in Iowa where ministers were fired because their
congregation felt that they were doing practices that were unethical or immoral and that they didn't agree with
but you know for the most part I I believe that most congregations had some Inkling
the Book of James speaks of religion being represented by the the care of the orphans and the widows and their
afflictions [Music] unwanted unintended pregnancies and affliction uh it was a natural call in my sense to
engage in this kind of of work I did this is Reverend Robert Hayer he was a pastor in Cleveland Ohio in 1969
when he helped an Ohio woman visit a doctor in Massachusetts for an abortion my attorney
had said that you aren't breaking the law at that time the doctors were and they
were taking a great risk ready for them that they were taking willing to take such a risk but he said
you know what you're doing is a kind of at the edge but you're not actually in violation of the law talking to council
leaves foreign but it did work out that way for me up to Ohio the lot of cramping she pulled over and went
into a police station she ended up telling the police the whole story including the names of both
the doctor and Reverend hair I answered the phone call by the bedside at 6 30 or 7 in the morning one day it
was Associated Press wanting confirmation that I had been criminally indicted in Massachusetts
I had never heard of this uh do you know what to do about it but I could hear the Checker tapes running uh
in the background what were you being charged with I was charged with aiding and abetting a criminal abortion
Reverend Hare fought the indictment for years all the way up to the state supreme court until the case was
eventually dismissed how did the CCS know that the doctors they were working with were trustworthy
they would send female members of the CCS or their assistants to pose as pregnant women
Gillian Frank and interview and investigate the doctors they would check out where the clinic was they would see
if it was in a safe part of town they would check out this sterility of the instruments they would even be up on the
table right before the procedure was about to be performed before they revealed their identity and so that was
the initial assessment but that spot assessment was followed up by inviting each and every female client who they
helped to write a review of the abortion provider was he kind did he charge you what he
said he was going to charge you did he have sterile instruments assess everything tell us everything and there
are these long detailed letters from women who took them up on this and so if there was a negative report if something
funny was going on they would get a call from the clergy and basically because the clergy were this Mass referral
system they had economic Leverage they convinced doctors to reduce their fees and sometimes to wave them all
together individual clergy reported using discretionary funds to help women make trips out of the country rabbis in
New England remember congregants pitching in to offset costs the clergy were able to find so many
doctors who did such good jobs and so many medical providers because sometimes they used non-licensed Physicians who
also did fantastic jobs and how many women came away not only unharmed but feeling that the procedure was safe
quick efficient and affordable after a few years the clergy consultation service had operations all over the
country in some places there were Roman Catholic priests or nuns in the group many of the branches are helping
hundreds and hundreds of people per week it's a profound amount of people that are coming to them for help
the numbers of women coming to them made them more confident about what they were
doing they applied pressure to hospitals and lawmakers and wrote into newspapers
arguing that the law was not and never had been enforceable they wrote the public debate on abortion laws is
escalating it is not important any longer to play a numbers game about illegal abortions we
do not believe in statistical morality they argued that abortion laws disproportionately hurt poor women
especially women of color writing quote the present law by the way in which it circumvented is highly discriminatory
allowing remedy only for those who have access to money and private doctors and private hospitals
because clergy were respectable because they had a lot of social status because the meetings they have can be
seen as privileged and not subject to Legal scrutiny they're in a perfect position to help women on the ground but
also to create a mechanism to challenge abortion laws and so from there it snowballs in 1970 New York repealed its
criminal abortion law and the clergy consultation service could send women to New York for legal abortions okay what
we did at Stevens and this was true of women in all around the state particularly the women in
Stevens when the dorm opened at 5 30 we would take them to St Louis Reverend William Kirby was a university chaplain
first at Stevens College in Columbia Missouri and then later at Princeton they would get on an American Airlines
flight to Dobbs Ferry in New York Dobbs Ferry would have a limousine waiting for
them at LaGuardia and take them to Dobbs Ferry we had trained the Dobbs Ferry staff and doctors we had a nurse on our
staff who would go to the clinics and train doctors the woman would be there and get it get the abortion fairly
quickly and then have a couple of hours to see if she was not going to Hemorrhage then they would take her back
to the plane she would be on the five o'clock American Airlines flight back to St Louis Carr would pick her up and
she'd be back in the dormitory within the same day by 10 30. and subsequently we sent our nurse American Airlines
allowed us to teach the flight attendants on that five o'clock flight back to from
LaGuardia to St Louis that they may have a woman there who had had an abortion and might be hemorrhaging and she taught
them what to do so how many women would you say you supervise or oversaw putting on that
flight I I estimated myself at 3 000 and and we were I I I I don't know the answer to
that question thank you frankly I told my secretary when the cops come call my lawyer first and my wife second
the legislature in Jefferson City Missouri called me before a senate hearing because if you in in Missouri if
you even pointed toward the airplane and suggested abortion you were guilty I took the Fifth Amendment many times
that night why don't you think more people know about ccs and what happened we kept no records
we weren't taunting the police and so nobody knew about us except people who wanted an abortion and
the women knew about us in the community [Music] by 1972 the clergy consultation service
was operating in more than 600 locations across the country the next year when Roe v Wade granted
women the constitutional right to have an abortion some clergy shifted their focus to making sure women had access to
contraception others went back to normal life leading their congregations do we have any numbers about how many
women were served in some ways it's impossible to know for sure exactly how many women obtained an
abortion through the ccs and so it depends how you do the math I would say conservatively they helped upward of a
quarter of a million women and I think that because they kept such poor records or they would destroy
records out of necessity we don't really have the exact number how did you hear about this
I discovered them by accident I was looking at the legislative records and I'm looking at these debates in the
newspaper articles and I keep seeing mention of the clergy consultation service and I was so surprised I said
this doesn't make sense this doesn't sync up with any of the stories I've heard I thought naively at the time that
religious folk were conservative and opposed abortion and that abortion rights activists were secular and it
turns out that this story is much more complicated [Applause] this past May the surviving members of
the clergy consultation service met at Judson Memorial Church in New York City to Mark the 50th anniversary of their
formation they came from all over the country most of them had never met in person before
there was a church service open to the public and the clergy consultation members said in the first two rows and
stood up to be recognized one by one as their names were called [Music] foreign [Music]
[Laughter] Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers Julian Alexander makes
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[Music] RX

In 1967, a very unlikely group of individuals gathered to help women quietly break the law and obtain an abortion. The first step was to call a phone number. A recording of a woman’s voice would tell you what to do next.

Who was behind this number? The Clergy Consultation Service, an underground network of ministers and rabbis who wanted to help women access safe abortions. Today, they call themselves the Religious Consultation for Reproductive Choice.

Music in the episode “Kalsted” by Blue Dot Sessions “Topslides” by Blue Dot Sessions “Slow Casino” by Blue Dot Sessions “A Certain Lightness” by Blue Dot Sessions “All the Ways” by Podington Bear “Thoughtless” by Blue Dot Sessions “To Overflow” by Blue Dot Sessions

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Episode 70 originally published 7/7/2017 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-70-the-procedure-7-7-2017

Brief Summary

Clergy formed an underground network to help women access safe abortions before Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973.

Key points

A Dangerous Time for Women. Many women resorted to unsafe methods for abortions due to restrictive laws.
The Underground Network for Abortions. Clergy formed a secret network to help women access safe abortions.
The Risks of Providing Abortions. Clergy faced legal threats while helping women obtain safe abortions.
Clergy Consultation Service's Impact. By 1972, the CCS was operating in over 600 locations, aiding countless women.
A Surprising Discovery. A researcher uncovers the clergy's unexpected role in abortion access.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I didn't know what to do or what to say.

Finley Schaef reflects on a difficult moment.

0:45WatchDec 12, 2022

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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