The women who provided abortions before Roe give a 'grim' glimpse of life after it
In the late 1960s, when abortion was still illegal in most of the country, a group of politically engaged young women in Chicago took matters into their own hands and formed an underground network to help people obtain safe and affordable abortions.
The solution for anyone in need was to call "Jane," the code name used by the coalition of mostly white, middle-class women who defied the law by facilitating an estimated 11,000-plus abortions between 1969 and 1973, when Roe v. Wade made abortion legal.
At a perilous moment for reproductive rights, "The Janes," which premiered Wednesday on HBO, revisits the work of what was then called simply "the service" but has more recently been dubbed "The Jane Collective." (The formal name was the Abortion Counseling Service of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union.)
Featuring first-person accounts from more than a dozen women involved with the service, "The Janes" offers a powerful look at an era before abortion was widely available and when most options for terminating a pregnancy were dangerous and unreliable. There are harrowing recollections of abortions performed by ruthless mobsters, doctors who expected sexual favors of their patients and desperate women who died alone in Chicago's septic abortion ward.
But the story is also told with surprising humor and
