Letter to the editor
I grew up in a city with a huge naval base, and as the old WW II song goes, “All the nice girls love a sailor” – and they did. In my town, most of the girls who were impregnated by these wonderful sailors worked in the naval yards all day during the week and a half day on Saturday, so they had their abortions after work on Saturday.
I went to a convent school and worked at the related hospital across the street on the weekend. Sundays were often the days when these girls would come in hemorrhaging from an abortion they had gotten in some sleazy hotel room by an unskilled abortionist.
Next I lived in London, where I shared a room with an English girl who was impregnated by a boy she did not love. She bled so much from her botched illegal abortion that she spent almost a month in bed recovering. In her weakened state, she contracted TB, which almost ended her life.
Next I moved to New York City, where I worked as a fashion model. One day I received a letter from an old schoolmate who was living in Montreal. She was coming to visit me. I learned when she came that it was because she had been raped and wanted an abortion. I had no idea what to do, so I asked my fellow workers. That is when I learned that the fashion models all went to the Caribbean for their abortions, and the stock room girls went to some place up in Harlem.