Lives at risk Women who battled for right to abortion in 70s prepare to fight again

Veteran activists say the drive to overthrow landmark ruling should send warning signals around the world

- Miranda Bryant

It was over the Thanksgiving holiday, catching up with old high school friends, that Frances Beal heard that Cordelia had died. Just like the now 82-year-old Black feminist and activist, her friend had gone to college, but she didn’t make it through her first year because, like anybody who wanted to terminate a pregnancy in the US in 1958, she had to undergo a backstreet abortion.

“She was dead because she’d had an illegal abortion. And it had gone bad. And if you take a look at the statistics, the number of women that died from illegal abortions was tremendous,” Beal, who later joined the movement to legalise abortion, said.

Now, more than 60 years after Cordelia’s death and nearly half a century since Roe v Wade legalised abortion, she fears many more women could die after a leaked draft document appears to show the supreme court is preparing to overturn the landmark ruling.

“The overthrow of Roe v Wade equals the murder and assassination of women and that’s something that I feel in my heart will happen again,” said the author of the pioneering 1969 pamphlet Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female.