it changed EVERYTHING

How an abortion affected the lives of these seven women

- KELLI MARÍA KORDUCKI

ELIZABETH STONE, 76

NEW YORK author and journalist

It was December 1965. I was 19 years old, a college senior at Berkeley, home for the holidays in Brooklyn, N.Y. I had a boyfriend in graduate school in Indiana, and I’d gone to visit him over Thanksgiving, so I knew exactly how pregnant I was.

In those days there was only one man we all knew about, Dr. Spencer, who performed abortions for middle-class girls like me. He had just retired.

He examined me at his office and confirmed I was pregnant, then told me to go home and call back with the number of a nearby pay phone, which I’d found at a gas station not far from my house. Remember, we’re talking about pre-Roe v. Wade. The next day I had to wait at that gas station phone for a call to come in. And that call told me to wait at a location in Rahway, N.J., at 6 a.m. a few days later with a white envelope with $500 in it. A car would pick me up, and a car would bring me back. That was all I knew. I was going off with no certainty that I would ever see anyone again or be found alive.

I was graduating with honors, and I had a number of invitations to apply to graduate school. What lay ahead, which largely did come to pass, would have been completely decimated had I not had an abortion. I got a master’s and a Ph.D. I went on to write four books and hundreds of articles.