Free Rebels in White Gloves by Miriam Horn

were by then using it, the pope’s encyclical
Humanae Vitae
in 1968 explicitly prohibited the use of contraceptives. In predominantly Catholic Massachusetts, contraceptives could be distributed only by physicians and only to married women; anyone prescribing birth control to an unmarried woman under twenty-one could be prosecuted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Abortion, except to save the life of a woman, was a felony punishable by life imprisonment. Even a doctor who gave a gynecological exam to a girl under eighteen could be prosecuted for statutory rape. So while pamphlets circulated on campus quoting Masters and Johnson on “the myth of the vaginal orgasm” and urging coeds to learn to masturbate, others warned girls not to try to abort themselves by inserting objects in the vagina, falling down stairs, swallowing quinine or lead, or douching with gasoline, vinegar, potassium permanganate, or kerosene.
    Still, a third of the women in the class have had abortions, many of them before
Roe
v.
Wade
. They would pass secret knowledge from dorm to dorm, of gas stations in New Jersey where five hundred dollars—cash—would buy them an operation. In a motel room. Without anesthesia.
    A girl from Sutton Place had better alternatives. “I felt trapped and not strong enough to make any decision on my own, so I told my parents.They wanted to know who it was. I lied.” Lorna’s father made all the arrangements. “In New York, if you’re rich, you can find people. My father was a very pragmatic man. He also had his own checkered sexual history, though I didn’t know that at the time. Being of the generation where they never admitted mistakes, my parents didn’t say, ‘We know how it can be.’ They did what they had to do to spare themselves embarrassment, then punished me with their scorn. Looking back, I’m struck by the incredible hypocrisy of their disdain.”
    At spring break, Lorna’s father took her to Puerto Rico. They drove to a small pink adobe building, where she was led upstairs to a spare, clean room. “I didn’t see anyone else; we were all kept separate and concealed. A male doctor and two nurses put me on a table and, with a shot, induced labor. I was awake for hours through incredibly painful contractions. I remember throwing up from the pain. Afterwards, I didn’t think about it much. I couldn’t afford to. It was just something that had to be done. All my parents said to me was, ‘We were going to send you to Europe for graduation. Too bad we spent that money on your abortion.’ ”
    Lorna didn’t tell anyone at Wellesley where she’d been or what she’d done. And though she continued to visit Neil at the stables, she wouldn’t have sex with him again. The next January, however, she succumbed. Four weeks later, when she went to get birth control pills, she learned she was pregnant. “This time I didn’t tell my parents, not till it was too late, in June. I did call somebody in a Boston back alley, but it sounded so iffy and weird that I chickened out.
    “I began to think I should just have the baby. This was spring of my junior year, but I had no goals and couldn’t imagine what my degree would do for me. I’d wanted to be a vet, but then decided that was out of reach after a discouraging conversation with the dean. My father would say every summer, ‘Why don’t you take typing so you can always be a secretary?’ I didn’t want to be a secretary, or a teacher. Both seemed like being a wife and mother, with none of the perks. I was undirected. Neil wanted to marry me. I thought it’d be neat to have a baby. I had no other plans.”
    Jamey was born September 20 of what would have been Lorna’s senior year. “I don’t know why my parents didn’t say, ‘You will finish college.’ I needed less than a year.” Instead, Lorna dropped out of school and got married. She wore a white and yellow dress she’d bought atFilene’s Basement and carried yellow roses. About