Abortion rights advocates learn no victory is permanent

In March 1969, nearly 1,000 women held a rally in support of legal abortion at the Washington state Capitol. One brought a sign with a metal coat hanger — a reference to the sometimes fatal do-it-yourself abortions that desperate women attempted.

Last Tuesday, signs with coat hangers were back, at another rally at the Capitol for abortion rights — this one addressed by Gov. Jay Inslee, Lt. Gov. Denny Heck, local state legislators and city council members.

For the many rally attendees old enough to remember what happened in 1969 and 1970, it was a trip down memory lane.

Back then, two very different groups advocated for legal abortion: feminists, then considered radical, gender-nonconforming, and wild; and a cautious, respectable group led by Seattle psychologist Samuel Goldenberger, Republican state Sen. Joel Pritchard, the Rev. Everett J. Jensen, General Secretary of the Washington State Council of Churches, and Marilyn Ward, a lobbyist for children’s issues.

Following that 1969 rally, the feminists packed a hearing on a proposed abortion bill. In an essay in Historylink.org, Cassandra Tate writes that “During a stormy hearing, dominated by a delegation of women from Seattle’s Central Area, members of the Rules Committee were heckled as they tried to justify their inaction. Senator William S. Day, a Democrat from Spokane, said he was against the bill because he felt that women didn’t have the right to make such a decision.

“‘Women are of varying intelligence,’ he said.

“’So are legislators,’ a woman shouted,” according to The Seattle Times. (Describing the women as “from Seattle’s Central Area” was another way of saying that some of them were Black.)

The bill died.

The next year, the Washington Citizens for Abortion Reform — the respectable, male-led group — took the lead, and the feminists held back. WCAR got a bill passed. In the Senate it won yes votes from 14 Republicans and 11 Democrats. It required married women to have their husbands’ consent, and minors to have their parents’ consent. It restricted abortions to the first four lunar months of a pregnancy. It also had a referendum clause sending final approval to the voters. Republican Gov. Dan Evans signed it.

The campaign for its passage focused on health and safety, and the support of medical professionals and clergy. “Let each family have the right to decide” was its slogan.

Its opponents, the Voice for the Unborn, ran a campaign featuring blood-drenched images that turned people’s stomachs. The pro-campaign was described as “educational, and in good taste.”

In November, the referendum passed with 56.9 percent of the vote.

In 1973, the Roe v. Wade decision removed the requirement that women get their husbands’ permission. And in 1991, state Initiative 120 declared that “every individual possesses a fundamental right of privacy with respect to personal reproductive decisions.”

But perhaps as a harbinger of growing division, Initiative 120 passed by only 4,222 votes out of over 1.5 million cast.

Now it looks as if the rug is about to be pulled out from under Roe v. Wade, leaving Washington among the minority of states where legal abortion will remain safe and legal. But on Tuesday, even the safety of Washington was in question. Inslee proposed a constitutional amendment to protect it from any chance of future anti-choice majorities in the state legislature.

In his leaked draft opinion calling for overturning Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito claimed that legal abortion is not embedded in our national “history and tradition,” and that women’s liberty — a right included in the 14th amendment — does not require it.

But for those not old enough to remember the world before 1973, legal abortion has been part of history and tradition during their entire lifetimes. And the very bedrock of women’s liberty is the right to sovereignty over their own bodies.

As one of last Tuesday’s rally organizers said, “No victory is permanent.” And as the abolitionist Wendell Phillips said in 1852, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Clearly, we have work to do.

This story was originally published May 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.