ABORTION AND CONTROL —— HON. SHIRLEY CHISHOLM OF NEW YORE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Wednesday, December 10, 1969- Mrs. CHISHOLM. Mr. Speaker, yester- day I gave the following speech before the Senate Committee on Labor and Pub- lic Welfare’s Subcommittee on Health as part of their hearings on population ‘ control. I am including these remarks in the ’ CONGRESSIONAL ReEcorp to serve as a ref- erence for any of the Members or private citizens who might be interested in the issue: STATEMENT BY Mrs. CHISHOLM For quite some time now I have been an ardent advocate of family planning. It seems to me quite obvious that whenever it 1s pos- sible to do-so, the Mmitation of the number of births should be accomplished by the utilization of contraceptive devices as a de- sirable method. However, it is apparent that based on pop- ulation growth statistics and the writings of many eminent demographers and scien- tists that the issue of overpopulation has become a most pressing one. A number of writers predict that as early as 1990 we will witness world famines whose primary cause will be linked directly population growth. Lawrence Lader, now executive director of the national association to repeal abortion laws has written that “Beyond the problem TION December 11, 1969 of economics and food supply, the brutal reality ts that the world will eventually run out of space to hold a population that keeps doubling at the present rate. General Eisen- hower, an opponent of family planning aid during his Presidency, has this to say today: . since the Earth is finite in area and physical resources, it is clear that unless something is done to bring an essential equilibrium between human requirements and available supply, there is going to be in some regions not only a series of explosions but a lowering of standards for all people, including our own.’ ” I am equally aware that there are many Political, legal, social, moral and economic issues inyolved in Government-sponsored birth control programs and policies and that *there have and will appear before this com- mittee eminently more qualified and adept people than I to discuss those issues. Therefore, I will address myself solely to some of those issues that surround the most widely used method of birth control in the world today—abortion. Alice S. Rossi, in an excellent article in the July-August 1969 issue of Dissent made this most cogent comment about the word “abortion”: “Free associations to the word “abortion” would probably yield a fantastic array of emotional responses: pain, relief, murder, crime, fear, freedom, genocide, guilt, sin. Which of these associations people have no doubt reflects their age, marital status, religion or nationality. To a forty-four-year- oid Japanese or Hungarian woman, the pri- mary response might be “freedom” and “relief”; to an unmarried American college girl, “fear” and “pain”; to a Catholic priest, “murder” and “sin”; to some black militants, “genocide”. . There are many ways to avoid the nega- tive associations and connotations that sur- round the word. We could, for example, bor- row the term advanced by the British when they recently rewrote their laws—'preg- nancy termination”. I believe that that would get us closer to the heart of the issue but it would still not be close enough. Not close enough because the basic issue— and the only real alternatives for the preg- pane woman who does not want the child— is abortion or compulsory pregnancy. If we view the issue in this perspective we are at what one might call “ground zero”. Does our Government or any other govern- ment have the right by which to force a woman to have a child that she does not want? In Hungary, Gyorgy Peters, the chief government statisticlan, has answered (pre- sumably with backing from higher officials) with an emphatic “no!” He reportedly has teaid “the introduction of regulations with which the state would interfere with the freedom.of the parents contradicts our po- 5 litical and moral concepts.” What then must we, as representatives of a democracy, an- swer to the question? The majority of family planning advocates would be aghast if our Government were to suggest laws requiring the use of any con- traceptive, or, as In a recent case in Call- fornia, legal sterilization. Yet it has been Government policy in this country that compels pregnant women +o carry a full-term pregnancy, often against the wishes of both parents. Dr. Garrett Hardin has, perhaps rightly, equated this situation with compulsory ser- vitude and has sald “when we recognize that these (abortion or compulsory pregnancy) are the real operational alternatives (for the pregnant woman), the false problems cre- ated by the pseudo-alternatives disappear.” Gentlemen, if I may, I would like to now discuss some of the statistics that are perti- nent to this number one method of birth control. One: The safest method of contraception now Known, if one excepts total abstinence, is supposedly the pill. But certain statistics - show that even when the pill is used prop- erly there is a failure rate of approximately one percent. Consequently, if all fertile women in the United States were using this method of contraception properly there would still be some 250,000 unwanted births. Two: At present there are approximately 245,000 babies born illegitimately in the United States each year. We cannot say definitely that all of the iliegitimate children born each year are either unplanned or unwanted but what is clear from a comparison with the first sta- tistic is: that the same number of births, patently unwanted, would be with us each year even if information and dispensing services about the pill (or any other method) were working at the optimum level. It is further clear that with the present laws and ‘policies in effect, at that polnt we would indeed be compelling pregnancy even though the women had attempted every- thing within her power, except total absti- nence to prevent the pregnancy. . Shall we take another look at the illegit- imacy statistic? About 41 percent of- the illegitimate births are to young girls under 19 years of age. What happens to these young ladies and their children? Society’s attitude seems to be “you've had your pleasure now pay the price!” which is more immoral, granting an individual, basic right or forcing a young girl—some as young as 14 or 15—to assume the responsi- -bilities of an adult without the privileges, rights and the opportunities? What are we doing to the mother? What are we doing to the unborn child? . There is a the fact that if a white gives up her child for adoption there is & good possibility that the child will be adopted. This is not the case for black and other minority-group children. When they are given up they spend most of their child- hood in orphanages, public institutions and foster homes. This is, I believe, one of the. prime reasons that so many black girls choose to keep their babies. — - oe - That is only a.smail part of the moral cost that we pay for maintaining our pres- ent attitudes. There is another reason that might appeal to you gentlemen more. Compulsory pregnancy costs money. For & moment I would like to continue to con- centrate on the illegitimacy statistic. The number of illegitimate children on AFDC has been rising steadily. As of 1967 there were 1,100,000 on AFDC. That was 28 per cent of all children on the rolls. About ¥, to % of all illegitimate children under 18 (and in 1967 there were 4.5 million) are on the AFDC rolls. There are at present over 70,000 unwed mothers receiving aid for de- pendent children. The AFDC payments range from $10.55 per recipient in Mississippi to $64.65 in New Jersey. The national average per recipient is Jersey. The national average per recipient is $44.30, for the District of Columta it is $42.40. Think about it, gentlemen, the total amount paid out for these children is about $48,730,- 000 a year and unmarried mothers are the ones who find it most difficult to get off the Public Assistance rolls. I have talked a great deal about Illegiti- macy today. I have done it purposefully be- cause people tend to be squeamish and don’t want to generally discuss the matter. I think we must discuss it and many more of the subjects that surround the abortion is- sue and come to grips with them. I do not believe in either sugarcoating or hiding the issues. I would like to make one final point about illegitimacy for those of you who might be thinking about the immorality of women re- ceiving AFDC. As I understand it, the largest increase in the AFDC rolls is coming not from those women who are now receiving public assistance but from those women who find y that AFDC is the only answer to the prob- lem of compulsory pregnancy that they face. Before you condemn their immorality con- sider that there is two sides to the coin and that the government policy that we as elected officials represent is the other side of it. Three: one can hardly discuss the issue of abortion by pointing out the inadequacy of the pill or the number of Illegitimate births while ignoring legitimate but unwanted births, A recent survey by Dr. Charles Westoff of Princeton University’s office of population re- search reveals that 22 percent of all legiti- mate births in the United States are un- wanted by either the husband or the wife. This in-depth study also revealed that of all economic groups the poor were most anxious about this issue. Among the poor (as classi- fied by the social security standards) 42 per cent of all legitimate births were unwanted. The principal reason seems to be either finan- cial or financially related e.g., crowded hous- ing. ‘ The plethora of studies, committees and commissions on poverty and its causes have shown beyond a doubt that there is a very high correlation between family size and the ability of the family to break the poverty cycle. The risk of poverty increases rapidly from 9% for one-child families to 42% for families with six or more children. Nearly half of the children growing up in poverty in 19686 were members of families with five children or more under 18; more than \% of all families with four or more children live-in poverty; the risk of poverty Is two and one half times that for families with three chil- dren or less. I do not want you to think however that I am asking you to consider this aspect of fam- ily planning solely as an element of what was known as the “war on poverty”. If this were the sole reason, we would indeed be waging a full scale war on the poor themselves. No, I am suggesting that we move away from the concept of a class-oriented family planning policy. I am asking that all of those family planning services available to the middle-class, rich and white be made avaii- able and accessible to the poor, black and brown, The primary one- which is not avail- able at present, under safe and sanitary con- ditions, is pregnancy termination; and abor- tion is, as I noted, the number one method of birth controL Why do I say that this service is not equal- ly available, under safe and sanitary condi- tions, for at least minority-group poor wom- en? In New York City, for example, well over 90% of ail therapeutic abortions are per- formed on white women, according to the association for the study of abortion. In January of this year an article in the Scientific American estimated that the ratio of therapeutic abortions per 1000 deliveries in this country was 2.6 for white women, .5 for black women and .1 for Puerto-Rican women. One must also note that in New York City from 1960-1962 the abortion ratio in municipal hospitals was only .1 per 1000 live births. Plainly and simply, this shows that legal abortions are not readily available to the minority-group poor, in New York City at least. ’ There is also the financial burden that even legal abortion can and does impose. The cost of a legal abortion, mainly because the uneven laws that now govern, may cost from $500 to $1,000, The fees vary from doc- - tor to doctor, and from State to State, but average cost with hospital expenses could well be somewhere between $500 and $700. It is obvious that none of the poor can afford this luxurious method of birth control. But nevertheless they are the ones who most often find themselves in crucial need of it. They, of course, seek out the illegal ‘December 11, 1969 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks E 10547 abortionist or attempt to do it themselves. The financial cost may be as low as $30, or the average cost of a year’s supply of the But it is the other cost, the human cost, that is horrifying to contemplate. Edwin Gold’s study estimates that of. the deaths of women related to maternity in New York City, abortion was the cause of death for only 26% of the white women while it caused 49% of the deaths of non-white women and 56% of the deaths of Puerto-Rican women. This is at least a part of my answer to those who say that family planning is a form of genocide. What could be more like geno- ctde than what a comparison of these sta- tistics I Just gave you portray? Further, in 1966, Dr. Carl Goldmark, Jr., president of the New York County Medical Society, estimated that about 80% of all maternal deaths were the result of criminal abortions. But gentlemen, let us come a bit closer to “home, to Washington, that showplace of the Nation. What is the situation here? Well, Dr. Milan Vuitch, who was the cen~ tral figure in Judge Gessell's recent ruling on the District’s compulsory pregnancy law, estimates that more than 20,000 abortions & year are performed in the greater Washing- ton area. He further estimates that only 25% of them are performed in hospitals. That means that there are more than 15,000 illegal abortions performed in or near Washington. The municipal hospitals in the District have the same anti-black, anti-poor policies in effect that I find in the New York City hospitals. D.C. General, for instance, reports 80 therapeutic abortions for last year. That is roughly .016% for the legal abortions in the greater Washington area. That figure has even more impact, I believe, when one re~- alizes that it is only .004% of the total abor- tlons performed, both legally and illegally, in this area. The impact multiplies dramatically when we consider that D.C..General also reports between 800 and 1,000 incomplete abortions. Incomplete means that the abortion was in- duced, either by drugs, instrument or nat- urally, but that it did not complete natu- rally ... therefore it must be completed by 8 physician. . In short, they expended 10 to 12 times more effort on repairing botched, non-pro- fessional surgery than they did on perform- ing medically safe, professional surgery. That is nothing short of complete absurdity. Botched abortions are the single largest cause of maternal deaths in the United States and tt is evidently going to be Government policy to keep it that way. There are no clear statistics on exactly how many illegal abortions there are each year in this country. Estimates range from as low as 200,000 to 1.5 million. One thing that is clear however is that if we repealed our compulsory pregnancy laws the incidents would be reduced. There are many statistics from other coun- tries that support my contention. But in the interest of saying time let me quote instead from an afticle about the new British law that appeared in the Washington Post in June of last year. ~ “Some doctors contend the only value of the bill is to prevent the harm done by secret abortionists. They say Hungary al- lows abortions for anyone who wants one, and illegal operations have reportedly faded away. Czechoslovakia has a ‘social clause’ similar to Britain and clandestine abortions chave dropped to 4,000 a year instead of 100,000.” May I point out that if there are now 1,500,000 illegal abortions in this country, a drop of the same percentage would re- duce the number of illegal operations ‘per- formed to about 30,000; that is only about twice as many as are now performed in the District of Columbia alone. $m. : we + E10548 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks December 11, 1 969 * Gentlemen, let us look briefly at some of the countries where the compulsory preg- nancy laws have been weakened of, tf you’ prefer, where abortion laws have been Hb- eralized: ” . Experience in Sweden and Denmark have shown that as legal abortions increased the death rate associated with it decreased. In 1967 in Hungary there were 187,000 legal abortions as against 148,900 lve births. Similarly Czechoslovakia’s birthrate has been reduced but not as drastically at Hun- gary’s. : Romania, after substituting a more re- strictive law in 1966, discovered that their birth rate almost tripled 1m one year, the previous rate: being 13.7 per 1,000. It would seem that the absence of com- pulsory pregnancy laws alone can contrib- ute a great deal to the control of the popu- lation growth, especially when one considers that at least the eastern bloc countries men- toned do not widely practice the more mod- ern methods of contraception. Of course no discussion. of abortion would be complete without discussing the politi- cally volatile issue of religious and moral concepts. - Since we are already outside of the coun try, let’s stay there momentarily to quickly inspect the abortion rates of a few coun- tries with large Catholic populations: The illegal abortion rate in Uruguay is almost two and one-half times the number of annual live births. In Roman Catholic Chile, 27 percent of the women reported that they had had abor- tions at one time or another. : In Roman Catholic France, the annual number of abortions equals the annual num- ber of live births. Coming back to this country we find that in a poll conducted in 1967, no Jess than 72 percent of the Catholics polled favored abor- _tion reform, as did 83 percent of the Protes- tants and 98 percent of the Jewish. No lesser a Catholic luminary than Car- dinal Cushing of Boston was quoted as hav- Ing said “It does not seem reasonable to me to forbid in civil law a practice that can be considered a matter of private morality.” He was of course speaking of the less traditional methods of birth control, con- traceptives, but it is my belief that logical extension to abortion is now in order. That is especially true if he did, in fact, mean “A practice that can be considered a matter of private morality.” Outlawing compulsory pregnancy laws, which some of you might still prefer to call legalizing abortion, would not be forcing any doctor or hospital to perform abortions against their beliefs. By outlawing these laws we would instead be honoring the basic and individual right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. ~ There are literally reams of other statis: tics that I might present to you gentlemen today in support of the repeal of the present compulsory pregnancy laws. However, time will not allow me to nor am I sure that it would accomplish more than muddying up the waters. The basic underlying question in any dis- cussion of compulsory pregnancy laws (which I choose, to use rather than the term abortion laws) is what should a woman who is pregnant against her will do and what should the professional and public response toward her be if she chooses to terminate the pregnancy? - If the underlying thesis of family plan- ning. is to reduce even the number of wanted pregnancies, is it not illogical then to con- tinue to force women with unwanted preg- nancies to have the child? I think that it is!