03/08/06 When Abortion Was A Crime; Doctor, Patients Tell How It Was

When Lue Allen got pregnant in 1953, she was just 20 and not ready to be a parent.

"I was young," she said at a news conference this morning. "I was scared. I wanted one thing. I wanted an abortion."

Abortion was illegal at the time but Allen knew that if you could borrow $200 you could find somebody to do the procedure.

Allen did just that.

It wasn't a back alley," she said. But it wasn't clean or safe either.

Allen said she felt a tremendous sense of relief from the abortion and went on to marry and have four children.

"All were welcome and all were wanted," she said.

Allen shared her experience at a news conference at the State Capitol where Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, and others unveiled a bill to repeal Wisconsin's 157-year-old criminal abortion ban.

"If you outlaw abortion you won't stop abortion," Allen said. "You'll just make it dangerous."

Berceau said her plan to start circulating the bill today coincides significantly with International Women's Day.

"Around the globe women continue to die from unsafe, illegal abortions," she said. It's a shame, she added, that politicians would rather women die than terminate a pregnancy.

South Dakota last week passed a law that bans virtually all abortions within its borders.

Dr. John Stevenson, who saw the harmful results of illegal abortions when he was a young medical resident at a Boston hospital, and Ann Peckham, a longtime Republican and abortion rights supporter, also spoke in favor of Berceau's bill.

Amanda Harrington, a rape victim, said she was grateful for the access to health services she had after surviving a violent sexual assault.

"Every choice made available to me proved invaluable to re-establishing the control over my life that I lost after my rape," Harrington said.

Berceau was also joined this morning by a number of her Assembly colleagues, including Monona Sen. Mark Miller and Madison Reps. Mark Pocan and Joe Parisi.

Wisconsin's ban was never removed from the books even when the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade rendered it unconstitutional.

Berceau and others are worried that a more conservative Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade. That would mean, under current Wisconsin law, that women and doctors could go to jail for performing or having an abortion.

Berceau said Wisconsin's ban is even more restrictive than the law recently passed in South Dakota.

Under Wisconsin's law, doctors who perform abortions could receive up to 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine; women could go to jail for obtaining an abortion, even if they are rape victims or need an abortion to preserve their health.

Berceau acknowledged that her bill will not likely get far in the current Republican-controlled Legislature but said it might pick up momentum and be ready for the next session.

She said she knows there are Republican legislators who support abortion rights who are getting increasingly uncomfortable with continued attempts to restrict access to the procedure.

\ E-mail: jdavidoff@madison.com