Geraldine Santoro's Dangerous Self-Induced Abortion

In the early hours of June 4, 1964 the body of Geraldine Santoro was found in a low-end motel room. She was found on the floor, her face shoved into the carpeted ground with her knees tucked into her chest, blood seeping down her thighs, she had bled to death from a self induced abortion. Santoro, at the time, was living separately from her abusive husband and was with another man, Clyde Dixon, whom she had fallen pregnant with. She feared her husband would seek retribution and murder her because of this, she opted to abort the baby. Clyde and Geraldine checked into a motel on June 3, 1964 with plans to abort the baby themselves. The operation quickly fell apart after Santoro started to hemorrhage, Clyde fled the scene leaving her to slowly

It was after that year, the laws began to change and restrictions on birth control and abortions started to appear. Women who were desperate resorted to attempting dangerous self-induced abortions. Some of the methods used were: inserting knitting needles or coat hangers into the vagina and uterus, douching with solutions such as detergent, or swallowing strong drugs or chemicals. These dangerous self performed abortions caused many women to end up in hospitals with infections, with some women becoming sterile, and in extreme cases resulted in death. It wasn’t until 100+ years later the tide of abortions started to

Inspired hugely by the Civil Rights and Antiwar movements, woman banded together and to start another Women's Rights movement. Unlike the Suffragette movement, that took place from 1848 to 1920, this focused solely on dismantling workplace inequality, such as denial of access to better jobs and salary inequity, discriminatory and anti abortion laws, and equality on both a political and personal level. In 1959, the American Law Institute, ALI, proposed to legalized abortion in cases of rape, incest, or fetal deformity. In 1967, Colorado Governor signed the ALI’s proposed bill which would allow women to legally obtain an abortion in cases of permanent physical or mental disability for the mother or child, and in cases of rape and incest. Following in the steps of Colorado’s Governor, 14 more states reformed and four states repealed restrictive abortion laws between 1967 and 1972.

On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court struck down all existing criminal abortion laws in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The courts were found in favor that it’s a woman’s decision to seek an abortion in the first trimester and was protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty. However, the Courts allowed the States to place and regulation they saw fit on the second and third trimester abortions except for if a pregnant woman’s life or health were endangered. In that case, a woman would not