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Few appreciate the problem in Colorado better than Alice Johnson, 28, a Denver schoolteacher. When she became pregnant last fall, she believed that she could easily qualify for an abortion on psychological grounds. But a psychiatrist seeking to establish justification for the abortion asked her if she would kill herself rather than have the baby, and Alice was unwilling to lie ("I was not mentally ill, just pregnant"). Without a statement that Alice's pregnancy was likely to lead to suicide, the psychiatrist felt that he might not be able to convince the hospital board, which must approve the operations, that it was necessary. Alice went to New York.
GETTING INFORMATION. Lack of information makes abortion difficult for many women, and for a time provided an almost irresistible opportunity for profiteering. In New York, several dozen commercial abortion-referral services sprang up, some of them with little more equipment than a telephone. They advertised abortions as inexpensively as $175, their own fee included. But a call to one agency revealed that its advertised minimum was a "special," obtainable only on Wednesday evenings. The majority of agencies seemed honest, but many refused to disclose their commissions. The New York State Supreme Court barred one outfit. Abortion Information Agency, from doing business; and the state legislature this summer outlawed all commercial referral agencies.
Facts and referrals are available elsewhere without charge. Planned Parenthood-World Population, one of the pioneers in the field of birth control, works through 189 affiliated organizations in 41 states and the District of Columbia. The Clergy Consultation Service, founded by 26 ministers and rabbis in New York in 1967, has expanded to include 1,200 clergymen in 31 states. Zero Population Growth Inc. has a computerized abortion-data service that includes 500 hospital and clinic listings and 300 doctors. Any woman who applies receives by mail a list of eight or ten doctors and clinics nearest her home, plus information on fees and eligibility requirements.
THE COST. Many women, particularly in the ghettos, cannot afford abortion. Though Medicaid and other assistance programs pay all or most of the costs of abortion for those who are eligible for aid, women who are just above the poverty level or who come from another state often must pay for the operations. The prices can be prohibitive. An early, hence simple, abortion in a freestanding New York City clinic such as the privately run, nonprofit Women's Services or the newly established, profit-making Parkmed, is a relative bargain. Done under local anesthetic on an outpatient basis, it costs most women $150. The same procedure in a voluntary hospital is about $200, and when performed in a profit-making hospital, it can cost three times as much. But women in Hawaii covered by the Kaiser plan, a major prepaid group health arrangement, will soon be able to obtain abortions for only $40.