THE last thing that Valada Penny wanted was a baby. At 22, the beautiful black woman already had one child by a teen-age marriage. While separated from her husband and living with her parents in Brooklyn, working and trying to plan her future, she again became pregnant. She considered having the child. Then, when she was more than four months along, she decided instead to have an abortion.
The late procedure, which involved induced labor, was painful. "I was like to the point of screaming, and I muffled my screams and I was holding on to the table," she recalled. "It was worse than having a baby." It was also emotionally unsettling. One nurse in Kings County Hospital made a point of telling her "what a pretty little boy" had just been aborted, though Valada had asked not to be told the fetus' sex. Mothers in the maternity ward, where she was sent to recover, treated her like a pariah. 'They would just look at me." said Valada. "and the looks could tell me what they were thinking."
Despite her distress, Valada Penny was far more fortunate than many an American woman faced with an unwanted pregnancy. While she was pondering her decision a year ago last summer, the New York State law that allows abortion on demand at any time through the 24th week of pregnancy took effect. Her operation was thus performed legally, safely and—because she was eligible for Medicaid—free.
Valada Penny's experience underscores both the changes and the unsolved dilemmas in the practice of abortion. Though the precise figure is impossible to establish, it is estimated that up to 1,000,000 American women per year were undergoing illegal abortions before 1970. Some died from them, and others suffered serious injury. Now abortion is becoming increasingly acceptable in the U.S., though many doctors and a majority of the public disapprove of the trend. An actual count has not been completed, but the figures will probably show that in the past 15 months, 400,000 American women obtained legal abortions at hospitals and clinics. Even more are expected to take advantage of newly liberalized laws in the next year. This development is one of the most dramatic in American medicine and mores; yet inequities and problems remain for all concerned.
WHO AND WHY. The majority of those who have undergone legal operations across the country are between 20 and 30, white and single. Still, about half of the New York cases have involved married women. Hawaii authorities are now reporting requests from a growing number of older married mothers. The figures indicate that educated, middle-class women are better able, or more inclined to take advantage of the liberalized laws. But blacks, whose birth rate is 50% higher than that of whites, have recently begun to follow suit in large numbers, particularly where abortion is made easy for the poor. In New York City, blacks now undergo one abortion for every three live births, whites one for every five, Puerto Ricans one for seven.