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From Back Alley to the Border

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Alicia Gutierrez-Romine’s “From Back Alley to the Border” sheds light on illegal abortion history. Insightful, captivating, thought-provoking.

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 8, 2023

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This video video discusses an exploration of medical history, specifically focusing on abortion in California. The author, motivated by chance, discovered archival records at the California State Archives that detailed illegal operations, which led to an investigation into the history of abortion legislation. Initially, from statehood until 1935, California law allowed physicians to perform abortions with minimal oversight, but this changed with increased restrictions introduced in 1935, which limited abortions to life-threatening situations.

The book titled "From Back Alley to the Board Border" traces the narrative of criminal abortion practices from past conditions into the 1960s, highlighting how women began traveling to Mexico for abortions to avoid the restrictions imposed by the medical community and legislation. A significant case referenced is the Bellis case, where the California Supreme Court ruled against existing abortion statutes, reflecting a shift in the legal landscape.

The author argues that physicians should be trusted to determine the medical necessity of abortions, criticizing the involvement of legislators without medical expertise in shaping laws related to medical practices. The historical context suggests that previous abortion restrictions have led to complications and do not effectively resolve the issues at hand, aiming to illustrate lessons from the past for today's discussions around abortion laws.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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So happenstance motivated the book.

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Um, I knew I was interested in medical history,

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and so I went to the California State Archives looking

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for a story about medicine in Southern California,

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and I ended up finding a lot of records about

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what was simply described as illegal operations.

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And the further I went down this rabbit hole, I realized

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that illegal operation was a euphemism for abortion.

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And I became really fascinated by the story

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that was unfolding,

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and I decided that

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that was the avenue that I was going to take.

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That was the aspect of medical history I was going

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to focus on, as these documents just kind

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of started unfolding in front of me.

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I'm a historian, I'm a trained historian,

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and so primarily

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what I do is I focus on documents from the time

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period that I'm studying.

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So these are called primary sources.

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And I focused on looking at these records

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that were primarily from law enforcement

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and from the organized and professional medical community.

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And through these documents, I was able to see kind of

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how the medical community was trying to police itself,

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and that produced this kind of narrative

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that I ultimately translated into the book.

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So a lot of it is, is my interpretation.

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That is how historians do our work that is secondary,

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research, but it is based

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and grounded in archival research of primary sources.

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This was something that I thought was really fascinating

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because if we look at,

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even just if we backtrack a little bit to the 19th century,

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we can see that every state in the United States started

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developing legislation that began

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to restrict abortion in the 18 hundreds.

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And so from statehood, California had a law that,

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basically made abortions illegal

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unless the person

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who was performing those procedures was a physician

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who within the scope of their medical practice, believed

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that that procedure was necessary.

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And so from statehood through

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1935,

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physicians in California really have carte blanche.

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They can perform whatever abortion they believe are

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necessary, and there isn't really much oversight

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or anything over them.

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Um, physicians are trusted to be able

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to discern when they believe an abortion is necessary,

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and there aren't a lot of people asking questions

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to question them or critique them about their

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justification for it.

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So legislation in California

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until 1935 basically said physicians can perform abortions.

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The only time abortions are illegal is if a

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non-physician is performing them.

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1935 is when

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That changes and when abortions as a whole,

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as a procedure themselves are beginning to be restricted.

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So abortions after 1935 are only allowed in instances

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when it's necessary to save a woman's life,

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and there's no longer an exception for physicians

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or any kind of protections for them to kind

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of let them do their practice independently.

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So 1935 is really when we're starting

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to see a little bit more oversight.

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The book is called From Back Alley to the Board Border.

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It traces criminal abortion from kind of what we see

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as the stereotypical back alley butcher.

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Um, and it follows basically this arc of

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criminal abortion in California until the 1960s.

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When we see women who are beginning to, in an attempt to

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exercise autonomy and e escape

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or evade this oversight

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that is preventing them from acquiring abortions, they begin

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to cross the border into Mexico in an attempt to be able

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to acquire these procedures that they want.

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So the medical community, there is this kind

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of shift beginning in in the 1930s to more oversights,

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more control as labor delivery

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and abortions move into the hospitals,

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there's more oversight.

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There's more of an opportunity for people to begin

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to monitor, implement quotas on abortions.

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Um, and so women are essentially trying to avoid this kind

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of repressive regime and the surveillance.

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And so they are choosing to cross the national border,

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in order to acquire these procedures.

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Bellis was, I argue, a really important case

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in that it is when we see the California Supreme Court

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drop the, restrictions on abortion.

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We find that in the Bella case you have a well respected

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physician, Dr. Leon Ballis.

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He is arguing that yes,

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he referred a patient to a provider of illegal abortions

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who was a trained medical professional,

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but he did not have a, a medical reason

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that justified illegal abortion.

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He argued that it was within the scope of his practice,

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that it was within the parameters

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of protecting a patient's life, that he made this referral

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because he feared

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that if the patient did not get an abortion

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with the reputable provider in the United States,

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that she was going to go across the border into Mexico

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and could potentially resort to some type of butchery.

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He used the word butchery. And so he

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Is, is making this argument about quality of care,

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that he believed that she would find better quality of care,

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in the United States with someone that he referred her

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to, and that if she went across the border to Mexico,

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she was taking her life in her hand

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and then her life would be at risk.

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So in order to prevent her from having her life at risk,

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it was better for her

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to have an illegal abortion in the United States.

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And so there's a lot of back and forth.

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Um, in this particular case, there's an initial, holding

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and then there's an appeal when it gets

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to the California Supreme Court, they ultimately decide

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that our existing bor abortion statute in the state

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of California is void for vagueness

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because how does a physician know if,

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if a woman's life is at risk

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and how, how much

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of a constraint on her life

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and liberty are taking place if we have to guarantee

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that she is going to die if she does not get this procedure?

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And so with the Bella's case,

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we see California drop its existing abortion statute,

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and it's the first state to do so

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before other states like New York begin to

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explicitly legalize abortion.

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So I argue that it's a sea change where we begin to realize

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that the existing abortion statutes are no longer

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tenable in the United States.

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I hope readers will see that we've had abortion restrictions

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before and that it leads us into this kind

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of messy area where we have legislators and physicians

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and patients kind of all triangulated together.

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Um, we need to trust physicians to be able to do the,

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the things that they think are medically necessary.

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And it's also problematic when we have legislators

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who have no medical training developing laws about

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how we practice medicine.

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So I'm hoping readers will see examples of the past of

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what it's looked like when we've had,

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abortion restriction before,

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and to realize that it doesn't always work

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and it ends up creating a lot more problems

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and cases, than it actually curtails.

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