Women need access to safe abortion

The tragic Philadelphia story where a doctor provided illegal, inhumane and dangerous abortion procedures in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods only highlights the work we do at the Chicago Abortion Fund. Access, or a lack of, is the primary reason women resort to putting their lives at risk.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell of the Women’s Medical Society is responsible for one woman’s death and the death of seven infants. With limited access to quality reproductive health care and birth control, the dwindling of abortion providers and the lack of financial means, poor women had no other options. This was a tragedy waiting to happen.

As the whole country gasps in horror at this story, abortion funds across the United States are not surprised. When there is a demand, someone will attempt to fulfill the need. Money, greed and dubious characters take advantage of situations such as this.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure that has been hijacked, stigmatized and polarized by the anti-choice movement. The current hostile climate is a breeding ground for this kind of criminal behavior.

At the Chicago Abortion Fund we help poor women pay for their abortion procedures. On a daily basis we receive calls from the most desperate and vulnerable women. The work we do tells us the obvious: Women will take drastic measures if they are not ready to parent. If all women had access to doctors that cared, birth control choices, emergency contraception, comprehensive sex education and politicians that respected a woman’s decision to govern her body, imagine the kind of world we would live in? If women were allowed to make the best decisions for themselves and their families and were supported in those decisions, there would be no room for the Kermit Gosnells to exist.

Gaylon Alcaraz

Executive director

Chicago Abortion Fund

Chicago