In the years before Colorado became the first state to liberalize abortion laws in 1967, The Denver Post was full of lurid stories of women in trouble.
There were headlines about a Boulder teenager who died in a “self-operation” and a 15-year-old, a 29-year-old, a 22-year-old, an 18-year-old – the list goes on – who died from botched abortions.
In the 1960s, the stories also focused on the prosecutions of providers: “John H. Austin sentenced to from one to two years in the state penitentiary for performing abortion on a 19-year-old Lakewood girl.” “Dr. R.C. Stewart of Colorado Springs charged with abortion.” “Robert P. Chesney sentenced to 2 1/2 years in state penitentiary after his plea of no contest to abortion charges.”
One of the most dramatic episodes was the 5-year-long prosecution of Dr. Lawson F. Palmer, a Denver osteopath.
The first charge filed against him for performing an illegal abortion was dismissed in 1962 when the patient refused to testify. Another charge alleged that a woman who wasn’t even pregnant had paid $125 to Palmer for an abortion. Others alleged he had performed abortions on women who were 18 and 20 years old.
Before Palmer could be brought to trial, though, he disappeared. His wife said she thought he had committed suicide.
Then, after a manhunt, he was arrested in Argentina in 1964 and returned to Colorado to face trial. He was convicted and sentenced to two to three years in the penitentiary.
Celebrity abortions also were big news. In 1962, the paper was riveted on the account of Sherri Finkbine, hostess of “Romper Room” in Arizona, who sought to terminate a pregnancy because of concerns that the fetus had been affected by thalidomide. When the Arizona courts denied her petition for an abortion, the mother of four traveled to Sweden for the procedure – with reporters stalking her at the airport, the hospital, even at her in-laws’ house on her way home.
She returned to work as a producer. She was not allowed to be an on-air TV personality.
She might as well have been branded with a scarlet A.
When Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee is confirmed – complete with the seal of approval from Focus on the Family after Karl Rove shared the secret handshake with James Dobson – and when Gov. Marc Holtzman/Bill Ritter/Bob Beauprez (take your pick) takes office in 2007, abortion is sure to be making lurid headlines again in Colorado.
Many of the reproductive rights we’ve taken for granted in Colorado – and an estimated 20 other states – are expected to disappear over time.
But not the abortions.
Just as in the 1960s – and even the 1860s – women will continue to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
It worries the Rev. Charles Milligan.
In the 1960s, Milligan, a minister in the United Church of Christ, was teaching at the Iliff School of Theology. At the urging of a local rabbi, he joined a group of clergy called the Committee of Concern and helped create an underground railroad to help women get safe abortions in Juarez, Mexico.
“I don’t know how people got my name,” he said, but the women would call, trusting that he would help.
He would talk to them, “perhaps to clarify their thinking if they were confused.” But only once or twice did he ever encounter a woman who was not certain about her decision.
“They were determined to the point that I was worried that if they could not get an abortion, they would kill themselves,” he said.
“It was not our business to talk them into anything. The whole point was it was the woman’s right and decision.”
Then as now.
Milligan said he was not afraid of being prosecuted. “It was part of my ministry.”
Milligan remains an unflinching advocate for a woman’s right to choose. But at 87, once again he’s deeply concerned about the lives, the health and the legal status of women in Colorado.
“Our enemies are rabid,” he said.
And soon they will hold a majority on the highest court in the land.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com
