While compiling a social history of the 1960's, Columbia University student Bridget Potter published "Lucky Girl" in Guernica magazine in 2010. Potter describes her search for an illegal abortion after her black market birth control failed in 1962. She writes, "A wooden table, no anesthesia, a scraping sound, and a newspaper-lined metal bucket. I moaned. Be quiet, he demanded. Or did I want him to stop? No, no. Go on. Please" (153). Such attention to detail helps the reader empathize with Potter and feel the same terror and desperation that she felt at nineteen years old. Her stylistic decision not to use quotation marks reflects the confusion of her situation, as opposed to the clear-cut pauses evoked by punctuation.
In the final paragraphs, Potter puts her experience into perspective. "I was one of the lucky ones," she writes. "According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 1962—the year I made my trip to Puerto Rico—nearly sixteen hundred women were admitted to just one New York City hospital for incomplete abortions" (154). After winning the reader's sympathy with her own struggles, Potter utilizes this statistic to clarify that hers were the most fortunate of circumstances. She traveled hundreds of miles for a questionable abortion, but faced no prolonged consequence; she could have been one of the sixteen hundred at that hospital alone who faced injury, infection, or death. She illustrates the possible dangers of an illegal abortion with the emotion of a personal story and the certainty of the truth, easily fulfilling the first part of her purpose: convince the reader that limiting pregnancy options is dangerous.
Although the piece addresses life in the 1960's, it was written for a twenty-first century audience. Potter quotes a June 2008 New York Times article written by retired gynecologist Waldo Fielding. He describes, "The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous 'coat hanger'—which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place" (154). Potter reminds her audience that many women are still driven to dangerous extremes, and in doing so fulfills the second part of her purpose: show the reader why this issue still matters.
Abortion in America
As more options become available, fewer women must suffer for their choices.
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