‘There Are People Who Are Really Angry With Women Who Dare to Determine Their Reproduction Choices — Let Alone Run for Presiden
With fewer legal requirements and methods, she said, it was less complicated back then, because PP mainly only offered diaphragms and pills. However, women had to “qualify” for tubal ligations—if enough money existed for one. One-month counseling sessions were commonplace. “We wanted to separate the movement from any exploitation that had gone on in the past, where women were sterilized in mental institutions and hospitals,” she said. “We wanted to differentiate ourselves from that, and ensure that women were doing this on their own free will.”
Charbonneau said she never imagined that women would have to fight an every day battle for Roe v. Wade (a 1973 landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court, that ruled a right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman’s right to have an abortion). “I was very young, 13, when it passed, so I didn’t have personal experience with women dying, but I sure heard of women’s experiences,” she said.