In the Chicago and the Illinois and the United States of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a woman normally couldn’t get a credit card in her own name, pregnant women were rarely seen in the workplace, only married women had legal access to contraception — and it was against the law to have an abortion.
Recalling her experience with pregnancy in the late 1960s, a woman named Dorrie Barron says, “I had no other options, I wanted it over with, I didn’t care how it was done. I was that desperate.” An acquaintance gave her a number of someone who was associated with the mob, and the woman was told she could have one of three levels of so-called care: a “Chevy” ($500), a “Cadillac” ($750) or a “Rolls-Royce” ($1,000). She was instructed to go to a seedy motel room in an unfamiliar part of town.
