In 1978, the school scholar, 22-year-old Marla Pitchford, was indicted by a grand jury for manslaughter and performing an unlawful abortion. According to Kentucky regulation — which is still in effect — the efficiency of an abortion by somebody apart from a licensed doctor is a felony, with a penalty of 10 to twenty years in jail.
Pitchford was in the end found not responsible by a jury by motive of short-term madness, however the expertise was harrowing for her and her household, news shops reported on the time. The prosecution was regarded as one among the first times in U.S. history {that a} girl was on trial for self-inducing an abortion, however it actually has not been the last.
My sister, lawyer Flora Stuart, represented Pitchford in her trial, and I used to be additionally current within the courtroom. Those reminiscences are nonetheless related at this time, as the suitable to abortion protected in Roe v. Wade could possibly be overturned or weakened this summer season, leaving the chance open that states will perform related trials. In April, the Kentucky legislature handed probably the most restrictive abortion regulation within the nation, banning abortion after 15 weeks of being pregnant with no exception for rape or incest. A federal choose issued a brief order that has blocked the abortion regulation from taking impact.
As abortion rights hold within the stability, I revisited the Pitchford trial by interviewing my sister concerning the case — and what might come subsequent.
This interview has been frivolously edited for size and readability.
Q: Tell us the way you started representing Marla.
A: As the one feminine lawyer at the moment practising regulation within the courts in Bowling Green, I felt a direct kinship with this younger girl who couldn’t afford an lawyer. Marla’s trigger grew to become my trigger.
Q: Tell us about Kentucky regulation below which Marla was indicted and the way you dealt with her protection in opposition to the manslaughter cost.
A: The unique invoice — KRS 311.750 — grew to become regulation in 1974 in Kentucky. It was drafted by a number of right-to-life attorneys.
This was the primary time in Kentucky and the nation {that a} girl was prosecuted for performing an abortion on herself, to my data. There was no precedent for this regulation as a result of the regulation had by no means been enforced till 1978 in opposition to a lady in Kentucky.
Kelly Thompson, my co-counsel within the case, and I obtained dismissal of the unique cost of manslaughter as it violated Roe v. Wade, which gave girls the constitutional proper for an abortion till viability — about 24 to twenty-eight weeks. Judge David Francis dismissed the manslaughter indictment, leaving the cost of performing an abortion with out a licensed doctor.
Q: I nicely bear in mind the joy within the courtroom when the decision got here in. To what do you attribute your success within the jury’s arriving at a verdict of not responsible?
A: The prosecution relied on Marla’s confession she had given the morning after the abortion on the hospital. As the prosecution unfolded its proof, Marla wiped again tears.
We didn’t contest the cost that she carried out the abortion with out a licensed doctor, however as an alternative relied on the madness protection. We offered the tragedy of a younger girl who had dreamed of carrying a white marriage ceremony robe rejected by her boyfriend. I reminded the jury that by no means earlier than within the historical past of this nation had a feminine been placed on trial for an abortion of this type. By then the courtroom was filled with main tv networks protecting the trial, together with reporters from Time and Newsweek.
Although this was not accepted by some pro-choice teams who needed this to be a trial about girls’s rights, I offered the protection of “temporary insanity,” which required proof of her frame of mind on the time she carried out an abortion with a lack of cognitive operate.
Psychiatrist Lawrence Green testified on her behalf that she was not cognitive at the moment and that it was, in truth, an try at suicide.
Time journal likened this to a morality play moderately than a criminal trial with the sobbing 22-year-old defendant who I had described in my closing argument as resembling Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Hester Prynne,” who needed to put on the letter A and bear the disgrace and humiliation. My closing query for the jury was: “Can you deem a greater punishment for Marla than Hester received in the 1600s?”
The acquittal of Marla by motive of short-term madness was well-received all through Bowling Green, the nation and, in truth, the world. I hoped on the time that this might be the final time an overzealous prosecutor would try to imprison a pregnant girl below these circumstances.
Q: How do you assume a case like Marla’s could possibly be performed out in courts throughout the nation if Roe v. Wade have been overturned?
A: If Roe v. Wade have been overturned, prosecuting girls for self-inducing an abortion would possible turn out to be commonplace. The punitive nature of among the legal guidelines which were handed in Texas and different states would result in girls performing abortions on themselves.
In his draft opinion, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. opined that there isn’t a constitutional proper to abortion, leaving the states to manage as they need with the exception to guard the lifetime of the mom. This opinion is just not closing and was solely a draft, however it is that this constitutional proper that protects girls from being prosecuted previous to viability in a being pregnant. Had Marla been convicted of performing the abortion with out a licensed doctor, it is probably going that with Roe v. Wade, she would have gained on attraction as she was nonetheless throughout the interval to acquire a authorized abortion.
Q: What does Marla’s case train us?
A: Marla was typical of a younger girl alone and determined with a being pregnant the place both she couldn’t help the kid or was left to lift the kid alone with out a partner. My personal experiences have helped me perceive the plight of girls with an undesirable being pregnant. At 19, I used to be left in related circumstances, however due to my private beliefs, I selected to have the kid and lift her as a single mother. It is just not simple having to juggle a job with nobody to share the obligations of elevating a toddler. I put myself by means of regulation college as a waitress on meals stamps and welfare as a single mother.
The psychological affect on girls with an undesirable being pregnant can’t be overstated. Women who’ve the chance to acquire a capsule for a fast abortion by touring out of state will be capable to terminate their undesirable being pregnant. Those girls with out the means to take action or the emotional stability to take motion in time will probably be left both giving a toddler up for adoption or elevating the kid by themselves.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned and legislatures in varied states outlaw abortion defending the sanctity of life, that safety ought to prolong not solely to the unborn, however the born. A single mother left on her personal with little alternative to earn a enough revenue to lift a toddler needs to be afforded day care and medical care so these kids can have a possibility to achieve success.
Katherine Stuart van Wormer is professor emerita of social work on the University of Northern Iowa and co-author of “Women and the Criminal Justice System” (Routledge, 2022).