What Life Was Like for Women Before Roe v. Wade

Nearly a decade after her death, a photograph of Santoro’s lifeless body—naked, crumpled, and covered with her own blood—was published in Ms. Magazine, accompanying a 1973 story on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe. The words “Never Again,” in big bold letters framed the black and white crime scene photograph. The photograph, Broadly reports, became an icon of the feminist movement; Santoro’s death was transformed into an image of the desperate brutality and senseless deaths that reproductive restrictions had wrought on women for centuries. When Ms. Magazine celebrated the legalization of abortion in the first trimester, the photograph of Santoro was a promise that there would be no more dead women on hotel rooms floors—a promise that abortion, as the mantra goes, would be safe and legal.

via What Life Was Like for Women Before Roe v. Wade