A last refuge

N 1970, New York State revised its 19th-century abortion law and adopted the most liberal statute in the country. New York, especially New York City, became the country's abortion capital. Women flocked to the City; in the first two years of the law's existence, 50 per cent of all New York abortions were performed on women who resided in other states. But no matter where they came from these women were powerfully motivated: They had chosen abortion as a last way out of an untenable situation.

Magda Denes' In Necessity and Sorrow is an intimate study of abortion through the words and thoughts of women who have considered and experienced abortion, of their families and friends and of the doctors and other personnel who provide abortion services.

The book is largely a collection of pseudonymous interviews. Denes, a psychologist who once had an abortion, has explored the motives that brought other women to the hospital (also unidentified) where she had her operation performed. The interviews are interspersed with Denes's comments and descriptions, which serve to clarify the circumstances under which they were given, and to highlight the discrepancies between her subjects' perceptions and objective fact.

Perhaps the simplest thing that can be said about the decision to go through an abortion is that conflicts are inevitable and are rarely fully resolved. This much comes across clearly in Denes's book. Many of the women she interviewed turned to the hospital only after having made lasting emotional and material sacrifices, and virtually all of them came still laden with reservations. Compelled by family, friends or circumstances, they chose abortion as a last resort. One woman prays that God will forgive her for her sin. Many of those interviewed equate abortion with murder. Others do not define the fetus as a human being. Often these women feel that they have no other recourse and in a very real sense, they do not, for our society denies adequate financial and psychological support to unwed mothers and unwanted children.

Denes also probes the reasons for the staff's dedication to its work at the clinic. Members of the medical profession are stringently trained to help preserve life, often at any cost. But this institution specializes in taking life. Abortion is a lucrative practice, and the income to be gained from it is undoubtedly an inducement. Yet in a larger sense, the staff allow themselves to become intimately wrapped up in the welter of conflicts faced by their patients. At least technically, their part in the decision to perform an operation can be as difficult and as uncertain as that of the women; medical and legal risks are everpresent and diverse--there is not even a definite consensus as to the period of gestation after which a fetus should not be aborted.

Although Denes favors legalized abortion, In Necessity and Sorrow provides a tacit indictment of the practice. The material gathered inclucates in the reader the distressing impression that abortion by any other name would be murder. Yet, on a more intellectual level, it stands as a defense of the right of individuals to control and exercise responsibility over their bodies.

As one of the doctors queried warns, criminal abortions will continue for as long as abortion is illegal. It is far better that abortion be safely legalized than that women die from botched abortions performed in desperste circumstances, often by charlatans.

The very fact that so many people are eager to talk about their innermost feelings with a total stranger for the purpose of publication points up one of society's shortcomings: no one listens. Denes is at least willing to do this much.

Licensed abortion remains morally ambiguous. Society is slowly accepting it, but it is doing so with too narrow a perspective. The question of the morality of abortion cannot be separated from an inquiry into and attempt to deal positively with the spectrum of circumstances which necessitate abortion and with its consequences. In Necessity and Sorrow is remarkable because it acknowledges the essential complexity of human life.