A lasting lesson in privacy, persuasion, and social justice: Remembering how abortion became legal in Washington State in 1970

Wash­ing­ton legal­ized abor­tion in 1970, three years before the Unit­ed States Supreme Court’s land­mark Roe v. Wade rul­ing, fol­low­ing a bruis­ing cam­paign in which oppo­nents erect­ed bill­boards show­ing a fetus with the slo­gan, “Kill Ref. 20, Not Me.”

The Ever­green State went on to strength­en a woman’s right to choose in 1991 and has since required that insur­ers offer con­tra­cep­tives as part of their health plans.

The reli­gious right is on a half-cen­tu­ry los­ing streak here, com­ing up short in  both abor­tion votes, watch­ing vot­ers approve domes­tic part­ner­ships (2009) and then mar­riage equal­i­ty (2012), and in 2020 rat­i­fy a sup­pos­ed­ly con­tro­ver­sial com­pre­hen­sive sex edu­ca­tion man­date for the state’s pub­lic schools.

Why here, and what lessons does expe­ri­ence here hold for oth­er states in which abor­tion restric­tions and bans are gain­ing trac­tion in Repub­li­can-run Legislatures?

We had cir­cum­stances and a polit­i­cal cul­ture not repli­cat­ed today. A con­tin­gent of rea­son­able Repub­li­cans in the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate – Joel Pritchard, Char­lie Elick­er, Fran Hol­man – cham­pi­oned legal­iza­tion. Gov­er­nor Dan Evans and Attor­ney Gen­er­al Slade Gor­ton, both lat­er bound for the U.S. Sen­ate, were pro-choice.

Pro-choice Repub­li­cans are today a species even more endan­gered than the spot­ted owl. The two par­ties have polar­ized. Sen­a­tor Joe Manchin (D‑West Vir­ginia) and Louisiana Gov­er­nor John Bel Edwards are about the only two out­spo­ken anti-abor­tion Democ­rats in upper ranks of the party.

A once-size­able right-to-life cau­cus among House Democ­rats has vanished.

In years gone by, con­tra­cep­tion was a cause with Repub­li­can champions.

A Hous­ton con­gress­man in the late 1960s cham­pi­oned con­tra­cep­tion with such inten­si­ty that col­leagues nick­named him “Rub­bers.”

His name was Rep­re­sen­ta­tive George H.W. Bush.

But an anti-abor­tion plank has been includ­ed in the Repub­li­cans’ plat­form for more than forty years.

Lessons of long-ago deci­sions in this state remain salient after half-a-cen­tu­ry. The pro-choice, pro-free­dom move­ment, focused on gen­der rights, could ben­e­fit from redefin­ing its appeal.

Abor­tion bans kill. The 1970 legal­iza­tion vote was pre­ced­ed by deaths of two women from botched abor­tions. Peo­ple were moved, not by the threat, but by the real­i­ty. A mem­o­rable con­fronta­tion took place at mass in Seattle’s Assump­tion parish. A priest vis­it­ing for a mis­sion pro­gram began a fiery ser­mon about abor­tion as “mur­der.” A young con­gre­gant asked whether a des­per­ate young woman, seek­ing a back-alley abor­tion­ist, was risk­ing her own life.

The priest refused to respect or respond to the question.

Pri­va­cy is a guid­ing val­ue in Wash­ing­ton, curi­ous­ly under­played by pro­gres­sives nation­al­ly. Per­haps it is our immi­grant tra­di­tion, the North­west being a place to escape from rules and rigid tra­di­tions applied else­where in the country.

It was an issue cen­tral to the legal­iza­tion vote. A promi­nent Luther­an par­son, speak­ing for Ref­er­en­dum 20, argued that the state had no role in decid­ing whether to bring a preg­nan­cy to term. The deci­sion belonged to a woman with involve­ment of their part­ner, fam­i­ly, physi­cian and minister.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, I have seen few if any state cam­paigns run on a theme of pri­va­cy.  The reli­gious right seems to assume a right to dic­tate and dis­crim­i­nate. Where is the chal­lenge? In Texas, coun­sel­ing and aid­ing pri­vate deci­sions – even dri­ving per­sons to a clin­ic — has been des­ig­nat­ed grounds for snitch­es to bring lawsuits.

Social jus­tice was a major fac­tor here, too.

Well-off Wash­ing­ton women were able to fly to Japan for abor­tions. Future U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jolene Unsoeld, D‑Washington, was one of those women and wrote about it in a 2018 mem­oir. (Unsoeld had a very con­ser­v­a­tive father, but rec­og­nized it was her deci­sion to make and sup­port­ed her.)

A clin­ic in a ven­er­a­ble build­ing on Fourth Avenue in down­town Seat­tle offered the pro­ce­dure, again dis­creet­ly to those who were well-connected.

The poor had no such recourse, until a Ren­ton physi­cian, Dr. A. Frans Koome, announced in pub­lic that he was per­form­ing abortions.

Dr. Koome had cojones. He brought down an avalanche of pub­lic­i­ty but put a spot­light on the eco­nom­ics and hypocrisy sur­round­ing abor­tion in Washington.

Hence, legal­iz­ing choice became an issue for rea­son­able folk to embrace, in remov­ing the per­il of back-alley abor­tions, respect­ing pri­va­cy in a very per­son­al deci­sion, and mak­ing a med­ical pro­ce­dure avail­able to all and not just the wealthy and well-connected.

The pub­lic also recoiled at the right-to-lif­ers’ stridency.

A Catholics-for-Choice move­ment sprung up in the state. A famous prank took place as elec­tion day neared. A “Kill Ref. 20 Not Me Bill­board” stood promi­nent­ly in Seattle’s Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict. A per­son (or per­sons) unknown climbed up and paint­ed a mes­sage beneath the fetus: “Hap­py Mother’s Day.”

Demo­c­ra­t­ic elect­ed offi­cials are already focus­ing on repro­duc­tive rights as a 2022 elec­tion issue.  They’re fresh­en­ing their email lists for fundrais­ing appeals.

An appeal from King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine just arrived along these lines: “Will you add your name to our peti­tion in sup­port of repro­duc­tive free­dom? Thank you for stand­ing with us – It’s nev­er mat­tered more.”

A donate but­ton followed.

My rec­om­men­da­tion: Do a lit­tle mes­sage retool­ing. What res­onat­ed with vot­ers in this state a half-cen­tu­ry ago is a blue­print for bol­ster­ing and pro­tect­ing the right of choice from Wash­ing­ton to Wash­ing­ton, and even regres­sive places in between.