Helen Bayley was a member of the local League of Women Voters in New York, and she became active in the pro-choice movement after being forced to have two psychiatrists pronounce her mentally unstable in order to have an abortion.
(In the 1960s, in some states, a woman had to claim mental illness in order to be granted and abortion) From the book Before Roe:
“I’m going to kill my kids,” I raged. I said I’ll go berserk. I felt that way. I felt like a tigress. I felt I was clawing my way out of a thicket.”
The book goes on to say:
“Bailey became a vocal supporter of abortion reform, testifying in a legislative hearing in Albany in the spring of 1968 and lobbying legislators.”
Rosemary Nossiff Before Roe: Abortion Policy in the States (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2001) 91, 92
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