Women’s Health

Publication by the Boston Women's Health Collective: http://womenscollaborativecircle.blogspot.com/2010/04/speaking-our-voices-our-bodies.html

During the fight for women’s rights, one of the primary focus points for the movement was on the battleground of women’s health and reproductive rights.  At this time, women run initiatives, such as consciousness raising groups, the Durham Women’s Health Collective, (later known as the Durham Women’s Health Cooperative) and the Women’s Health Teaching Group developed out of the Durham YWCA Women’s Center in the Durham/Chapel Hill area to address the growing need to provide women with the resources and information to make healthy choices about their bodies, their lives, and their health, specifically regarding abortion.

During the early 1970s, before the Roe v. Wade decision to extend privacy rights to abortion, underground abortion networks and women traveling out of state (often to New York, Virginia, and Atlanta) were fairly common. After Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion services and providers slowly came to the area.  In our interviews we learned about abortion counseling, providers, procedures and protests happening in Durham at that time.