"How the LAPD abortion squad went after women and doctors in pre-Roe era" Front page, LA Times

[Hekate]

The array of newspaper clippings from that era hits you in the face. The dead women’s photos from better days, names, personal info — all there. Actual doctors describes as “butchers” along with the amateurs who didn’t know what they were doing.

I got a screen shot but couldn’t figure out how to get it here.

Cross-posted in Women’Rights and GD

🌺 Hekate


https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?token=42e23962a5d74614be16bae3d62d13e7&utm_id=92075&sfmc_id=1778350&edid=891f1f52-2fe9-4fd8-a818-f63155a467c3

COLUMN ONE
How the LAPD abortion squad went after women and doctors in pre-Roe era

Los Angeles police officers boarded the yacht with guns drawn.

The Westerly had been under surveillance for two months and came with a sordid history. The bodies of a wealthy couple were found after an onboard blast; their daughter was acquitted of murder. Now officers suspected the vessel of being the mobile headquarters of an abortion ring.

Danny Dyer would steer the nearly 50-foot yacht out on the water. His wife would assist another man, who didn’t have a license to practice medicine, as he performed the procedures. They usually charged $450 per operation.

As officers moved in for an arrest that chilly winter morning, Dyer pulled a gun.

“Don’t try it,” Det. Danny Galindo warned Dyer as he raised his firearm. “I’ll kill you.”

It was Feb. 24, 1960, and the abortion squad had arrived.

Housed within the Los Angeles Police Department’s homicide division, the detail investigated what were often known then as “illegal operations.”

Officers on the squad questioned young women who had gone to the hospital for antibiotics after an abortion and were reported to law enforcement. They interviewed loved ones of women who died from botched operations. They went on stakeouts and kept dossiers on hundreds of providers of illegal abortions. They posed as boyfriends or brothers to trap people into confessing.