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“You are the rudest bunch of people I have ever met.” –NY State Senator Seymour Thaler, to women’s liberation protesters.

On February 13, 1969, four years before the Roe vs. Wade decision, women who would later go on to found the pioneering women’s liberation group Redstockings disrupted a New York State legislative hearing considering minor reforms to New York State’s law banning abortion. The panel of witnesses, consisting of 14 men and a nun, were debating allowing abortions for women who had been raped, whose health was threatened by pregnancy, or who had already had 4 children.

For 30 minutes, women stood up and shouted the panel down. ”Now let’s hear from some real experts on abortion!” said one . “We’ve waited and waited while you have held one hearing after another. Meanwhile, the baby I didn’t want is two years old!” said another. Finally, the hearing was moved to another room and the women were locked out. “We’re probably the first women to talk about our abortions in public,” one woman mused as the protest broke up.

On March 21, 1969, those women along with others held a hearing of their own where women publicly spoke about their illegal abortions. Check back later today for the story of the first Abortion Speak Out!

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(Source: Jenny Brown, Without Apology, Ellen Willis, 2/22/1969, the New Yorker. For more on the history of early abortion rights organizing, go to www.redstockings.org)