Huh? Sherri Finkbine? Never heard of her. Or, rather, I had but then I forgot and at the time (20? 30? years ago) I was busy. Busier. Plus, we forget stuff, including even important She-roes like Ms. Finkbine, in part because we’re not taught about such She-roes, and they’re not celebrated. You won’t find a statue in Arizona of Ms. Finkbine, but maybe one day there will be.
Here, in part, is the story of Ms. Finkbine, and why I hope to remember her this time around, along with all ah yaz, because she lived through hell so that we could have and do and be better, and because we’re up against – still – a determined group of religious zealots who want to turn the clock back to a day when women and girls had many fewer rights, in this case to medical care, abortion care. Abortions ARE HEALTHCARE. Disagree with that? Then don’t have one, but better yet, MEN: keep your dicks in your pants.
So. Sherri Finkbine. Better known as “Miss Sherri”, a host of a franchised children’s TV show, Romper Room, filmed in Phoenix, AZ. That matters because in 1962, when this story starts, a TV lady who dealt with kids had to be – or seem to be – pure as the driven snow. Recent outrage over Ms. Rachel supporting and caring about children in Gaza – so consistent with her message of love for children everywhere – is a reminder of how everything old is new again, but I disgress.
Finkbine and her husband Robert, a high school history teacher, became a news sensation when she sought abortion care after having taken a nausea control drug her husband had purchased while on a field trip in Europe. Finkbine was unaware that the pills contained thalidomide, which was just on the cusp of being exposed as a danger to developing fetuses, having caused thousands of permanently, profoundly disabled children to be born, or to be born and shortly thereafter die, throughout Europe. If they survived to the point of being born, that is. The drug was not ever made available in the U.S., and thank goodness for that.
Once Finkbine realized what she’d ingested during her early pregnancy, she wanted to publicize the danger of thalidomide, contacting The Arizona Republic seeking their assistance in so doing. She was promised anonymity, but – well, y’know how these anti-women jerks behave (badly) – leading to her identity her identity being revealed. Speaking of everything old is new again, following that expose, she was on the receiving end of multiple violent threats. So called “pro-life” types making death threats is one that always gets me, y’know?
Due to the known dangers of thalidomide, Finkbine’s OB/GYN asked for a court order to proceed with the abortion. If you have ever had an unwanted pregnancy, the ticking time bomb inside you is deafening; it makes me laugh and enrages me in almost equal measure to imagine men having to wait for any type of healthcare, and what a shitstorm there would be if that unlikely scenario ever happened.
After legal and administrative nonsense and delays from both the courts and her local hospital, Finkbine sought abortion care in Japan where they were turned away, despite abortion being a very common procedure in Japan. She eventually ended up in Sweden, where abortion was legal; in August of 1962 she received the needed care that terminated her pregnancy.
Sherri Finkbine lost her job because of the controversy, because of course she did. She was a married mother trying her best to inform the public of the very real dangers of a drug that wasn’t tested on actual pregnant women – in fact there were zero clinical trials for the drug, zero – prior to it being prescribed to tens of thousands of expectant mothers. Ah, the patriarchy! Ah, conscienceless capitalism!
Did widespread knowledge of Finkbine’s ordeal move the needle on abortion care and rights in America? It did. Also, think about it, for a moment. What class of Americans traveled to Europe in the late 1950s? Who else might also have been exposed to Thalidomide? The halls of power are filled with secrets, even more so in 1957, or ’58 or ’59 than they are now. After wide-spread publicity regarding her ordeal, slightly over 50% of Americans thought she’d done the right thing. Hey. It’s a start.
From wiki: The Swedish obstetrician who performed the abortion told Finkbine that the fetus had no legs and only one arm and would not have survived. It was too badly deformed to be identified as a boy or a girl.