Starting in the 1970s, small groups of feminists met regularly to study anatomy, practice pelvic exams on each other, and learn to safely perform a procedure known as menstrual extraction, which can end a pregnancy, using equipment easily bought and assembled at home. This “self-help” movement grew into a robust collaboration of activists and health workers working both underground and above ground to ensure access to reproductive health care, including abortion.

Even after Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in 1973, activists continued teaching and passing on these skills while adapting their strategies to changing legal, medical, and political landscapes. They founded licensed feminist health centers and developed the first clinic defense tactics and mobilizations against anti-abortion extremism.

Deep Care follows generations of activists and clinicians who orbited Women’s Choice Clinic in Oakland from the early 1970s until 2010, many of whom share details of their work for the first time. Angela Hume reveals this under-recognized story of the abortion movement, with its lessons more pertinent than ever following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision’s devastation to abortion access nationwide.

Angela Hume is a feminist historian, critic, and poet. She is the author of two poetry books, Interventions for Women (2021) and Middle Time (2016), and co-editor of the book Ecopoetics: Essays in the Field (2018). She teaches writing at University of California, Berkeley.

Hume will be joined in conversation with Carol Roh Spaulding.  Roh Spaulding is the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction in 2022 for her book Waiting for Mr. Kim and Other Stories.  Roh Spaulding’s stories and essays have appeared in several publications including Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and December magazine.  Awards for her work include a Pushcart Prize, Best American Essays 2019 Notable Mention, and the Eludia prize from Hidden River Arts for her forthcoming novel, Helen Button (Sowilo Press). A California native and granddaughter of Korean immigrants, she teaches at Drake University in Des Moines and lives in rural Iowa with her family.