At the back of the newsroom of the Rag, Austin’s storied and raucous underground newspaper, a volunteer sat by a phone, waiting for calls from women searching for help. In hushed tones, the volunteer would tell the callers what they needed to know to get safe abortions, even though providing such information meant volunteers risked getting in trouble themselves.
It was the fall of 1969, before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision gave women in the United States the right to an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. The little corner office near the University of Texas campus was the Birth Control and Problem Pregnancy Information Center. Run by and for women students at UT, it was the outgrowth, in classic 1960s counterculture fashion, of consciousness-raising sessions. According to accounts and documents from Austin’s Briscoe Center for American History, the sessions led members to focus on reproductive rights, which led to the creation of the birth control information center—and much more. The students who ran it helped inspire the case that changed the history of abortion rights in this country.
One was Judy Smith, a biology student, activist, and editor at the Rag, which was at the center of what was happening on and around campus on women’s issues. The paper in those years was increasing its coverage of these topics, inspiring students across campus to speak about their experiences.
