Abstract
After five years of organizing for abortion rights, Patricia Maginnis decided to break the law. In June 1966, she passed out a leaflet in San Francisco that named physicians in Mexico and Japan who performed abortions. With this daring act, Maginnis inaugurated the first open (and illegal) abortion referral service in the United States.' What began in protest of a new anti-abortion campaign instigated by California authorities resulted in the development of an underground feminist health agency for women's rights and women's health. The list of abortion providers took on a life of its own. As demand for the List soared, Maginnis and her comrades created mechanisms for regulating illegal abortion practices in order to ensure that they were sending women to safe practitioners. To carry out these illegal activities, they founded a new organization, the Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (ARAL). American women were indeed desperate for abortions, but, as ARAL's success demonstrates, that did not preclude them from wielding collective clout in the underground world of illegal abortion-even across an international border. The criminal status
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