Gerri Santoro
Gerri Santoro | |
|---|---|
| Born | Geraldine Twerdy August 16, 1935[1] Connecticut, United States |
| Died | June 8, 1964 (aged 28) Connecticut, United States |
| Spouse |
Sam Santoro
(m. 1953; sep. 1963) |
| Partner | Clyde Dixon |
Geraldine "Gerri" Santoro (née Twerdy; August 16, 1935[1] – June 8, 1964) was an American woman who died because of an illegal abortion in 1964. A police photograph of her dead body, published in 1973, became a symbol of the abortion-rights movement.
Biography
Santoro was raised, along with 14 siblings, on the farm of a Ukrainian-American family in Coventry, Connecticut.[2][3] She was described by those who knew her as "fun-loving" and "free-spirited".[2] At age 18 she married Sam Santoro; the couple had two daughters together.[3]
Circumstances of death
In 1963, her husband's domestic abuse prompted Santoro to leave, and she and her daughters returned to her childhood home.[2] She took a job at Mansfield State Training School, where she met another employee, Clyde Dixon.[2] The two began an extramarital affair and Santoro became pregnant.[2]
When Sam Santoro announced he was coming from California to visit his daughters, Gerri Santoro feared for her life.[3] On June 8, 1964, twenty-eight weeks into her pregnancy, she and Dixon checked into the Norwich Motel in Norwich, Connecticut, under aliases.[3][4] They intended to perform a self-induced abortion, using surgical instruments and information from a textbook which Dixon had obtained from a coworker at the Mansfield school.[2] Dixon fled the motel after Santoro began to bleed. She died, and her body was found the following morning by a maid.[2]
Dixon was apprehended three days later[2] and charged with manslaughter and attempting to commit abortion, while Milton R. Morgan was charged with conspiracy to commit abortion.[4][2] He was sentenced to a year and day in prison;[2] police officers who worked on the case called his term "negligible".[3]
Famous photograph
Police took a photograph of Santoro's body as she was found: naked, kneeling, collapsed upon the floor, with a bloody towel between her legs. The picture was used in placards and famously published in Ms. magazine in April 1973, all without identifying Santoro.[3][5] It has since become a abortion-rights symbol, used to illustrate that access to legal, professionally performed abortion reduces deaths from unsafe abortion.[3]
Leona Gordon, Santoro's sister, saw the photo in Ms. magazine and recognized the subject.[6] Santoro's daughters had been told she died in a car accident, which they believed until the photo became widely distributed.[3] Of the photo's publication, Santoro's daughter, Joannie Santoro-Griffin, was quoted in 1995 as saying, "How dare they flaunt this? How dare they take my beautiful mom and put this in front of the public eye?"[3] In more recent years, Joannie has become an abortion rights activist, attending the March for Women's Lives in 2004 along with Leona and Joannie's teenage daughter Tara,[7] and blogging about the memory of her mother.[8]
In 1995, Jane Gillooly, an independent filmmaker from Boston, Massachusetts, interviewed Gordon, Santoro's daughters, and others for a documentary about Santoro's life, Leona's Sister Gerri.[2] The film was initially broadcast on the PBS series P.O.V. on June 1, 1995. It was later screened at film festivals, opening in the United States on November 2, 1995.[2] In the documentary, Leona expressed that she was initially shocked by the photograph's publication, but that "as years went by... [she] thought it was good that it was printed."[9]
See also
References
- ^ a b Bloom, Marcy (June 8, 2007). "The Woman in the Photo". Rewire News Group. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Stroebel, Ken (March 9, 2001). "Sister: Story of photo that galvanized a movement needs telling". Norwich Bulletin. Archived from the original on 5 May 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Maslin, Janet. (March 31, 1995). "Film Festival Review: The Woman Behind a Grisly Photo." New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2008.
- ^ a b "Motel Death Cases Are Continued". Hartford, Connecticut: The Catholic Press. p. 16. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
Milton R. Morgan, 39, has pleaded innocent to conspiracy to commit an abortion.
- ^ Rosenfeld, Megan (6 November 1995). "The Death of an Ordinary Woman". Washington Post. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
- ^ "Leona's Sister Gerri." (1995). The New York Times. Retrieved December 23, 2006.
- ^ Williamson, Elizabeth (April 24, 2004). "A Family's March to Redemption: 3 Generations Join Abortion Rights Rally in Honor of Woman Who Died". Washington Post. p. B1. Archived from the original on 2010-02-01.
- ^ "Joannie Santoro, June 8, 2006: Remembering 42 years ago today". Archived from the original on January 8, 2009. Retrieved January 16, 2008.
- ^ Gillooly, Jane (director, producer); C.L. Monrose (producer); Kaufman, Jane (producer) (November 2, 1995). Leona's Sister Gerri (Documentary).
External links
- Life and Liberty for Women: About Gerri
- Roe v. Wade 25 Years: In Memoriam
- P.O.V. archive: Leona's Sister Gerri
- Leona's Sister Gerri transcript at the Wayback Machine (archived October 25, 2002)
- Gerri Santoro at IMDb
- Gerri Santoro at Find a Grave
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