Elizabeth Myer

Abstract

My name is Elizabeth Myer. I am 79 now. I was born in Boston and grew up in Cambridge. One of my earliest memories was of my mother and friends working on a ballot referendum to make contraception legal in Massachusetts. That was way back, maybe in the late 1930s. Contraceptives were available to women of means, or with access to medical care, because private doctors provided them. I remember the vituperation of the Catholic Church and the ugliness of the Catholic men to the women who were trying legitimately to hand out literature to people approaching the polls. And the Catholic Church preached from the pulpits every Sunday to their congregations to vote against this ballot referendum. At the time, the legislature was heavily Catholic. It still is. So I grew up absolutely hating the Catholic Church for what it did to women.

Elizabeth Myer has lived most of her eight decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the mother of three children and also had three illegal abortions. She has spent many years lobbying on behalf of reproductive rights, working with the Abortion Access Project and with the League of Women Voters.

Elizabeth Myer was interviewed by David Cline on June 21, 2004.