Sacramento State history professor and researcher Rebecca Kluchin exposed more than 45 students, faculty and staff to the history of reproduction in her lecture Wednesday afternoon.

The lecture, “Pregnant? Need Help? Call Jane: Service as Radical Action in the Abortion Underground,” chronicled the beginning and end of Jane, an underground referral program for women seeking abortions.

Jane was created as a safe environment for women who sought abortions in the 1960s and 1970s. Jane focused on providing reproductive health and medical care for women in Chicago. The service also provided childcare and educated women about their bodies.

“It’s an important part of women’s history.” Kluchin said. “Abortion is such a contemporary issue. It helps to study it before the pro-life and women’s right-to-choose movements began and see the reality.”

Kluchin researched the origin of eugenics of women in America. She is the author of “Fit to Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980,” for which she won a prize for best monograph in 2009 from the Western Association of Women Historians.

Kluchin wanted to send a message of awareness through her lecture.

“I certainly wasn’t advocating a political position,” shesaid. “I wanted to shed light on underground abortion and the story of how women created their own institution and challenged how health was delivered.”

The women who started Jane didn’t characterize themselves as feminists but as housewives and mothers.

“They weren’t attracted to feminism or moved by equal pay or equal rights, but they knew the first-hand experiences of an unplanned pregnancy,” Kluchin said.

Kluchin referred to the “wave theory” in her lecture. The theory points out two feminist movements: women’s suffrage, which gave women the right to vote in 1920, and the women’s liberation movement, which occurred from 1960 to 1979.

“This “wave theory’ misses a lot of women. Working-class women in unions contributed to activism right here,” shesaid.

Jazmina Lopez, sophomore nursing major, came to the lecture for her government class and plans to share the information she learned with her sorority sisters.

“It was interesting. Women had to be underground – working for women,” Lopez said. “If (my sorority sisters) ever do get an abortion, I’ll be able to tell them. I’m going to appreciate it in a way.”

Women at Jane were not physicians by trade but learned abortion procedures from physicians.

Retired government professor Louellyn Cohan said the lecture showed the commitment of Jane organizers.

“I didn’t know such a group existed and was quite remarkable,” Cohan said. “Members would take upon themselves the responsibility of performing abortions considering the existing physicians had no previous medical training.”

Jane operated in rented apartments decorated with liberation posters on the walls, thrift store furniture and loud, colorful sheets. It was a competition to see who could make the least medical-looking and most colorful room.

Jane’s environment was drastically different from the hospital. Women watched television, drank coffee and ate cookies while their children played with donated toys.

Esther Rico, sophomore sociology major, was surprised Jane made the place like a home and informed women about the abortion process so they felt comfortable.

“Nurses didn’t wear uniforms, just plain clothes, and when the procedure was done, someone was there for them,” Rico said. “If I was having an abortion, I would want to know what’s going on.”

Jane was created to be a safer alternative to dangerous underground abortions.

“Jane undermined the medical model and rejected contemporary medical practices and put women undergoing abortions at center stage,” Kluchin said.

During the 1970s, women who attempted to perform abortions were arrested and brought up on state charges. Homicide detectives would show up to the scene because abortion was seen as murder.

“It seemed more serious before and it was a bigger deal then. I didn’t know that,” Rico said.

Mallory Fites can be reached at [email protected]