• fund the pro-abortion sculpture.nAccording to Galen McKibben ofnMontana’s Helena Presents (which co-administerednBiniaz’s grant), the abortionnsculpture was found “at the very top” ofn160 applications. Juror Casey Jarmannof the Salt Lake Arts Council explainednthat Biniaz’s proposal “came at a timenwhen the panel felt it made a strongnstatement and was worthy of funding.”nThe decision to fund the sculpture camenshortly after the Utah legislature, actingnwith overwhelming support from thenstate’s electorate, passed a restrictivenabortion law. The panel decided to subsidizenthe pro-abortion side of thenUtah argument: in principle, anti-abortionnUtahns were being taxed to fundna shrine to pro-abortion mythology —na situation of the sort Jefferson definednas the very essence of tyranny.nThe names placed in the monumentnwere provided by Susanne Millsaps, whonis executive director of Utah’s branchnof the National Abortion Rights ActionnLeague. According to legend, hundredsnof thousands of women died at the handsnof “back-alley butchers” before the 1973nRoe decision. (For this reason it is significantnthat some of the names on thenhandwritten list provided by Millsaps werenthose of women who obtained abortionsnafter 1973; legalization did not make abortionnany safer.) Abortion advocates havenborrowed heavily from the language andnimagery of holocaust survivors. Signsndeclaring “Never Again!” are prominentnat abortion rights rallies; Utah ACLUndirector Michelle Parish insists that permittingnthe state to restrict abortionn”would be like allowing Nazi deathncamps.” Through the NEA the federalngovernment has placed its imprimaturnupon the pro-abortion legend: thenmonument will offer tangible testimonynof the “truth” of the myth.nUnlike the actual holocaust, the “backalleynholocaust” resides in the realm ofnhistorical apocrypha. Marian Faux, authornof several books about the abortionndebate, observes that “When I begannto look into [illegal] abortion, several prochoicenreformers suggested that illegalnabortion was not as dangerous as it hadnbeen depicted during the reform movement.nAdmittedly, an image of tensnof thousands of women being maimed ornkilled each year by illegal abortion wasnso persuasive a piece of propagandanthat the movement could be forgivennfor its failure to double-check the facts.”nIn fact, according to Faux, “women [were]nprobably better off in the hands ofncompetent but ‘illegal’ abortionists whondid hundreds of the minor surgeries everynweek than with the family doctornwho did one abortion a year.”nWriting in the Progressive, Linda Rocawichnstrives to make vivid the “reality”nof “back-alley abortions” for those “womennand men who are too young to remembernwhat we women did before Januaryn22, 1973.” She offers testimoniesntaken from a handful of women who obtainednillegal abortions before Roe, butninsists that “each individual included herenstands in for the thousands of others likennnher.” The stories shared by Rocawichnactually continue the work of debunkingnthe pro-abortion mythology. With the exceptionnof one terrifying story of a womannwho beat herself into a miscarriage, thenvignettes offered by Rocawich are not particulariynunpleasant. “Carol” obtained annabortion in 1966 at the hands of a Cubannphysician; the procedure was performednin a “child’s room, just like every little girlnalways wanted. Pretty white bedspread,nfrilly curtain, stuffed animals. And itnwas clean. Really clean.” The procedurenwas competently performed: “There werenno complications, a little cramping is all.”nJUNE 1992/5n