Carol Downer

Life and career

Downer began her activist career in the movement for civil rights and local politics in California during the 1960s. She became active in the women's liberation movement in 1969, and she worked to try to make abortion available in Los Angeles, California under the liberalized abortion law. Downer began her reproductive rights career on the Abortion Task Force of NOW with Lana Clarke Phelan, author of The Abortion Handbook, who became her mentor. Downer and other women observed abortion procedures at Harvey Karman's illegal abortion clinic on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles to learn how to perform abortions themselves. While there, she took a vaginal speculum and figured out how to do a vaginal self-examination. When Downer and others organized as the Los Angeles Abortion Task Force, they called a meeting on April 7, 1971 at a feminist book store to educate women about abortion and their bodies. Downer demonstrated the vaginal self-examination to the estimated two dozen women that attended. Downer's group formed the Women's Abortion Referral Service, the first of its kind to offer pregnancy screening. "Women came from all over for help", Downer said.

The result of this first meeting of the Self-Help Clinic was the development of the concept of menstrual extraction and the invention of the Del-Em kit by Lorraine Rothman. This provided women with a less traumatic abortion option than the use of a metal tool to scrape the inside of the uterus, which was predominately used at the time. Downer and Rothman travelled across the country and many Self-Help Clinics were formed. During this time, abortion, birth control and fertility information were not available to women. The menstrual extraction and vaginal self examinations that Downer pioneered with her team provided women with the means to learn about their bodies and take control of their reproduction. Barbara Ehrenreich described Downer and Rothman’s efforts as "legitimizing the notion that we have the right to know and decide about procedures...that affect our bodies and our lives." In 1972 she also gave a notable speech to the American Psychological Association on September 5, 1972, in Hawaii, entitled "Covert Sex Discrimination Against Women as Medical Patients."

She and Rothman were leaders of a group that founded the Feminist Women's Health Center] in Los Angeles in 1971. Equipped with vaginal speculums, they traveled the United States to share their information with women around the country. Downer and Rothman also promoted group meetings where they taught women how to self-administer cervical exams and provided women information on a procedure called menstrual extraction. Downer and Rothman trained women on how to suction out a member's menstrual material on or about the time of the menstrual period; if she were pregnant, this would constitute a non-professional abortion. When they came back from their trip around the US, Downer and her followers started a Women's abortion referral service with their own clinic. In 1972, the police conducted a search on Downer's clinic/health center and arrested her and Colleen Wilson for practicing medicine without a proper license. Called the Great Yogurt Conspiracy, they were using yogurt inter-vaginally to treat a woman's yeast infection. Downer was later acquitted of all charges.

In 1973, after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, their group established women-controlled clinics in Los Angeles and Orange County. Over the next two years, other Feminist Women's Health Centers were established which became part of the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Center in 1975.

From 1987 to 1991, Downer attended law school and worked for the Federation of FWHCs. Since then, she has practiced law, mostly in the area of disability rights. In 1981, she was the general editor of A New View of a Woman's Body, published by Simon and Schuster, and she was an editor of a companion book, How to Stay Out of the Gynecologist's Office, published by Women to Women Publication. In 1984, she and Francie Hornstein assisted Ginny Casside-Brinn, a Registered Nurse, in writing Woman-Centerd Pregnancy and Birth, published by Cleis Press. But during the Reagan Administration, the Pro-Life movements begin and the Women’s choice clinics were hit with protests. "The low point was 1985, when the clinic burned down, but we didn’t give up." Downer said. Many believe the fire was started by protestors. So these women began mobile clinics located in vans, which did screenings in a safe and secure location.

In 1992, she wrote A Woman's Book of Choices with Rebecca Chalker, published by Seven Stories Press. She has also served on the Board of Directors of the National Abortion Federation.

Downer is currently promoting women's liberation, giving speaking presentations and also working on her next book about in which she advances the belief that women's collective efforts to achieve their sexual and reproductive liberation is a fundamental strategy for social change. She is also working on the board of directors of the Feminist Women's Health Centers of California. This board operates eight Women's Health Specialist Clinics. She recently posted a video on YouTube about the history of her foundation and how she taught other women about their speculum abortion technique.