Gerri Santoro
Born
Geraldine Twerdy

(1935-08-16)August 16, 1935[1]
Connecticut, United States
DiedJune 8, 1964(1964-06-08) (aged 28)
Connecticut, United States
Spouse
Sam Santoro
​
​
(m. 1953; sep. 1963)​
PartnerClyde Dixon

Geraldine "Gerri" Santoro (née Twerdy; August 16, 1935 – June 8, 1964) was an American woman who died after receiving an unsafe abortion in 1964. A police photograph of her dead body, published by Ms., magazine in 1973, became a symbol for the abortion-rights movement in the United States.

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. She took a job at Mansfield State Training School, where she met another employee, Clyde Dixon. 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] They intended to perform a self-induced abortion, using surgical instruments and information from a textbook which Dixon had obtained from Milton Ray Morgan, a teacher at the Mansfield school. Dixon fled the motel after Santoro began to bleed. She died, and her body was found the following morning by a maid.[2]

Dixon and Morgan were arrested three days later. Dixon was charged with manslaughter, and Morgan was charged with conspiring to commit an illegal abortion.[4] Dixon was sentenced to a year and day in prison.[2][5]

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][6] The photo has since become an abortion-rights symbol, used to illustrate that access to legal and professionally performed abortion reduces deaths from unsafe abortion.[3]

Leona Gordon, Santoro's sister, saw the photo in Ms., magazine and recognized the subject.[7][5] Santoro's daughters had been told their mother 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] Later, Joannie became an abortion rights activist, attending the March for Women's Lives in 2004 with her teenage daughter Tara and Gerri Santoro's sister Leona,[8] and blogging in memory of her mother.[9]

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][10] 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."[11][7]

References

  1. ↑ Bloom, Marcy (June 8, 2007). "The Woman in the Photo". Rewire News Group. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Stroebel, Ken (March 9, 2001). "Sister: Story of photo that galvanized a movement needs telling". Norwich Bulletin. Archived from the original on May 5, 2007.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Maslin, Janet (March 31, 1995). "FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; The Woman Behind a Grisly Photo (Published 1995)". New York Times. Archived from the original on March 12, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Man Sought In Death Of Woman Arrested". The Morning Record. June 12, 1964. Archived from the original on October 6, 2020. Retrieved March 6, 2021 – via Google News.
  5. 1 2 Arnold, Amanda (October 26, 2016). "How a Harrowing Photo of One Woman's Death Became an Iconic Pro-Choice Symbol". Vice. Archived from the original on March 1, 2021. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
  6. ↑ Rosenfeld, Megan (November 6, 1995). "The Death of an Ordinary Woman". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 4, 2022. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
  7. 1 2 Rosenberg, Howard (November 1, 1995). "'Leona's Sister': Transfixing Tale of an Unwilling Symbol". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 6, 2021. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
  8. ↑ Williamson, Elizabeth (April 24, 2004). "A Family's March to Redemption: 3 Generations Join Abortion Rights Rally in Honor of Woman Who Died". The Washington Post. p. B1. Archived from the original on February 1, 2010.
  9. ↑ "Joannie Santoro, June 8, 2006: Remembering 42 years ago today". Democratic Underground. Archived from the original on January 8, 2009. Retrieved January 16, 2008.
  10. ↑ Stanley, Jenn (December 3, 2019). "25 Years Later, 'Leona's Sister Gerri' Reminds Us Of The Complexity Storytelling Brings To The Abortion Debate". WBUR-FM. Archived from the original on February 17, 2021. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
  11. ↑ Gillooly, Jane (director, producer); C.L. Monrose (producer); Kaufman, Jane (producer) (November 2, 1995). Leona's Sister Gerri (Documentary).
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