Gerri Santoro

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.

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

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. 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. 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. 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. 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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