Gerri Santoro

Geraldine "Gerri" Santoro (; August 16, 1935 – June 8, 1964) was an American woman who died after attempting a self-induced abortion in 1964. A police photograph of her dead body, published by Ms. 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.

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. Dixon was sentenced to a year and day in prison.

Photograph

Police took a photograph of Santoro's body as she was found nude, kneeling, and collapsed upon the floor, with a bloody towel between her legs. The picture was used in placards and famously published in Ms. in April 1973, all without identifying Santoro. 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. and blogging in memory of her mother.

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. 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.