Exactly 126 years after Emma Gills’s remains were found in a Bridgeport, Connecticut, pond — mutilated in an attempt to conceal that she’d died after an illegal abortion — several events took me back to Connecticut to talk about that 1898 discovery.
As a guest speaker at the Hartford Medical Society’s annual meeting, I was honored to share the stage with state Senator Saud Anwar, M.D. I told the 100-plus physicians gathered at the Mark Twain House about Emma Gill’s real-life story, which, sadly, is more relevant than ever now, as abortion bans elsewhere are leading to women’s deaths.
In a moving speech, Senator Anwar spoke of the laws he and other Connecticut legislators have passed to ensure that, if Emma Gill were alive today, she’d get the abortion care she needed. As an author, I was moved to hear him repeatedly invoke Emma’s name. Her name has eroded on the stone above her grave, but it has not been forgotten.
A week after the Hartford event, I presented a slide talk at the Bridgeport Public Library, where I’d done much of my research. The audience was small but appreciative, and I was able to connect with an old high school friend.
The Bridgeport library, where I spent many of the happiest hours of my childhood, also recently released an interview I did a while back for their “Bridgeport Unmasked” podcast. My interviewer, librarian Adam Cleri, has a great radio voice. In another era, he could have been the announcer for an adventure radio series like the Green Hornet. He’d read my book carefully and asked many thought-provoking questions.
You can listen to the podcast (I’m featured on Episode 4) through most podcast platforms or the Bridgeport Public Library website. https://bportlibrary.org/bridgeport-unmasked-podcast/
