independent media is the hope i'm bill moyers going to tell you a story about an epic change in american life in american politics a story that begins about forty years ago when a conservative democrat and corporate lawyer from richmond virginia wrote a memo for the united states chamber of congress his name was lewis powell yes that lewis powell soon to be a supreme court justice in his memo powell challenged business leaders told him it was time to plunge into politics to unite and aggressively use their power to influence policy makers that memo helped trigger a forty year campaign by business to dominate government not just in washington but at the state and local levels to of the most powerful results of powles call to arms became one of the most influential organizations most americans have never heard of  if you really want to influence the politics of this country you don't just give money to presidential campaigns you don't just give money to congressional campaign committees are players put their money in the states alec has forged a unique partnership between state legislators and leaders from the corporate and business community this partnership for first business man the extraordinary opportunity to apply their talents to some of our nation's problems and build on our opportunities i was at the notion that politicians and representatives corporate lobbyists were actually voting behind closed doors on these changes the law before they were introduced in state houses across the country organization that it is corporate influence is tainting the legislative process particularly out across the states and average americans are paying the price the american legislative exchange council alec ordered here in washington d c but operates in every state capital in the country and its efforts produce some hundreds of new state laws he's covered politics for a living so i've known about alec a long time i was always conscious of but to be honest not that excited about it i just thought it was you know folks got together and discuss their issues that's all i knew and and that's not unusual and and that's how they portray themselves today but now with this project we've learned all sorts of things that we did provided by the whistleblower that's the end that they would come to tell a story she says of how a seemingly innocuous nonprofit was actually forty percent of the world's most powerful knew the documents they'd gotten had enormous implications out like it's been around for nearly four decades but no one has even certain exactly who belong to it there to begin to plough through alec documents as well dozens of right we think tanks and foundations of corporate law and lobbying firms and some thousand state legislators a few of them democrats the majority of the republicans after i spent some time really looking through the bill i went to dinner with my colleague here has been called this is it i have some stuff i don't know how much stuff i have but i have some stuff i think this is going to be a big story this is an incredible thing you know alec this organization that's usually been you know very much behind the scenes sort of the wizard of oz behind the curtain the senator was about to go on a mission i was determined to really break through the story about how its operations actually work i was also  that this not be like the wiki leaks situation where there was no context and no real story telling about but telling that story would be easy now like those it's most important business behind closed doors and just understanding all of the bills was a task in itself the former justice department attorney begin to examine laws mr the justice system would work for years in state and federal government did banking and finance journalist john nichols begin to gather information he would publish the nation magazine which helped launch the project but the three of us knew they would never get the job done on their roles and we decided to call in the true university of wisconsin professor joel rogers has written widely on public policy he was his misted to examine the bills affecting working people so one big thing that alex it was excited about was these living wage laws you heard that they were passing around cities and they would they had a bill where they said the state should preempt it should use their power  good so it's not it's not cuddly you know let's have some neighborhood grass roots you know a lively democracy for health care issues they called in the former insurance company executive turned industry watchdog and whistle blower wendell potter even though i have known of the organization for a long time i was astonished just about everything that i knew that the health insurance industry wanted out of any state lawmaker was included in that package of bills potter found among the other documents a resolution to urge congress to prioritize medicare a bill that would limit the amount of money a plaintive could read in the medical malpractise suit and another that would support any effort by the government to impose health insurance mandate also in the alec archive there is a giant stack of school choice bills and there that bills to this little slice of school choice and that little sky's slice of school vouchers and it's basically a long to privatized public education and it was that this was not our issue area so i started asking friends who can i talk to about school choice and school vouchers and everybody pointed to julie julie on the word attorney and professor of education at the university of wisconsin i have done education policy for a long time and many times said you know people are trying to defund and dismantle public education but i'd never put all of these forces together until i saw all of those documents they kind of changes that alec is trying to impose on public education is a really just mild reform it's actually creating a drastically different kind of educational system that we have no legislative exchange council or alec but before that what happened there was much to be nerd about alec describes itself as a nonpartisan partnership of state legislators members of the private sector and the general public devoted to limited government free enterprise the jeffersonian principle founded close to forty years ago it produces what it calls model legislation proposed laws that its legislative members introduce in the state houses throughout the country as their own alex is close to a thousand bills based at least in part on his models are introduced each year and an average of two hundred pages out doesn't run candidates al it doesn't train candidates alec doesn't really play politics you know on election day alec plays the day after the election and look at who got elected they say you should join alec alex members and representatives either refused or didn't respond to interview requests for this story but it's not hard to get the group's philosophical point of view alex on videos help to do that if you want to get more revenue that rich people the enduring lesson of the last fifty years you cut their tax rates you don't raise them and by the way that's an important lesson for you all the state legislator actually it's a pleasure to be able to stand today and say that there are actually cities that very closely resemble what we envisioned many decades ago where you have pretty much the private sector running almost entirely everything in the city al corporate dating service for lonely legislators and corporate special interests that eventually the relationship culminates with some special interest legislation and hopefully that lives happily ever after is the alec model u nfortunately what's excluded from that equation is the public mark pokmon is a democratic wisconsin state representative and one of alex loudest critics of this is part of a national conservative movement that's involved in all fifty states that introduces the same cookie cutter legislation state by state on behalf of their corporate paid members by one kill over a third of polk a and fellow wisconsin lawmakers are like members when you look around especially on the republican side of the aisle a lot of members of alec front row when you start going down to you know that the chair of finance and some of the other members are all alec members like alec co chair for the state  by row you can point out people who've been members of alec over the years there's two main categories they have one is how to reduce the size of government and the other half of it is this model legislation that's in the corporate other words as profit driven legislation how can you open up a new market how can you privatized something that can open up a market for a company and between those two divisions you're kind of getting to the same end goal which is really kind of ultimate privatization of everything more p is something of an expert on alec in fact to learn as much about it as he could he became what i would i'd realize if you join alec for a mere hundred dollars as a legislator you have the full access like any corporate member those corporate members pay up to twenty five thousand dollars for that privilege for a firsthand look at how drinks free cigars wining dining many people just came from a dinner that was sponsored by some special interests coming to a party that sponsored by special interests so they can continue to talk about special interest this is from the new orleans convention this includes a number of seminars that they held for legislators including one called warming up to climate change the many benefits of increased atmospheric c o two  for legislators and for lobbyists free there was even one offering free cigars sponsored by reynolds american which is one of the biggest back to companies in the world and the cigar association of america despite it alec says it's not engaged in the lobbying effort in fact alyque operates not as a lobby group but as a nonprofit a charity in his falling with the i r s alec says it's mission his education which means it pays no taxes and is corporate members get a tax write off it's legislators get a lot too in wisconsin i can't take anything of value from a lobbyist i can't take a cup of coffee from a lobbyist and alec it's just the opposite you know you get there and you're being wined and dined by corporate interests you can go down there and be wined and dined for days in order to hear about their special legislation i mean the head of shell oil flew in on his private jet to come to this conference the head of one of the largest utility companies in the country was there on a panel utility company in thirteen states and here he is presenting to legislators i mean they clearly brought in some of the biggest corporate names in special interest done and had a meeting with  legislators because a lot of business transpires at these events the most important business takes place behind closed doors but common cause research your mixer would delve deep into internal alec documents to figure out what goes on inside alex task forces there are currently eight of them with a corporate takeover every important issue in american life from health and safety to the environment to taxation they have corporate members and legislators who are members  serious legal penalties if their products are found to harm or to kill but included tobacco giant algeria and drug makers pfizer and glaxo smith kline there's another task force with a bill designed to exempt energy companies from disclosing some of the chemicals they inject on the grounds that task force has included companies that manufacture or inject plenty of those chemicals koch industries chevron b p and the company that sponsored the bill  exxon mobil five states have energy to store past versions of that alec bill alex is elected legislators not corporations fully control the model legislation process but rid alex operating procedures and found a different story if the corporations do not vote for a model bill it does not become an alec model we've seen an example in the telecommunications taskforce where the legislators voted seventeen to one to approve a telecoms bill that clearly the will of the legislators was for it to become an advocate model however the corporations voted and tied it right which meant that it was scaled it didn't become our model and i can understand why a corporate lobbyist wants to have an equal say to an elected representative who wouldn't but the fact is that i have been a lobbyist before and has never been the case that any any legislator said to me here's the plan you get an equal say to me and if you don't if you don't agree the bill doesn't go forward there is a model bill for year to review if you might be interested in interview saying such a measure this is jerry watson senior legal counsel for the american bail bond coalition speaking at an alec meeting in two thousand and seven now if you don't like the precise language of these suggested documents can they be tweaked by your legislative counsel well absolutely and will we work with them on that and work with you and your staff on that absolutely this video provides a rare look at a private sector representative pitching a bill to alex legislative members but i'm not so crazy as not to know that you've already figured out that if i can talk you into doing this bill my clients are going to mike i'm up some money on the bond premiums but if we can help you save crime victims in your legislative district and generate positive revenue for your state and help solve your prison overcrowding problem you don't mind me making a dollar these guys who are paying to be part of this organization are not there just to be nice they're there to get something out of it bob edgar leads the sort of watchdog group common cause normally lobbyists have to register normally corporations have to disclose their lobbying activity but here under the guise of a nonprofit and these corporate lawyers and corporate officials are sitting side by side with mostly conservative state legislators there shaping these bills when i went down to new orleans to the elec convention last august there is a proposal to provide special needs scholarships and lonely hold office and i come back to wisconsin and what gets introduced get ready i know you have shocked look at your face bill to do just that that special needs bill was sponsored by twenty six if the average person knew that a bill like this came from some group like alec you look at the bill very differently and you might look at that legislator a little differently about why they introduced it this is not about education this is not about helping kids with special needs this is about privatization this is about corporate profits and this is about dismantling public education the bill passed in the wisconsin house and failed to make it through the senate however in its educational report card i only post this similar bills have become law in oklahoma luciana north carolina and ohio and it's not just special needs education alex education agenda includes own line schooling as well there's a model alec bill called the virtual public schools act which actually creates cyber academies when kids and ruling connections academy where children receive all of their instruction and front of a computer and they don't go to school they don't interact with adults they don't interact with other children all of their instruction is received on line thank you mr speaker house bill ten thirty has to do with the establishment of virtual public schools last year and own lives cooling bill based on the alec model turned up in another state where alec has a powerful influence tennessee it was introduced in both the state senate and house but alec members like this special needs bill in wisconsin this one too had its opponents we have never opened up our state to virtual schools broadly and that's why we have an army of lobbyist outside many of you may have talked to them trying right now to pass this virtual schools act and the concern i have is that whether you like them or don't like them the fact is that virtual schools involve a dramatic transfer of sizeable amounts of money to private sector for profit companies and there was something else that julie underwood found her magic about alex model online education bill in two thousand and four how like a credit to two of the nation's largest for profit only manage occasion corporations connections academy  twelve with helping to craft the virtual schools act you can actually follow the line where you see a corporate interest and this model piece of legislation that then was proposed pretty much and whole lobbied for the bill and begin to benefit almost immediately after it was passed in tennessee lo and behold they get a a no bid contract to provide these services  tennessee so it's not even a leap of faith or imagination you can see the steps where you see the corporations creating a piece of model legislation lobbying for it being successful and then to their bottom line what's the purpose of privatizing education in the united states because there are some things in the united states like courts legislatures public education that really need to remain public i mean that's the heart of what we are as a democracy and what alex seems to be doing is taking public education and legislation and privatizing  individual liberty free enterprise limited government whether you are on state legislator the philosophy of privatization goes way back it came to alec by way of conservative economist milton friedman every decision you have made problem is how do we get to a system in which parents control the education of their children of course the ideal way would be to abolish the public school system and eliminate all the taxes that pay for  talking about a simple way spreading the gospel in a political context is the key strategists of the new right and the right wing backlash that began really strongly with the election of ronald reagan as president studies the right we moved it was a christian conservative who was also a political strategist and really wanted to roll back the role of government in the society and cut back taxes cut back social security cut back all of the next cycle he was not certainly not interested in the next candidate which is what the left or the liberals have always been obsessed by you know which is good obama analysts do this or that will be saved no it was always about building an infrastructure building a real machine especially at the state and local level we have been far too presidential a focused and far less focused on state and local conservati how quickly alec moved into the realm of practical politics its author utah republican senator orrin hatch i'm totally convinced that if you and i regain control of our schools our homes our businesses and our government it must be through a concerted effort on the state and local level that is why i joined the american legislative exchange council as time goes on alec draws in more and more interest from corporate funders who begin to see it as a way to get their pet projects brought down to the state level and so somewhere between around one thousand nine hundred ninety four and one nine hundred eighty you see alec transform into a very powerful organization with scores of corporations involved in it putting out sample state policy legislation packets on many different issues this is a list it's some of our corporate and foundation donors it's tiny type and it fills a lot of the page the all faith foundation the american petroleum institute chevron exxon illinois manufacturers association gulf oil i will power in light i got quite a list anti government sentiment christian activist certainty power both political and corporate it was a potent mix that helped propel alex success and early eighty's annual report for example boasted that literally every state has been employed by the work about scores of alec's model bills have been inactive into law throughout the country the critical questions of our day will be decided by state legislators how our children are educated how we are protected from crime alec has forged a unique partnership between state legislators and leaders from the corporate and business community i value our partnerships our dynamic partnerships and look forward to working with you in the years ahead  hundred ninety five report got specific one hundred and seventy eight bills introduced two hundred thirty one pay over half the states passed alec laws that would link than prisons and meanwhile bills to foster the rise of for profit prisons were introduced in seven states eight states inactive bills creating medical savings accounts which would shift costs on insurance companies to policyholders so called civil justice bills which would limit the amount corporations pay if their products kill or injure someone is reduced or enacted more than twenty times alex head at the turn boasted with our success rate at more than twenty percent i would say that alec is a good investment nowhere else and you get a return that and as i grew more influential it became a whole not just for corporations and conservative politicians but for their fellow travelers the billionaire bank has grown into this enormous organization ideas into the mix it's a great funders of the structure of conservative and frankly pro portrait politics and they were very early funders of an active players with ale david in charles koch the billionaire businessman behind the best industrial in power are also political activists with legenda their companies and foundations have been alec members and funders for years the koch brothers get that if you really want to influence politics of this country you don't just give money to presidential campaigns don't just give money to congressional committees the smart ones are players put their money in the state because it's state government that fund education social services and get taxes and so if you want to play big time politics you play in fifty state capitals and so true alex you can change the whole country without ever going to washington without however having to go through a congressional hearing without ever having to la bianca capitol hill without ever having to talk to a president if anyone demonstrates the success of the koch brothers and but before he hit the national scene walker spent close to a decade in the wisconsin legislature where he became a member of alec and two thousand and ten he ran not presenting himself as an alec alumni or as an ally of big corporations or big business people outside state he ran a very down home campaign this is my lunch i pack a brown bag each day so i can save some money to spend on you know the more important next in li like sending my kids to college on the go says that despite the folksy image in the years leading up to walker's two thousand and ten campaign he had become a master political fundraiser and he began to really forge incredibly close ties with a lot of corporate interests that he had first been introduced to and you know individuals and groups like the koch brothers the koch brothers were among the two or three largest contributors to scott walker's campaign for governor of wisconsin the new governor moved quickly with a raft of out like inspired bills they included a law that made it easier to carry concealed weapons there was a resolution opposing the mandated purchase of health insurance and of course there was a law limiting corporate law bill with a the wisconsin legislature passed a so called tort reform measure that included parts of eight different alec models alec was elated praising walker and the legislature in a press release for their quote immediate attention to reforming the state's legal system but scott walker was also shooting for another big alec prize now so no question why we have to reform collective bargaining taking away workers collective bargaining rights practically and alex subsidiary one report this year found that forty nine of arizona's ninety legislators are members and two thirds of the republican leadership are on alec task forces and the governor alec member to all of us here are very familiar with alec and the influence that alec has with many of the members here alex domination of arizona proved too much for state representative steve farley i just want to emphasize it's fine for corporations to be involved in the process corporations have the right to present their arguments but they don't have the right to do it secretly they don't have the right to lobby people and not registered lobbyists they don't have the right to take people away on trips convince them up and send them back here and then nobody seen what's really gone on and how that legislators gone that idea and where is it coming from farley as introduced a bill to force legislators to dispose their alec does just as the law already requires them to do with any lobbyist all i'm asking the alec accountability act is to make sure that all of those expenses are reported as if they are lobbying expenses and all those gifts that legislators received are reported as if they're receiving gifts from lobbyist so the public can find out and make up their own minds about who's influencing one party's bill has gone nowhere for most of its existence like state out of the national news that change originate the florida law it's seized on it for the stand your ground model it would circulated other states twenty four of them have passed a version of it tell us what you know about what the impact has been of the of the trayvon martin case in terms of funding this cola kraft foods mcdonald's mars procter and gamble johnson and johnson called it the glare of the national spotlight and i like trying to change the subject you know i think that the entire debate needs to be refrained and really what alec is as a bipartisan association of say legislators and we have you know legislators of all political stripes coming together to talk about the most critical issues facing the face and trying to come up with the best solutions to is not a partisan organization but the floodgates have opened at last count at least forty corporations have flat out including many additional big name still many of its member companies have killed before and alec continues to strengthen his promise to conservative groups recently alec held a high level closed door meeting with congressional conservatives in war to better coordinate their policy go here's the interesting thing this story isn't done this is an ongoing fight in america and it really gets us to a question of how do you counter so much organized power organize money in our politics common cause has filed a complaint about alec with the internal revenue service we think there is tax fraud involved the group is challenging alex tax free status claiming that alec is a corporate lobbying group masquerading as a public charity and those who oppose the alec agenda continue to speak out against it ma and democracy also researchers continue to the poor alex documents connecting the dots between its corporate patrons and compliant legislators state by state by state citizens have to decide do they want legislators to go to fancy resorts and sit behind closed doors with lobbyists and write their bills and then bring them back and introduce them without exposing their alec roots or do they want to do something about that as most of all become aware of the role of the american legislative exchange coun they are becoming more aware of this corporate agenda is not our us of the american people citizens are catching on but alec is still everywhere watch for it coming soon to a state house i used to have a go where did it go and when to a family who really needed it you see giving a family an animal is like giving them a business the eggs all turn into income for medicine school clothing a better home a sustainable livelihood soon the family is passing on the gift of the animals saw spring to another family who does the same and on and on until the whole community is lifted out of poverty that is where my go twins and that's why you give to have or international that's why the pets and women's shelters program are poz is helping shelters open their doors to women children and their beloved pet i urge you to contact american humane some of these women and children can have a safer and better life  i was seventeen years old i was married and ten months after i was married i had a baby girl she was very ill very jaundiced and the doctor told me the o b g y n who had delivered her told me that if i ever had no the child i would die three months later i was pregnant again and i was absolutely terrified so i went back to him and i said am i pregnant and he said yes and he said i told you not to get pregnant and i said but you didn't tell me not to i thought we were pretty close i mean we had talked about getting married we had talked about babies we had talked about what we would name a child and when i got pregnant and said i'm pregnant everything  changed it was like well who's is it and that was such a shock to me the relationship ended i didn't really understand the implications in the fact that it was illegal so all it was just like i would make this problem go away until the mid eighteen hundreds of abortions were legal and available in the united states both the state and the church permitted abortions if they occurred before quickening when the mother first perceived who had provided abortion in maternity care in their communities for centuries during the second half of the nineteenth century victorian society began to condemn limits seeking abortions as selfish in morrow and shirking the duty of motherhood protestant and catholic churches joined the medical establishment in expressing their condemnation meanwhile legislation restricting abortion continued to spread and by the turn of the century both birth control and abortion were illegal in most states if a woman needed medical treatment after a botched abortion she faced a humiliating and dangerous situation even though infected and bleeding she was often required to testify against her husband or lover and the abortionist before she could receive medical care  would have twenty or thirty women come in and bleeding and dying from abortions that they didn't do stem cells in the cold are in your trick was used where they had a friend that had a catheter and they'd leave the catheter in until for a day or two and she was bleeding and cramping and they'd come in and that's not an exaggeration i think it was true in any major city area in this worked and i asked them if there was somebody who could help me do something you didn't say the word abortion in those days and they knew where i wanted and they sent me to and she told me that she would do it for fifty dollars thirty nine and fifty dollars was a lot of money and i worked hard every thing i had that i could get a few pennies for and i eventually got my fifty dollars and i went out to see this woman and she put i think it was a strip of slippery elm bark and she inserted this up my uterus and she said now you go home and bat will swell up and you will have paid and you will probably have some temperature but you will have a miscarriage two days later i had this favor and i was in such pain and so i went back out to see this woman and the she lived in a shack and she met me at the door and she said told you not to come back and i said i have nowhere else to go and so she cleaned me up and i was so frightened and i was in tears and she put her arms her family like that and she just held me up to her chest for a minute and she said honey did you think it was so easy to be a woman i'll never forget that never forget the kindness of that woman even under those terrible circumstances and so she said this time you go she gave me some aspirin she said don't you ever come back again and that was the last i saw of her and i had a roaring favor for about three or four days and i got better and i went back to see my doctor when i got the money for the visit and i told him i said i had something bad and he said well i figured a smart kid like you would figure a way as fit and i looked at him and i thought could he how could he this was a man trained and licensed and he turned me away and i had to go out and find this woman to do this and it was to to save my very own life the day came and they took me  to a motel so wrong miles from boise and so dirty and i was alone with this woman and i remember what she looked like really well she was questor it too right but the fact is that i didn't abort i just lead a lot and it was incredibly painful and i got a bad infection and they started looking for a doctor because i just that if he were caught he would be able to prove that the process had been initiated before he became involved and he explained that that he wanted to be able to help other women who found themselves in my position and that the only way he could protect himself was that so that was i i had to do that alone i didn't tell anyone except the father and when i saw his reaction i didn't tell anyone else i just thought well this is my problem and i have to deal with it and the only thing i could do was to get an abortion because to have a baby without a husband just was not done i just went to the telephone directory maybe he would be sympathetic and it turned out he was there were many physicians who were supportive of abortion who felt it should be available and provided safely for women but they were afraid to do them themselves sometimes the fear was because they they didn't want to be found out or would be censured but very often their fear was and rightly i think that as soon as word got out that were willing to do abortions they would be flooded with requests and even one of the doctors who started off thinking he would do a few abortions and who found himself getting referrals of women from all over the united states was dr curtis boyd in one thousand sixty five he began to do abortions for women referred to him by ministers over the course of the next  just really literally walked up and down the streets i was by myself and i would go from one place to another and they would all be in the same situation they would say nobody's there i know what you're talking about and at that time shotgun marriages were in vogue and there were all these youngsters getting married which never i soon saw that that never solved anything and only made the matters worse the marriages never lasted the children suffered and it was a miserable situation and then we went through the period when we were sending girls of the homes for the unwed mothers they were all over the country and they they were expected to work part time and give up their child for adoption and those who were bear that was a very sad situation because you would see a young woman come in and she was a school girl she would have to go off to leave home and and everyone knew why and her life was really wrecked socially and academically and everything else and it was the young that really got me saying leave some of these youngsters twelve thirteen fourteen their mothers a bring them in and it was just a horrible thing as public awareness grew about the consequences of illegal abortion lawmakers and clergy joined with the medical establishment in princeton for before in states where therapeutic abortions were printed some doctors were lenient so they could provide more women were safe abortion i heard about these two call with and stand for who went to to you wanna and obtained illegal abortions the infection of her reproductive organs and it was necessary to do a hysterectomy which render her sterile of course at the same time there was the existence and california law which allowed for medical support with an abortion not medical grounds lamely through a psychiatric channel we would use these channels in order to enable the girl or woman to get a therapeutic abortion one provided to the right was outrage at the way in which women were being treated whether there was a reaction of the boyfriend or fiance or husband some of these responses were going to turn out some men told the women the if i'd known you were so stupid i would have gone with you in the first place others told the girl that it's her problem she's got the baby recognise that there were many of us out there there who were looking desperately for some place to solve the problem and so i began to listen and get to hear when anybody said that t you to me and you know you get sensitive to it and you begin to hear things that give you a clue and you pursue it a little bit and find out that somebody that had an abortion and i just got the names of the doctors and i would just give the names a young woman would call on the phone someone i didn't know and would ask for help and that they were feeling so desperate that they were calling strangers i was aware that what i was doing was illegal i guess i think what was going to happen to them was worse than the possibility of what might happen to me people who themselves had had to search for an abortion young guy very friendly so when i told him and he said find out more about it what do you want to do so forth and i began to ask around about possibilities of  abortion abortion and they didn't work finally i get a name of someone actually in town in los angeles because willing to do this and get a price by a senior professor a woman who had a student freshman and she was pregnant she die in childbirth but that didn't make any sense and i was told it was a miscarriage and she bled to death  e came to me in bits and pieces over many years even though she was using an i u d for birth control became pregnant the doctor told her that the i u d would probably cause the baby to be deformed but that removing it might cause a miscarriage or wait the risks carefully and decided to have the i u d removed she went back for the scheduled appointment and he said i'm sorry i have consulted with colleagues and i cannot i'm inclined to believe i will do it myself and he said i'll tell you what to do i'll tell you how to do it and when you're in the process of miscarriage you can call me you can go to the hospital and then i'll be able to help you without jeopardizing my own position so that was her plan when removing lee are you d didn't cause a miscarriage lola became desperate she sought a way to end the pregnancy herself she purchased a couple of two stand that again rosalie had been raped by an older man she was afraid that another illegal abortion would lead to the same medical complications as before so she decided to go to a home for unwed mothers and then give the baby up for adoption everyone told me that if i had any sense i would look at the baby i would just let them take it away and never look at the baby but i did act i let them bring the baby to me and i held the baby that was a terrible mistake and then i owed some money for my medical and so i stayed for a while and i worked in the nursery to work some money off and that was a very bad mistake because i was just around babies all the time and i wanted to keep the baby and i actually held the baby before they took  take a child who doesn't even know her own mind a seventeen year old young woman and ask her to carry a baby in her body to kill for nine months and then give birth to it and then just give it away like it's like it's nothing very difficult even after forty years to admit to doing something that was against the law that was illegal it's sort of put you in the position of having a criminal past and although you might not feel that what you did was in any way criminal there is still the stigma to it it's a relief to be able to talk about it after all these years and say i was human knew that i could lose my medical license i knew that i could go to prison and just as i had to trust these women who came to me not to bring charges against me which could put me in prison they had to trust me to give them good medical care insurers and not harm them and that was a scary thing in those days because you didn't know which one who you were going to you didn't know what the outcome was was going to be it was frightening for women to come from great distances to a little town in east texas to some doctor they came by bus by train by car and they had to trust that they were going to leave their intact and alive a woman that's unhappily pregnant will risk her life to stop that particular pregnancy and then later in her from practicing in their school yard to performing throughout europe and the arab world translated from arabic dummies to create something before the establishment of israel in one thousand palestinian arabs well over two thirds of the population of historical palestine and only ninety percent of them land for many of them the over fifty years later most of the palestinians live in refugee camps in occupied palestine and the neighboring arab states approximately five million palestinian refugees living diaspora him the settlements are housing areas exclusively for israeli jews they're illegally built on land confiscated from palestinians by the israeli government when palestinian families fled their homes they took their house keys with them confident that they would return decades later the keys are passed down from generation to generation a will of hope to return  of each may when israel celebrates its founding the palestinians mourn or the catastrophe the dispossession of their land my village another foreigner and i secretly took several of the a detailed written through the checkpoints to visit their ancestral homes in present day israel although their homeland villages are within an hour's drive of the haitian refugee camp the children had never been there before while some of the villages have been left empty others have been rebuilt with israeli homes and settlements and how