ON SEPTEMBER 15, 1927, a young woman named Ruby Gonzales came into Manhattan for a doctor’s appointment. She was a waitress in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the hardworking single mother of a five-year-old girl. Gonzales brought her small daughter to the appointment as well as her boyfriend, an adding machine salesman who worked in the city. The appointment was for an abortion, wholly illegal, wholly secret, and twenty-seven-year-old Gonzales was nervous enough to want her boyfriend for support. And really, she had no choice but to bring her daughter.
