The Audacity of Inez Burns Quotes

“Inez Burns, a San Francisco abortionist who lived from 1886 to 1976. Inez had bribed scores of public officials and cops to stay in business, performed tens of thousands of illegal abortions on rich and poor alike, and had become the worst-kept secret not just in San Francisco but throughout California. Inez, Caroline told me, lived a dazzling, risqué life and played it out to the fullest, becoming one of the wealthiest self-made women in California. Inez met her match in a young and opportunistic district attorney by the name of Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, who would eventually become governor, and if kismet had swung his way, president of the United States.”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold

“Poor economic conditions translate to spikes in crime, suicide, spousal abuse, malnutrition, alcoholism, and abortion.”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold

“It wasn’t until 1911 that California joined forty-five other states in restricting recreational cocaine”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold

“the majority of any abortion provider’s patients were mothers already with several children.”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold

“abortion had been outlawed throughout the United States, starting in Connecticut in 1821, in California in 1872, and in all states by 1880,”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold

“The ethnic tilt produced a backlash of virulent racism, as seen in the federal Chinese Exclusion Act in 1862, which set a moratorium on Chinese immigration for ten years, at a time when every other nationality was setting out for America daily.”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold

“The family was herded through Castle Garden, the first immigration station established in the United States, predating Ellis Island by four decades.8”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold

“promised, returned the furs he had safeguarded), and she’d have some spending money left over. She also knew she’d have to unload some of her real estate before the”
― Stephen G. Bloom, The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold