When a Right Becomes a Privilege
When New York legalized abortion in 1970—three years before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade—a shrewd entrepreneur named Martin Mitchell saw an opportunity. The 31-year-old Detroit-area man chartered a tiny private plane and began advertising frequent flights from Michigan, where elective abortion was illegal, to Niagara Falls, New York, where it was not. For $400, a woman got transportation, an abortion by a licensed doctor at a clinic near the airport, and lunch, before being flown home the same day.
One of Mitchell’s clients, a 22-year-old secretary with a steady job at a hospital, told a reporter at the time that she was too scared to seek out an illegal abortion in Michigan, and that if she hadn’t been able to get to New York, she would have been forced to continue her pregnancy. She was only able to afford the charter service—which, adjusting for inflation, would cost
