Plurk paste

playing Scott Phillips "Search For Tomorrow" had soap's first legal abortion.
On Jan. 22, 1973 the SCOTUS decision on Roe v. Wade made abortion on demand legal in the whole country.
Sometime not long after that Erica on "All My Children" had a legal abortion.
Earlier this year in my Facebook soap forum, SOAPS:THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY, we were discussing people not remembering that "Another World" had the first abortion. In the Young & the Restless" primetime event celebrating their anniversary of being on the air, it was said that Ashley Abbott had the first. She did not. Often it is said that Erica had the first without adding "legal" which is what makes it accurate.
Just then a poster, Lance Jackson, added that no one ever seemed to remember it but Kathy on "Search For Tomorrow" actually had the first legal abortion in 1971.
I began then to try to find out more about this.
I messaged Courtney Sherman Simon who played Kathy with the basic query & she immediately affirmed that yes, she'd had an abortion & it was in 1971 & she guessed Procter & Gamble just wasn't as into putting that stuff out in the press as much as Agnes Nixon was. However, she also said she had nothing to prove it, not a script nor anything in print.
One of the members of my forum team, DM James Fairbanks found a "Daytime TV" magazine
©1977 dedicated entirely to "Search for Tomorrow". On page 59 is the following paragraph.

Without realizing it Scott and Kathy began to fall in love. Scott and Laurie separated and eventually divorced. But Kathy was liberated and didn't want children. Scott felt she would change her mind. On the day he proposed, Kathy told Scott she had an abortion the day before.
Search For Tomorrow. (1977). Daytime TV Library Series No. 7.
I typed up that page of storyline synopsis & asked a discussion thread devoted to "Search For Tomorrow" if they could date the events & someone immediately affirmed 1970-71.
Donna L. Bridges (shallotpeel) 7-14-2023
https://www.facebook.com/groups/soapthegoodthebadtheugly