Although some hurdles remain, society today is more accepting of women getting abortions than it was in the 1970s, an abortionist said at Boston University Friday.’
Kenneth Edelin, author of the novel ‘Broken Justice,’ which chronicles his arrest after performing a legal abortion, spoke at the Hiebert Lounge in the BU School of Medicine to an audience of 90 attendees. Edelin, an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology and former chair of the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has been a practicing physician for nearly 40 years.’
Edelin said today’s women have access to safe and legal abortions.
‘We’re in a remarkable time in America’s history, as the three most powerful people in the United States of America, the president, vice-president and the House of Representatives are all pro-choice,’ he said.
But despite this, he said, only 80 percent of private insurance companies today cover abortion services and no federal funding is spent on abortion services except in cases of rape or incest.’
For example, women in the military are marginalized because they do not have access to public abortion as part of their health insurance plan, he said.
MED student Kari-Claudia Allen, co-president of the BU chapter of the Student National Medical Association, said many describe Edelin as an ‘activist in women’s health’ during her introduction to Edelin’s talk.’
His activism, Edelin said, was inspired by a life-changing event during his third year in medical school.
In 1966, he treated a woman who got an infection during an illegal abortion and was brought to the hospital with a punctured uterus.’
‘I still remember the foul smell of the pus which infected the body,’ he said.
The teenage woman did not survive and since then, he has worked to make abortion safe and legally accessible to all women, he said.
In 1971, abortions in Boston were allowed only if the continuation of pregnancy was detrimental to the women’ physical and mental state of health under the ‘abortion and sterilization command,’ he said.’
‘It took so long for the approval and paper work to get done that women who came in eight weeks pregnant were already in second trimester where operation was more dangerous and complex,’ he said.’
The hospital devised a system to get psychiatrists to declare the women who came for abortion were crazy, which did away with much of the paper work and approval process, speeding up the abortion procedure, Edelin said.
Edelin said the system worked within the law and simultaneously made abortion quicker and safer for women.
In 1973, Edelin and a group of physicians set up an ambulatory abortion clinic in the hospital, which they operated after their working hours since the hospital was not supportive, he said. One of these cases went to court.’
Two years later, Edelin was found guilty of murdering a fetus, he said. His appeals to the Massachusetts Supreme Court were rejected.’
While the situation in the U.S. is better today, 70,000 women world-wide still die from illegal abortions annually, Edelin said.
‘The solution is for everyone to be politically active,’ he said. ‘There is no way that a spouse or a district attorney is to determine what will happen to a woman’s body.’
Hyejo Jun, a Tufts Medical School student, said she agreed with Edelin.’
‘Abortion should be offered as a safe option for women, so that they are not forced to resort to other unsafe measures,’ she said.