Sherri Finkbine (the thalidomide and abortion controversy)
Sherri Finkbine
Sherri Finkbine (born Sherri Chessen in 1932) is an American television actress.
Finkbine was known as Miss Sherri on the local Phoenix, Arizona, version of the franchised children's show, Romper Room. The Finkbine Case began in London, England, in 1961, when her husband was chaperoning sixty-four high school students on a European tour. He obtained some Thalidomide and carried the remainder home. Finkbine took thirty-six of the pills in the early stages of her pregnancy. Neither she nor her husband was aware until July 1962 that the pills contained Thalidomide.[1]
In 1962, when Finkbine was pregnant with her fifth child, she had been taking Thalidomide, a drug which if taken by a pregnant woman, causes the fetus(es) within her to become deformed while in utero.[2] Finkbine's physician[who?] strongly recommended that she obtain a therapeutic abortion,[3] the only type of abortion that was permitted in Arizona at the time. Finkbine contacted a friend at the Arizona Republic to tell her story, so that other women who were taking Thalidomide would be warned. Although Finkbine had been assured anonymity, her identity was not kept secret.[4]
Following the paper's publication of Finkbine's story, the hospital at which she planned to have the abortion performed, wary of the publicity, sought assurance that it would not be prosecuted.[5] When such assurance was not forthcoming, the scheduled abortion was canceled. When Finkbine's physician asked for a court order to proceed with the abortion, Finkbine and her husband became public figures,[6][7] receiving letters and phone calls in opposition to her requested abortion. A few letters included death threats,[3] and the FBI was brought in to protect her.[8] She also lost her job at the TV station.[9] Finkbine’s case was dismissed by Judge Yale McFate, who found that he didn’t have the authority to make a decision on the matter.[4]
Finkbine attempted to go to Japan to obtain the abortion, but was denied a visa by the Japanese Consul.[10][11] She and her husband then flew to Sweden where she obtained a successful and legal abortion, which caused a minor controversy. The abortion panel of the Royal Swedish Medical Board granted Finkbine's request for an abortion on August 17, 1962, to safeguard her mental health.[12] The operation was performed the following day.[1] The Swedish obstetrician who performed the abortion told Finkbine that the fetus had no legs and only one arm and would not have survived. It was too badly deformed to be identified as a boy or a girl.[13] In 1965, Finkbine had another baby, a healthy girl.[14]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherri_Finkbine
Sherri Finkbine’s Abortion: Its Meaning 50 Years Later
Posted on August 15, 2012 by Matt
The Finkbines traveling back to Phoenix, en route from London. Image: BBC
In the early 1960s, abortion was illegal in Arizona, as it was in every state after more than a century of anti-abortion legislation. Arizona, like some other states, provided exceptions in limited circumstances, but abortion was otherwise restricted throughout the United States. However, the 1960s also ushered in a change in the public perception of abortion, a change that was conducive to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton to overturn many state and federal restrictions on abortion.
Sherri Finkbine’s story reminds us of the devastating impact of abortion restrictions we have since overturned.
The women’s movement played a big part in that change, as well as a rubella epidemic that raised widespread concern about fetal deformities and strengthened support for therapeutic abortions. However, if there was one person whose story had the biggest impact, it was a Phoenix-area woman named Sherri Finkbine. An abortion she had 50 years ago Saturday reminds us of the importance of keeping abortion safe and legal.
Sherri Finkbine was known to thousands of children as Miss Sherri on the local edition of the nationally televised children’s show Romper Room. But Finkbine entered the spotlight for another reason in 1962, when she and her doctor decided she should have a therapeutic abortion.
Finkbine, who had already given birth to four healthy children, learned during her fifth pregnancy that she was at risk of having a child with severe abnormalities. Finkbine was using sleeping pills that her husband had brought back from a trip to Europe, and the pills, she found out, contained thalidomide. In the previous decade, thalidomide had become a popular sleeping pill in numerous countries, but by the early 1960s it was under intense scrutiny for causing fetal deformities and other side effects. Alarmed at her discovery and wishing to warn others about the drug, Finkbine shared her story with a reporter from the Arizona Republic.
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http://advocatesaz.org/2012/08/15/sherri-finkbines-abortion-its-meaning-50-years-later/
'Romper Room' Host On Her Abortion Case
When she talks about that summer of 1962 when headlines worldwide were howling about her, Sherri Chessen refers to herself as "Miss Sherri." That was the way she was known to the thousands of children who recited their Do Bees and Don't Bees as they watched her on the Scottsdale, Ariz., edition of Romper Room, the nationally syndicated television show.
Off screen in 1962, this 30-year-old mother of four was something of a Miss Sherri, too: perky and naive. Believing her identity would be kept secret, she said, she told a reporter from The Arizona Republic that a tranquilizer she had taken, thalidomide, would probably cause the child she was expecting to be born with severe deformities. She said she meant only to warn others about the drug.
Instead, this article and the others that immediately followed focused on her plans for an abortion. Soon after, her identity was exposed and her family was subjected to such intense public condemnation that the Federal Bureau of Investigation stationed agents at her home. Rejected by hospitals in America and Japan, she ultimately went to Sweden for the procedure. An Excruciating Summer
"A Private Matter," an HBO film directed by Joan Micklin Silver that will have its premiere at 8 P.M. on Saturday, examines this excruciating summer in the lives of Sherri Chessen (Sissy Spacek), then known as Sherri Finkbine, and her family (featuring Aidan Quinn as her husband, Bob, and Estelle Parsons as her mother). It also looks at an era when abortion was considered scandalous and was permitted in Arizona only if the mother's physical or mental health was deemed fragile, and even then performed by physicians in secrecy.
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http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/16/movies/romper-room-host-on-her-abortion-case.html