R.I.P, Jane Hodgson

[MountainLaurel]

I wonder what she thought of the current situation.

Jane Hodgson, 91, a Minnesota obstetrician-gynecologist who directly challenged her state's restrictive abortion laws in 1970 and, long after her conviction was overturned, remained a stalwart of reproductive rights for women, died Oct. 23 at her home in Rochester, Minn. She had congestive heart failure.

The daughter of a country doctor and the wife of a prominent cardiac surgeon, Dr. Hodgson developed her own thriving OB-GYN practice in the Twin Cities after World War II. She was deeply conservative and for years shunned requests for abortion procedures.

Dr. Hodgson was considered an unlikely person to defy the state law, which said abortions were legal only when the woman's life was at risk. "I've always had a proper respect for the law, and I've performed very few of even the so-called 'legal' abortions -- not over a dozen in 23 years of practice," she told the New York Times in 1970. "But those aren't the ones that bother me. It's the ones I've refused to perform that haunt me."

In other interviews, she described being increasingly "besieged" by desperate women bleeding from botched motel-room abortions. "I'd take them to a hospital and finish it for them," she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001281.html

[SheilaT]

1. The book

"The Afternoon Women", now long out of print,(although I see there are some copies available on Amazon) came out in 1966 and is the story of a doctor whose attitude toward abortion, and his willingness to perform them, was profoundly altered after his own daughter died from an illegal abortion. The title refers to the change in his practice, so that eventually in the afternoon he performed abortions. They were still illegal, but he felt a profound obligation to these women and knew they needed safe, medical abortions. It's worth a read.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Thanks for the recommendation

I'll take a look around for it.

I fear that such situations will be seen much more often as reproductive rights are curtailed. Alternet had a great but disturbing article a few months ago about the fact that hospitals and clinics in states where abortion is almost inaccessible are seeing numbers of women coming in after trying to abort themselves, using such old standards as a chlorine douche. The old becomes new again,and when will we ever learn?