Hospital Review Committees Before Roe v. Wade (1969)

[Host] One reason why so many women are thwarted in their attempts to obtain legal abortion is the Hospital Abortion Committee. There is one at each hospital, and its job is to review a woman's case and pass judgment as to whether or not you will be allowed an abortion. A variety of medical people sit on the abortion committees, but often they are the wrong people. Dr. Rosen. [Rosen] In one place, I've seen a hematologist on it, another pediatrician, and another a bacteriologist and so forth. It's not composed of people, or necessarily of people, who are concerned with the immediate patient. [Host] In addition, very few, if any, women sit on the committees, and despite the Catholic belief on abortion, many non-Catholic hospitals allow Catholics on their committees. Why this is allowed, despite the fact that Catholics believe that the natural death of the mother and child is better than the destruction of the fetus is not explained. When asked in the Oberlater survey what the cause of curtailment of abortions was, 70% of the obstetricians on abortion committees who replied said it was Roman Catholic and

other religious pressure. This was dramatically illustrated in Phoenix in 1962 in the Sherri Finkbine case. Mrs. Finkbine's request for an abortion was approved by the Hospital Committee after it was learned she had taken Thalidomide, a drug which caused birth defects in babies. But when the case became publicized, the committee backed down on its decision because of criticism coming from irresponsible people and religious fanatics all over the country. Abortion committees, without almost any exceptions, are strict. John Lasso of the Episcopal Diocese offers an explanation. [Lasso] Now, part of this is a fear that they might become - they being one particular hospital - might become known as an abortion mill, and so most hospitals, although they won't admit this publicly, they have quotas, monthly quotas, and a woman could go before the board with a really legitimate case for a legal abortion and be denied it because they have already exceeded their quota for the month. [Host] A major fault of present abortion laws is that they discriminate against the poor.

John Lasso, director of the Episcopal Church's Department of Christian Social Relations in New York, works with many poor people. [Lasso] It's pretty clear that the present abortion law operates against the poor. It's very difficult for them to get a legal abortion in a hospital. The word is out. These people know that they're not likely to get a legal abortion, and therefore I think that they will attempt much more quickly to get an illegal abortion or to perform a self-abortion. And the results are very often tragic. In 1964 alone, 10,000 women, most of them, Negroes and Puerto Ricans, were admitted to New York City hospitals with complications arising from an illegal abortion or an attempt at an illegal abortion. [Host] Whereas legal hospital abortions in the United States cost only $100 or $200, competent illegal abortions cost as much as $1,000 or $2,000. Because the poor cannot afford this, they must resort to the amateur abortionist, or even less sophisticated means of inducing abortion: umbrella ribs, plastic tubes, injections of

detergent. Not only can upper and middle-class women afford the better illegal abortions, but they can afford the private hospitals and better doctors with more influence to obtain legal abortions for their patients. In New York City, the poor are the Negroes and Puerto Ricans. They make up about 22% of the city's population, but account for only about 7% of the legal abortions in the city each year, while white women account for over 90% of the hospital abortions. Ten times as many private patients are granted abortions as are ward patients. And according to Dr. William Over of New York's ?Knickerbocker? Hospital and a consultant to the Margaret Sanger Research Bureau, the non-white death rate from criminal abortion is ten times higher than the white. One of the most courageous fighters for abortion reform is William Baird, director of the Parents Aid Society in Hempstead, New York. Mr. Baird operates a clinic in Hempstead, where he dispenses birth control devices and abortion information in open defiance of the law.

He does this free of charge. In addition, he operates a mobile van as a traveling clinic in New York's ghetto areas. He has been arrested numerous times for his defiance, and is militantly outspoken and critical of organizations seeking to change abortion laws by evolution. Baird gives his reasons. [Baird] To hear people talk about these problems of abortion, while right this moment, there are literally thousands of people that are dying because of self-induced abortions. And the so-called mental catharsis is a disgrace to the public. These people are the guardians, supposedly, are the vanguard of what goes on, and this whole