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Pro-choice Doc Has a Story to Tell
Pro-choice Doc Has a Story to Tell
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March 6, 2008 (FPRC) -- (SARASOTA, FL)—Fifteen months following the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin was facing manslaughter charges in a Boston courtroom.
Dr. Edelin, author of the new book Broken Justice, was a doctor at the Boston City Hospital and was outrageously indicted for performing a legal, safe abortion. He was eventually convicted by an all-white, overwhelmingly male and Catholic jury.
A year and a half later, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts overturned the verdict, ruling that Edelin had committed no immoral or reckless acts in carrying out the medical procedures as he did.
“The Roe v. Wade decision carefully balanced the rights of women to make important reproductive decisions for themselves and the state’s interest in potential life,” says Dr. Edelin. “Now, thirty-five years later, a woman’s right to choose is in jeopardy.”
As the country nears the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban, pro-choice activists are more determined than ever to make certain that women are not forced to consider more dangerous and life threatening means of terminating pregnancies.
With George Bush’s packing of the Supreme Court with conservative justices Roberts and Alito, the future of women’s control over their own bodies may be in jeopardy. The 5 - 4 decision to uphold the ban was split along radical conservative and progressive lines.
“The decision to enforce the ban undermines a core principle—that a woman’s health must be the top priority—and instead allows politics and religious beliefs to override legal precedent and medical expertise,” says Dr. Edelin.
Broken Justice is high drama in five parts. In it, Dr. Edelin describes:
• Working at Boston City Hospital, where poor patients—especially black and Hispanic women—came for healthcare.
• His indictment by a secret tribunal for a legal, safe abortion
• Jury manipulation by a rabid, inquisitorial, anti-abortion prosecutor
• His conviction by an all-white, overwhelmingly male and Catholic jury in historically racist Boston
• His appeal and eventual exoneration by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts
Dr. Edelin is emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University and the former chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine. He was also chair of the board at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He has been a practicing physician for nearly forty years. For more information on Broken Justice, please visit www.brokenjustice.com.
(Broken Justice: A True Story of Race, Sex and Revenge in a Boston Courtroom by Kenneth C. Edelin, M.D.; ISBN: 0-9792060-0-6; $17.95; softcover; 5½ x 8½; 376 pages; PONDVIEW PRESS)
Send an email to Robin Mansfield of http://www.brokenjustice.com
Keywords:
edelin, rights, abortion
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