Johanna Schoen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469621180
- eISBN:
- 9781469623344
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469621180.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Social History
In 1975, Kenneth Edelin, an African American obstetrician-gynecologist at Boston City Hospital, was indicted for manslaughter for performing a legal abortion. The chapter explores the emerging ...
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In 1975, Kenneth Edelin, an African American obstetrician-gynecologist at Boston City Hospital, was indicted for manslaughter for performing a legal abortion. The chapter explores the emerging debates about the meaning of abortion, the fetus, and viability. Charges that BCH was conducting fetal research lay behind the indictment of Edelin and complicated the performance of abortion procedures. Abortion politics shaped the discussion and formulation of policies governing questions of viability and bioethics considerations of fetal research. By the late 1970s, abortion providers feared indictments for manslaughter if a fetus delivered as a result of abortion still showed signs of life. The live-born fetus had emerged as a complication of abortion.Less
In 1975, Kenneth Edelin, an African American obstetrician-gynecologist at Boston City Hospital, was indicted for manslaughter for performing a legal abortion. The chapter explores the emerging debates about the meaning of abortion, the fetus, and viability. Charges that BCH was conducting fetal research lay behind the indictment of Edelin and complicated the performance of abortion procedures. Abortion politics shaped the discussion and formulation of policies governing questions of viability and bioethics considerations of fetal research. By the late 1970s, abortion providers feared indictments for manslaughter if a fetus delivered as a result of abortion still showed signs of life. The live-born fetus had emerged as a complication of abortion.
