Our Doctors on 40 Years of Safe, Legal Abortion

January 23, 2013

Because Mississippi is the state whose abortion services are most in peril forty years after Roe, several journalists turned to our board member and former Leadership Training Initiative Fellow Willie Parker, MD, MPH, MSc, for perspective. He provides abortions at Mississippi's remaining clinic and is a physician plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging a state law meant to shut the clinic's doors.

In a profile on the American Prospect's website, Dr. Parker explains why he began working at the clinic despite the intense anti-abortion pressure surrounding it: "I knew what a lifeline that clinic was for people who were already struggling and who were black and brown. That allowed me to overcome any anxiety."

In his appearance on The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur, Dr. Parker talks about his experiences in Mississippi as well as what led him to begin providing abortions several years into his career as an ob/gyn: "I became uncomfortable having to turn women away when in every other aspect of their reproductive health care I was prepared to provide services for them."

MotherJones.com includes Dr. Parker in a photo essay about the clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, and Atavist.com has released The Last Clinic, a fifty-minute documentary that features Dr. Parker prominently.

In his examination of abortion rights in the United States 40 years after Roe v. Wade, Associated Press reporter David Crary looks to both our Consulting Medical Director, Anne Davis, MD, MPH, and our Board Chair, Douglas Laube, MD, MEd.

Dr. Davis underlines the importance of abortion access: "If you know some women, you know a woman who's had [an] abortion."

Dr. Laube assesses the current state of abortion politics: "I see the movement toward the religious right being countered by a growing movement among practitioners and advocates for maintaining this as legal. That means the controversy will continue. But it also means we will hold our ground."

Read more from Drs. Davis and Laube.

North Carolina's News and Observer asked former Leadership Training Academy Fellow Amy Bryant, MD, about new state laws on abortion in view of Roe's 40th anniversary. Says Dr. Bryant, "The abortion restrictions passed over the last year or two are nothing but attacks on women's health and dignity." Read more of Dr. Bryant's comments.