Open City for Abortion

For thousands of American women, the nation's capital became its most enlightened city last week. Suddenly, Washington, D.C., found itself with no law whatever to prevent doctors from performing abortions.

U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell --son of the late famous pediatrician Dr. Arnold Gesell--declared unconstitutional a 68-year-old Washington law that made it a crime for any doctor to perform an abortion except when "necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or health." Judge Gesell called on Congress to write "a far more scientific and appropriate statute" for the District of Columbia. And he made it clear that the capital's only public hospital must promptly liberalize its policy on therapeutic abortions so that the operations will be as available to the poor as they are to the rich.

Presumed Guilty. In his decision, Gesell threw out an indictment against Dr. Milan Vuitch, who had been accused under the old statute of an illegal abortion. Gesell ruled that the law was too vague; he pointed out, for example, that it did not make clear whether "health" was meant to include varying degrees of mental as well as physical health. Moreover, said Gesell, a doctor indicted under the statute was "presumed guilty" unless he could prove to a jury that the operation was necessary. In the companion case of a nurse's aide named Shirley Boyd who had performed an abortion, Judge Gesell refused to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that only licensed physicians may do such surgery. But the judge agreed with Mrs. Boyd's argument that the law results in discrimination against the poor.

Dr. Vuitch estimates that more than 20,000 abortions a year are performed in the Washington area, and that only about 25% of them are done in hospitals. Many of the illegal abortions are performed on poor women by unlicensed practitioners under less than sanitary conditions. While the capital's private hospitals interpreted the old statute relatively freely to permit therapeutic abortions, the public institution--D.C. General Hospital--which mainly serves the poor, did very few such operations.

Gesell's decision is not likely to produce an immediate upsurge in abortions in Washington. Dr. Ernest Lowe, chief of gynecology and obstetrics at D.C. General Hospital, believes that the ultimate effect will be to make the surgery more readily available at a reasonable price. But Dr. Howard Donald, chief of staff at Columbia Hospital for Women, says: "I don't think that tomorrow morning we would say anyone could just request an abortion and have it done." Dr. Frank S. Bacon, head of the D.C. Medical Society, thinks most doctors will go slow on abortion until Congress and the Supreme Court clear up the "legal and social" issues.

A Woman's Liberty. Even so, the ruling is a significant victory for those who seek repeal of abortion laws across the country. The movement got a big boost in September, when the California Supreme Court declared that state's old abortion law unconstitutional, partly on the ground that women have a basic right to decide whether or not to bear children. (Before the ruling, California had replaced the old law with more liberal legislation.) In New York, four prominent doctors are among those attacking the state's abortion statute in a case that will soon be argued before a three-judge federal court.

Striking an urgent note, Judge Gesell himself urged the Government to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final resolution of the constitutional issues. If the high court agrees with him, it may well sweep away rigid abortion laws in 40 states. Recent Supreme Court doctrine, Gesell said, indicates that "a woman's liberty and right of privacy extends to family, marriage and sex matters, and may well include the right to remove an unwanted child at least in the early stages of pregnancy."

The case for more permissive abortion laws will be strengthened by a new study revealing that 22% of all legitimate births in the U.S. are unwanted by either the husband or the wife. Dr. Charles F. Westoff of Princeton's Office of Population Research based his conclusion on a survey of 5,600 married women across the country. As expected, he found that there are more unwanted births among the poor (42%) than among the "near poor" (26%) or the more affluent classes (17%). Says Westoff: If all women who want to regulate the size of their families were :aught to use contraceptives more effectively, U.S. population growth could be reduced by as much as 45%. Since more married women than single girls seek abortions, a liberal approach on that front would help too.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.