To Blackmun, doctors came first

By BARBARA SHELLY

As we await the vetting of a new Supreme Court justice and abhor the murder of an abortion doctor, a little-remembered circumstance of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision is worth examining.

In the beginning, it was more about protecting doctors than empowering women.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the 1973 opinion that made abortion legal, had spent nearly a decade as chief counsel for the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He held physicians in high esteem and didn’t think they should face criminal charges for acting in the best interests of their patients.

“The decision vindicates the right of the physician to administer medical treatment according to his professional judgment,” Blackmun wrote in his opinion.

The justice, who died in 1999, left his personal and official papers with the Library of Congress. Linda Greenhouse, the longtime Supreme Court reporter for The New York Times, combed through the material and wrote a book titled “Becoming Justice Blackmun.”

Among Blackmun’s files, Greenhouse reported, was an article that a former Mayo physician, Jane E. Hodgson, had written for the medical center’s alumni magazine.

Hodgson, a Minnesota obstetrician, in 1970 became the first doctor to be convicted of illegally performing an abortion. Hodgson had a patient who contracted rubella in the early weeks of a pregnancy. The woman feared birth defects and wanted an abortion.

After seeking permission from a federal court and receiving no reply, Hodgson performed the abortion on her patient, a married woman with three children.

A judge found her guilty of breaking state law and sentenced her to 30 days in jail and a year of probation. That decision was under appeal when Hodgson wrote her article, predicting that “some day, abortion will be a humane medical service, not a felony.”

From winner to target

The Roe v. Wade decision made Hodgson’s conviction invalid. But she became a target of anti-abortion protesters, who threatened her and picketed her home. Hodgson later lamented that even though abortion was legal, few hospitals and doctors would perform the service.

Well into her 70s, Hodgson traveled long distances to perform abortions in places where no other physician would. She died in 2006 at 91.

Blackmun would spend his Supreme Court career defending Roe against attempts by states to make abortions less accessible. Over time, he saw himself as a protector of women’s rights, Greenhouse reported.

But the day that Blackmun and Hodgson envisioned, in which physicians would be respected for providing abortions as a humane service, never came to pass.

David Gunn was shot and killed at his Florida clinic in 1993. Since then anti-abortion violence has claimed the lives of two security guards, two receptionists and three doctors, the last being George Tiller, shot in his church on May 31.

In the days since, doctors have lamented the dwindling options for patients, especially those in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

“I am troubled that we push genetic diagnosis and have so little to offer families when an abnormality is found,” a Wisconsin physician who specializes in fetal medicine wrote to Tiller’s family.

All Supreme Court justices bring predispositions to the bench. Harry Blackmun was inclined to support the cause of doctors. But the decision for which he was best remembered has not protected physicians from determined protest groups, overzealous prosecutors and cold-blooded killers.

In this respect, we’ve come full circle since the Roe v. Wade decision — doctors and hospitals fear the consequence of terminating pregnancies. It’s now up to fair-minded people to vigorously defend the right of physicians to act in the best interests of their patients.

X Barbara Shelly is a member of the Kansas City Star editorial board. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.