MIT OpenCourseWarehttp://ocw.mit.edu 24.06J / STS.006J Bioethics Spring 2009 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.History and Abortion Session L9 Leslie J. Reagan, “’About to Meet Her Maker’: Women,Doctors, Dying Declarations, and the State’sInvestigation of Abortion, Chicago, 1867-1940,” Journal of American History 77 (March 1991): 1240-1264.L. Alta Charo, “The Celestial Fire of Conscience -- Refusing to Deliver Medical Care,” New England Journal ofMedicine 352 (16 June 2005): 2471-2474. Reagan, “’About to Meet Her Maker’”: A historian of medicine at the University of Illinois, Reagan has studied the history of abortion while it was illegal in theUnited States. Abortion, which had been legal for most of the 19th century, wasillegal in most states by 1900, only gradually and recently becoming legal again (Roe v. Wade, 1973). In the early 20th century, states went to great lengths toprevent abortion. This article describes efforts by law enforcement officials inChicago to prosecute abortionists. As you will see, these officials were extremely coercive in their interactions with both women and doctors. Try to imagine theexperiences of women at this time: what would have driven you do pursue anillegal abortion? What would it have been like to be interrogated by the policewhile dying from complications of the abortion? Why did police try so hard toget ‘dying statements’ from women? Did the police go to far? Also try toimagine the bind doctors were in: wanting to care for patients, but threatenedwith prosecution unless they cooperated with police investigations. Why did thesituation begin to change in the 1940s? The article abruptly changes direction onits last page (p. 1264), when it becomes clear that Reagan is using this case toargue against modern efforts to recriminalize abortion. Does her historical material make a compelling contribution to the modern debate? Does knowingher political position on the current debate make you reassess her historicalarguments -- is she an objective historian? Charo, “The Celestial Fire of Conscience”: A lawyer and bioethicist, Charo examines a series of debates that have emerged recently, motivated by abortioncontroversies, but not limited to them. Most states allow doctors to refuse to provide a treatment if they have moral objections to it, as long as they refer the patient to a provider who will. Recently, states have begun to remove even thatrequirement, creating a situation in which patients would not even know whattreatments were being withheld from them. Which should prevail: patient autonomy and the right of access to medical care, or physician autonomy and theright to exercise one’s conscience? Do medical providers have obligations toprovide services, in exchange for their access to other professional privileges (e.g.doctors have a monopolistic right to practice medicine)? Are you convinced by Charo’s arguments against a right of conscientious