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Grave Necessity. New York City's nonsectarian hospitals almost unanimously reported that they would continue to perform abortions for women up to 20 weeks pregnant, or later if there is grave medical necessity, subject to the safeguards established by the state. At Washington's Freedmen's Hospital, Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, the reaction was the same. In Chicago, leading OBG services conceded that they would take more care to establish the length of gestation—but otherwise, no change. In California, where a 20-week law is in effect, there was no problem.
Any reduction in the availability of legal abortions resulting from the Edelin verdict will affect principally—in the words of the New York Times—"the poor, badly educated younger women for whom the prospect of giving birth is a particularly great personal disaster." Many of the women who do not seek abortions until the second trimester are teen-agers who have concealed their condition from their parents as long as possible. Others are simply ignorant of the dangers of a late abortion, which, even under the best hospital conditions, are far greater than for a first-trimester procedure.
Great Odds. In many states, the Boston conviction could result in an increase in the cost of abortions. To avoid malpractice suits, hospitals may well have extra personnel and life-support equipment standing by during second-trimester abortions (a practice already required in New York State). If the aborted fetus shows even the faintest signs of life, more obstetricians will use the equipment to try to keep it alive—despite the great odds against success.
A predictable reaction to the Edelin verdict came from the organized, active and highly articulate anti-abortion forces. Dr. William Lynch, a Boston obstetrician who helped organize the anti-abortion National Commission for Human Life, expressed sympathy for Dr. Edelin but was pleased with the verdict. He was critical of the reaction of other doctors because "the only thing that will deter them from performing abortions is not the threat to human life, but the threat of a malpractice suit."
In Philadelphia, John Cardinal Krol reacted happily to the news (see Fo-RUM). This week in Los Angeles a group called Mobilization for the Unnamed was to rally in support of the Edelin conviction outside the California Medical Association Center. In general, the jubilation was a softer echo of the emotional outpouring that occurred in January on the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling, when a crowd estimated at 25,000 massed on the Capitol steps in Washington to protest what they called "a day of infamy." On that occasion, many carried placards reading: ABORTION IS MURDER or ABORTION IS CHILD ABUSE. The protesters, some of whom came from as far away as St. Paul, heard speeches from Senators and Congressmen who support a constitutional amendment that would reverse the Supreme Court's ruling.