As an active member of the ever-small (and decidedly dwindling?) abortion-care community, Dr. Harrison was never short on powerful and compassionate insight. You can read about his experiences as an abortion warrior at Fayetteville Women's Clinic website. Notably, in Why I Provide Abortions, Dr. Harrison describes an encounter as a third-year medical student with a 40-plus-year-old woman, a poverty-stricken mother of several children, in 1967, who upon discovering another pregnancy, poignantly lamented: "Oh God, doctor, I was hoping it was cancer."
Beyond our loss of one of our fiercest and most vocal first-generation-post-Roe doctors and the CLOSING OF ONE OF FRIGHTENINGLY-FEW COMPREHENSIVE CARE CENTERS IN THE US, The Abortioneers can't help but to re-recite this ever-impending statistic: The United States and Canada face a dangerous shortage of trained abortion providers. In 2000, 87% of the counties in the United States had no provider. The “graying” of current providers (57% of whom are over the age of 50), violence that targets physicians, and restrictive legislation threaten to drive these numbers even lower. In addition, medical schools are simply not addressing the topic; most physicians are graduating with little more than circumstantial knowledge of abortion.
We are comforted by Dr. Harrison's prevailing faith and inspired by a legacy he conscientiously ensured almost to the very day that he died.
It is indeed, with heavy hearts that we honor Dr. Harrison's compassionate care for women, his steadfast courage in the face of zealots, and his commitment to speak out. And while the statistics you offer are sobering, I am optimistic that Medical Students for Choice will continue the much needed comprehensive reproductive health care for women.
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