Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 10:33
[Originally published in Synapse on November 21, 1996.] Before 1973, the year Roe vs. Wade guaranteed women the right to safe, therapeutic abortion in the U.S., David Grimes, MD, recalled visiting the septic unit of a Los Angeles hospital. Women seriously ill from botched illegal abortions lay in the twenty beds of the common ward. The ward was always filled to capacity.