Medicine at the Edges of Life
Medicine at the Edges of Life
Abortion and Fetal Research
In 1975, Kenneth Edelin, an African American obstetrician-gynecologist at Boston City Hospital, was indicted for manslaughter for performing a legal abortion. The chapter explores the emerging debates about the meaning of abortion, the fetus, and viability. Charges that BCH was conducting fetal research lay behind the indictment of Edelin and complicated the performance of abortion procedures. Abortion politics shaped the discussion and formulation of policies governing questions of viability and bioethics considerations of fetal research. By the late 1970s, abortion providers feared indictments for manslaughter if a fetus delivered as a result of abortion still showed signs of life. The live-born fetus had emerged as a complication of abortion.
Keywords: Kenneth Edelin, Fetal research, Abortion procedure, African American, Viability, bioethics
North Carolina Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
