A popular medical dictionary defines disease as “literally, a lack of ease” and venereal disease as one “usually acquired through sexual intercourse.” It is apparent that unwanted pregnancy is therefore a very common venereal disease. It is associated with immense physical, mental, social and economic suffering—and in seeking to be cured, women throughout history have risked pain, mutilation and death in numbers that stagger the imagination.
Author: Barbara Hudson Roberts
Barbara Hudson Roberts was the first female adult cardiologist in the state of Rhode Island and serves as voluntary faculty at Brown, where she is an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine. She graduated from Barnard College and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and became active in the pro-choice movement before Roe as a resident at Yale New Haven Hospital. Barbara helped found the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition, was a staff physician at Planned Parenthood for many years and was the keynote speaker at the first national pro-choice demonstration in Washington, D.C., in November 1971.
You can find her on Facebook @barbara.roberts.14, Instagram @bhrdoc, Twitter @BarbaraHRoberts and thedoctorbroad.com.