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I'm now reading from an editorial which appeared recently in The New York Times quote New York's eighty three year old abortion law is cruel and unrealistic in common with the laws of most other states it prescribes that an abortion can be lawfully performed only if the mother's life is in danger this restriction is among the principal reasons why more than a million illegal abortions are performed every year in this country bringing death or lifelong injury to thousands of young mothers and continuing the quote the assembly meaning the New York state assemblies Committee on Public Health as shown courage in deciding to hold public hearings on a bill to liberalize this law and the bill was proposed by Assemblyman Percy East Sutton and the quotation wire. It doesn't appear as if this bill will come up for a vote however the discussion should take place we feel because the problem is a very important one now I must state that the purpose of this particular edition of main currents is not to persuade you one way or the other in your opinion I don't naturally don't know what your opinion is but we feel that if we can give you enough legal medical and historical background which will be provided by I guess that you will then have the kind of facts necessary to clarify your own position and our guests on this our hour for Julian and you York attorney and was a former president of the American Trial Lawyers Association as well as a New York State Trial Lawyers Association. DR ROBERT HALL who is a physician president of the Association for the Study of abortion Dr Hall is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology the College of Physicians and Surgeons come University and Lawrence later well known writer whose author of a book about to be published called abortion was delayed as former. President of the Society of Magazine writers gentlemen could we begin with the question. Why are you off so concerned with this problem and what you were going to experience have done to bring you to this program. DR HALL As a physician I can express my concern and that of most of my colleagues the fact that the president abortion. Which requires that abortion can be performed and York state and most other states for that matter only if necessary to preserve the life of the mother is a law which prevents us from practicing good medicine because. The situations where medical condition exists with pregnancy and the condition is so severe that it is going to threaten the life of the pregnant women these situations have become so rare in the practice of medicine in the twentieth century that this present law which was put in the books eighty three years ago no longer pertains it's. Abortions are now thought necessary by the majority of the medical profession to preserve protect the life the health of the mother as well as somewhere like. Doctors are dedicated to doing that is protecting their patients health as well as life so it's a two ations whether you have the mother or even the proper development of the fetus is threatened we feel. That abortion should is justified. You feel that it interferes very much with what you feel best practice of your profession. My interest in the proposals which are presently under consideration for the amendment of present the blushing. Stems principle a from my position in the community is just a private citizen assisted a good deal by the fact that. This kind of legislation comes to my attention as a member of the legislative committees of various bar associations and the particular subject of abortion and the present bill pending in the legislature which has a view towards lessening the rigors of the present law as a matter of great concern to me. Consequently. We select this subject over many other subjects which come to our consideration for very special attention I too feel that amendments of our present law are required because the present law as a very harsh and restrictive work even though there are some forty two states that have similar or as this was a bad one it it permits an abortion where it is necessary to preserve the life of the mother or the child and that restrictive language has led to millions of illegal abortions because the concept of complying with a statute like that or a law like that as well nigh impossible then you as a lawyer that this kind of law is broken so frequently that it just leads to a lot of illegal behavior on the part of people who are apparently desperate launched later and you are an author who naturally has an interest in all aspects of living I guess you've been on many social problems why does this problem you so much. I think briefly as a human being. I got extremely interested and closely related about the same subject I did a biography of Margaret Sanger of the birth control movement ten or twelve years ago and from that point on I've been extremely interested in anything that denies to women and to men also but basically to women what I consider their basic right to decide whether they should or should not become a mother. I think this is some doubt very well by a great phrase of Margaret Sanger as she stated no woman can call ourselves free who does not own and control our own body no woman can call itself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother and then I add in my book I state my own statement the laws that force a woman to bear a child against her will of a sickly heritage of a firm and a permanent degradation and male supremacy in brief I believe that the right of a woman to bear not to bear a child is one of the basic human rights and that this cannot be taken away from her and later by haps I can touch it starkly on the fact that she had this right for many centuries and that this is a somewhat recent and better innovation yet that we don't want to hear that because most of the least I know I wasn't aware of that could we begin the next part of this program by stating what the new law proposes even though it may not pass this particular session legislate it may end on a future gaijin Mr Julian one of the amendments to the bill was cool locally called the Humane abortion or and it stems from a study made by. A large Legal Society back in one nine hundred fifty nine where they proposed a model abortion statute it provides for a set up in any hospital where there will be a committee of five physicians two of them after additions one an internist one a psychiatrist and one a pediatrician if two doctors outside the committee in writing have an opinion to the effect that someone ought to have a therapeutic abortion that is for the sake of her health or for the or because the child may be born deformed either in mind or in body then this committee has the authority to approve that abortion and if it does then a doctor in that hospital which is then accredited in some fashion by the Department of Health of the state in New York may perform the abortion. It has it's surrounded by all kinds of safeguards so that it's not to be thought that it could easily be performed in other words there's a provision in the Act for example that in case of an incestuous relationship or where a woman has been raped if an abortion is desired by that woman she will make application for it and the district attorney is notified and he's given an opportunity to notify the committee whether or not he believes a crime has been committed. If he believes a crime has not been committed then there is still an avenue of approach and ideas still the court to get approval for the court and which case the committee can approve the abortion and it can take place in this hospital which has filed its application and been certified by the State Board of Health for that purpose so one like Japan where a woman I understand can apply for an abortion but that she's married or not no questions asked pay about ten to fifteen dollars and have the operation performed this would be a more restricted kind of therapeutic a boy because you understand that you're paying for example this easy abortion as their method of keeping the birth rate down yes that's that's not the purpose of course of the humane abortion which is proposed in our state or not. This may have been a result of what Laura's call the eugenics Protection Act The law was not passed as a Birth Control Act. This is also true of Eastern Europe and Russia practically all Eastern European countries and Russia have abortion on demand. If you read the basic tax I will go into detail but the text of all these laws they are passed as humanitarian acts as feminine rights acts to give women the right to choose whether they shall I shall not become a mother that is the basis of their acts the fact that in some cases they have control population is basically incidental and I would be very proud it is perhaps a strange irony that we have countries as disparate and what I call situations as the communist east of the common is Eastern Europe and democratic Japan who have the same system but I would be very proud if a state in the United States had a law that was worded as strongly for women's rights as these laws are. Well I just thought maybe I'd ask Dr Hall at this point about these figures which were all acquainted now supposed to be about one million abortions performed in this country every year so one fraud for every five pregnancies How is that figure arrived at by the way since many of them are illegally done. Serving thousands of women and that. One out of five of the brings. We are known as yes because you can't record secret very well it's difficult to know because the Kinsey group is a little biased a procession economic levels of what we don't know exactly how many illegal abortions and then of course we never really well for the reason you say but the fact remains that there are approximately a million and yet hospital abortions in this country and only about eight or ten years about a hundred to one ratio of illegality Well that's what we like you explore now how these abortions there reputed abortions performed in hospitals upon whom and for what reason well under the present law. If the present hour strictly adhered to as it is in some prospect the rate would be something like one per tend to liberate as it in fact is interpreted by most hospitals who already have abortions or. Something in the order of one per two hundred fifty deliveries. So that the law is obviously being liberalized not by courts who have yet to try or convict a doctor for performing a hospital abortion but by the hospital and the physician themselves. And so you ask why these abortions are being performed the majority of them being performed or psychiatric reasons. The gimmick here is that the patient in order to comply with the law has to be a suicidal risk so that is so upset by the price that she's going to kill herself and psychiatrists so sort of by in order to get these abortions done. Other abortions are done. Depending on the frequency of the disease for German measles in pregnancy which carries with it as you know a fair sized risk of fetal deformity yet these. These abortions are totally illegal because there's no threat to the mother's life imposed by Germany's or said threat is imposed upon fetal development back to be born with cataracts or heart disease or mental radar retardation and so forth so in other words the law is being stretched and actually the second bell which is almost identical to other bills being introduced in the legislature in California and other states. Would merely lead legalize what doctors are now doing that's the point one he has. This kind of this practice takes place in hospitals but that it's limited to a very small number of people understand there's a quota system and many hospitals are hospital there is what amounts to a quota system and certainly the private patient gets an infinitely better break than the work so it so it's a practice which favors again that upper class called it a very fine study showing absolute absurdity A and undemocratic character of the application of what I consider outrageous as. Showing. That it is raining ranging from water one hundred twenty to one in some of the side it is huge disparity between so-called hospital options given to the private patients versus what patient I request this particular a heads in New York City the people who need abortions most. Savage of Puerto Rican Negro other minority groups to secure hospital Boston is very minor. This leads up to I'm going to pick a little bone it was Dr Hall. I object completely to the use of the word illegal abortion we don't know what a legal abortion is until we have defined this in the courts let's wear a careful Larry to say that. They were illegal by strict interpretation or OK with. I'm presently that I have purposely picking on you Rick I said. I feel very strongly that we have badly mishandled this war and legal and illegal I consider the great majority of so-called secret abortions done legal and Sarah Pyrrhic. After all we have a law that simply says to save the life of the woman I think these are not our child which is even more absurd I think we're going to have. The law our means nothing until as we did in the birth control days to the law or in a court and interpreted the law because as it stands now who is interpreting the law it is the not the individual doctor Fortunately as happened in the years back when there was a much more liberal interpretation it is the hospital abortion Committee a very complex set up which often reflects great caution conservatism religious political pressures on the hospital and as a result we know that the abortion rate has dropped drastically since these committees have been set up in other words what I'm driving at is that I. Favor greatly legal interpretation of these laws that doesn't mean that I'm against bills like a certain bill which is now in Albany and I think this is done a great deal of good simply in terms of rousing public opinion having people get a chance to talk about it they hear about the newspapers but I think basically these bills are fly specks they're not going to solve two percent of the problem they're almost absurd in their inconsequentiality. Really what is going to have to happen is. That we take a test case into court and then we get a High Court to interpret what the law means by the life of the woman and I would like to point out I think the basic philosophy behind this stems to the birth control day as it is a very close parallel here because I don't know whether people realize that. Birth control are completely prohibited use of birth control and yet we had decisions that reversed this completely let me quote her it's her power prominent civil liberties lawyer who says no law is free from ambiguity are Bhatia laws today like birth control laws in the past must be interpreted by the courts we can reasonably assume that a test case in abortion might give physicians a large freedom of judgment in the abortion field just as the one package a case did in the birth control pill and I think thirty six now you may not read a call but nine hundred thirty six this one package case completely reversed the federal birth control or which allowed no exceptions today we do have the exception of life and abortion New York state but the decision handed down by the Court of Appeals completely reversed it and opened up a whole series of very excellent liberalizing judicial interpretations so the really by court action the old birth control the felon to discard it's true that New York State last year we revoke their law but literally that law had been revoked twenty or thirty years back by court action there you know I just want to ask Mr Julian what has happened so far in if you try to put this into a form of a case in court it's a physician has been practicing abortion illegally secretly and he's you know the D.A. swoops down upon him and takes him away oh represents him in court I mean who can defend him since he supposedly broke a law which is against which he simply can't be defended up to the present time it has generally been a lawyer selected by the doctor himself private counsel there's been there's rarely I don't recall any case where any organization has presented at the fence and behalf of a doctor like that you know what just there aren't a great number of cases of prosecution under the statute but every now and then you. Read about some to physicians license was removed and he finally left the country that kind of thing well that's a different thing now you're talking about a license revocation which takes place before the State Board of Regions and this isn't a trial a criminal trial this is usually a corollary of the criminal trial which has already taken place in the courts Yes that's right there's there's one thing that must the latest been talking about that I think I'd like to address myself to I think that his thrust with respect to the need for correction always seems to be the woman's rights and while I'm all in favor of women's rights and I must say I hear that line all right but I think the major thrust of this legislation and our thinking on the matter should be the protection of the child these thalidomide cases for example you're familiar with the case just recent years where women had been receiving this sleep inducing drug during their early pregnancy and it was found out as a result of statements made by European doctors that this might affect the fetus and cause malformation and then one of these ladies wanted to have a child aborted and she couldn't do it in this country and had to go abroad in order to do it in Sweden Well it's the child who is brought into the world and under circumstances where the child may be badly malformed or. His thinking his mind may be affected this I think is the critical point and I think that we all owe it to the unborn child of the future who may come in with that kind of handicap to bring our laws up to date and make it possible for humane abortion and let's not downgrade the present bill which is present in the legislature because it is at least a step in the right direction of do you mean to say. That the mother's life should not be given given any consideration I mean I you can't tell a story on a solid tall I say that's important to I say that far too little consideration is given to the fact that the child has certain rights which need to be protected and malformed child comes into the world with such a handicap that's a problem not only to him but to society as well and these are some of the things which have to help our thinking and trying to get a bill such as the sudden bill passed into law and began to call how much can a physician predict in advance that the child would be malformed Norman So my how much can one say. The statistics derived from experience the most common example since that with my decision given to bring in women anymore is German measles as I said before and we know that in each of the first four months there is a risk of declining with in the first month somewhere between fifteen and a percent of the fetus will be severely deformed and it drops down worthless to ten percent. And the point here is simply I think whether the parent sort of the. Prospective parents of this infant want to take this risk when they have the alternative of having the abortion and then another pregnancy where the rest doesn't exist and adopt a form that abortion nowadays on the present. Will in my opinion he cannot but in but fact the test of the fact that he does and other words and during the German measles epidemic in New York City nine hundred sixty four for example there were three hundred twenty nine such abortions done in the hospitals in New York for the old in one year. You have to do I think the least abortions comply with the law I don't know I don't have a couple session has decided to do them because that is one of the reasons why because of the pressure of public opinion and they're accepting it. Let me just add because. I just would like to disagree from I would actually agree with us to doing completely I have been stressing feminine rights but because time is short but I do want to point out that the next last chapter in my book is called the Century of the wanted child and I am one thousand percent for the protection of the child was a journey not just a child may be to follow and for the protection of the child and its future in other words I feel that what we have to protect and that we want to give the mother a chance to protect is the right to bring into the world one two three whatever number of children she can love protect educate care for that we cannot the society our own country in the world today can no longer afford to bring into the world ten fifteen children most of whom will be starving not just in India but often in our own home will become the flotsam and jetsam of society will become the drug addict. And I know Mr Nader we were going to try to avoid if we could editorializing and I appreciate your strong feelings but rather to continue with some of the factual background because I think that perhaps does more to make people of form an opinion some people you know just resist being told what to do and they may take the opposite view just to be very Could we have this point talk about what the opposition consists of now the opposition is not really represented on this program because I think it's so well known whether we might review it briefly now on editorially objectively who would like to have a life like started by saying that the opposition feels that from the moment of conception there is a life and being and that this life has certain rights a right not to be aborted in other words a right to come into the world however great the handicaps may be physical mental economic that right is the right of the child this is the position well this is the origin of the position of the those who are most vocal in opposing the present bill do they feel that that right exists from the moment of conception from his exactly when that is already after a certain period of time has passed now they take the position that say after two or three months only begin to take the position that from the moment of conception I have read in the Catholic lawyer Journal for example. An article in which the position was very forcefully made that from the moment of conception there is a life to be considered. And that consequently that life has certain rights and as a matter of fact this lawyer who wrote the article seem to make it sound as though they were constitutional rights. That's nice but it's not true and I know I'm giving someone else's viewpoint yes because we do want to hear the bells of you and consequently since these words such important rights they may not be taken away from that life by others acting for it yes well if you say that the consideration of the child about to be born is very important then one could use that same argument for the opposition it does seem that way yes a child has to be considered then he has to be considered whether he doesn't know yet but whether used to be born or destroyed but there's such a ready answer to want to reading and I don't believe and I doubt that these gentlemen believe that while there is life at the moment of conception there is not a life requiring that kind of consideration yet. Potential that that's a paraphrase I think potential labor is an incapable of being sustained on its. Separate from the mother into agreeing to the best of. The back of heart for you know excuse me apart from that concept if if we are to do something for that perspective of life and if that perspective life is going to be thrust on itself and on the community in such form that it really cannot enjoy life but will suffer will be unhappy and will be sizable cost of the community and we don't do anything even for the prospective life by allowing it to culminate out but we still have to the judgment in all these matters is passed by human beings who are subject to all sorts of Fallibility where you get the best advice you can and I think a committee like this one I tend to distrust committees of doctors by. Doc think I'm going. To say way in this in this particular limited field I'll accept the committee of doctors I think that's the case with Mr Nader could we go back to the historical perspective which you can so well supply and tell us how it was possible that in earlier periods of time abortion practiced and not considered illegal yes I'll try to do this actually discovers a thing about three chapters or just a couple of highlights on this up in a few lines. One would think today that abortion had always been a crime this is completely untrue and even a large areas of the world today not just in Japan Eastern Europe but in large areas of Islam of Hindu setter these religions do not consider the fetus a human life sometimes not a one hundred fifty years in other words the so-called Spanish down it is basically the Roman Catholic Church that has a very specific theological stand on abortion now this goes back to the early days of the Catholic Church in the Roman and Greek civilization bases of our present western civilization abortion was completely free and was widely not just there were no laws against it until a little later after Christianity and then they were very mild as the words we started our sort of speak in Western civilization with complete acceptance of abortion. And it was the early Christians who first started inveighing against abortion. Obviously it was not until the Roman Catholic Church was accepted by the Roman Empire that this began to have any influence. So then you have as the Roman Catholic Church you know. Early Christians you say inveighed against abortion abortion but what gave them the idea that this was something to stop I'm afraid I was not an early Christian no but in the course of your research did that the reason for this come up in any way. To do it I would guess that they were trying to have as many converts as possible I say it's never been stated that I have seen a very clear rationalized on the basis of national electoral laws and what their rationalization I guess we're going to I never seen a phrase natural I really I may be wrong somewhere yeah not a lot of praise does come in about a thousand or so I believe you know dozen people a group of people want to reverse of custom then why don't you have some reason whether you know the reason or not so that's why I asked the question well it also comes from the concept. That the fetus. Has a sin or the Christian attitude toward the sex and many other things it's a very complicated thing that would take a lot of time I could somewhat I think they simply feel that life isn't violent and should not be tied. To her early days it. Was too late it was about to say. They realized there was something that ascribing to the fetus a saw. Couldn't really be done at it they didn't know when to do it for example or I think it was saying I was dean who first said that the fetus has. Forty days after conception in the case of the male fetus ninety days after conception OK so the female that discrimination Well you know it existed for a long time and so it's time as one of the. Leaders of the article leaders of. The fetus he. Let's see he said that he just developed the song but he wasn't sure when he started moving it how do you believe it I. Don't care so when the if you just get a quick in which is about the forty four and a half months or so in other words the early theologians. Contradicted each other and didn't know admitted they didn't know when the sewing of the piece now the Catholic theologians. If you get to talk to one who is frank about it will say well of course we don't know who can or. Metaphysical question answer to an ethical question such as this but we're going to play it safe and say that it is with yours at the time of conception let me flashback to cement because we can get off a complex enough to try to find why the Catholic Church took us but they took the stand and I think we might mention one of the very basic reasons they did we want to mention is that the basic to the whole Catholic philosophy was that the act of sex or love was to produce children and for nothing else and this is so basic. Volumes and volumes have been written about this but this for certainly part of this reason now as Dr Holmes pointed out I think what is so interesting for understanding the problem today and I would like to do this quickly is that the Catholic Church itself although always opposed to abortion theologically never came to a real definition of what they were going to do about it until fifteen eighty eight when for three short years one of the pope's said that all abortions would be punished up to last point there were only very minor Pence's if you had an abortion and as a doctor I pointed out this for a thirty eight day period there were a lot of kind of just like a week without meat etc He tried to revoke this so much liberal approach of the Catholic Church it was such a protest it was so impossible to put through that and three years later it went back to the old tradition and that has lasted right up till the middle of the last century or so I think sixty nine when the pope finally decided that all abortion was to be punished in other words what I want to say is that the Catholic position was fluid and quite variable for always centuries up till eight hundred sixty nine. Now on the other hand and. Our own English common law on which I. Was doing agrees with me our American law or is based on English common law. English common law from about twelve hundred on I don't forget the Catholic Church was still in Britain this period. Did allow abortion in the period of quickening and this is Dr I'll point out comes from St Augustine is there a quickening meaning the child jumping in the wounded four and a half months or so in other words abortion was completely accepted by English common law for that whole period which means practically all bosh and besides which who can tell us except the mother who feels that if she doesn't testify against yourself nobody could ever really bring the cake the case to court and from what I've been able to research almost no cases were ever brought to court on this so the United States took over we were based on English Common Law Our And no state in this country and I think this is so basic as is Mr Julian points out that articles today infer that this is almost the prohibitions against abortion written into the Constitution this is absurd it's the other way around no state passed a law or limiting this common law of the journo is allowing abortion before quickening until I'd hundred twenty seven and it was only for certain I think was for poisonings not even for surgery it was not really thought about the civil war that most states began to pass abortion laws and they were fairly mild laws. Some states didn't pass laws until the twentieth century and no laws on abortion. So I think it should be made very clear that. For a good part of our early history the American woman had the right to abortion before quickening and I think this is basic to our whole. Approach to reform today I won't go into the reasons of why these laws were passed unless we discuss this later but I do think it should be stressed that this was a basic right under English Common Law has taken over by the American company could we talk now about what division may exist in thinking on the part of the Catholic Church when a man like Don Dr John Rock for example has done a great deal to discuss birth control in hopes to perhaps convert Catholics thinking along those lines although he himself is a prominent Catholic is there a division of thinking about abortion in the church but I don't think. Thinking this way today in recent times has been. Homogeneous as far as because you talk about theological. Yeah I think yes it's you know just amazing things themselves because you would still think that roughly yes of course that so far as Catholics themselves are concerned that there are some divisions and thinking Oh yes I was thinking I think I think something else is fortunate things about discussions such as this with respect to matters of amending the abortion law is that I've been a subsidy we seem to refer to the opposition as stemming from the Catholic Church and by doing so sometimes it makes it difficult for the voter who must ultimately pass upon these things whether in the legislature or the public vote on. It after Scates is thinking because anything that is surrounded by religion sometimes does office get your thinking on whether reforms are needed from the community standpoint I like to think that. Even the Catholic Church with respect to matters such as this is is approaching a state of fluidity which is greater than we've seen in previous years and that it is possible to get large numbers of Catholics who will find that the present needs amending and that the humane abortion law might well be a step in that direction are there any groups of. Let's say any organized groups of people who are not Catholic who oppose legalizing the abortion law. You know I know that often I know that some of the fundamentalists Protestant groups have about also Doc's Judaism while there are some rabbis who have spoken again there and that's people who are very fundamental in their approach to religion would be apt to oppose this not necessarily because there are a few Orthodox rabbi who read. Your wish tradition differently. And have opposed liberalisation it from what I could find as a very small number I've had trouble really finding many of these on the whole the Judaic position on abortion is extremely liberal more so than the basic Protestant position except for the more liberal person groups as the Unitarian Universalists groups for example but Judaism on the whole I won't cite the actual. Sections for the response but basically Judaism believes that the mother health and life is the important thing and that a child is only a child after it emerges from the womb that there is no real responsibility to the fetus until it emerges from the womb and becomes a human being would you why not perspective further maybe talk about how abortion is treated in other countries in the world we've mentioned Japan some Eastern European countries who comment on other parts of the world well I know you and Sweden the Mets and I know that Poland is Japan and we've already discussed this the latest made a study of that I'm sure you don't confuse peer. In Japan in most of the communist countries abortion is legal that means they can have it for the asking for just going to a hospital no matter I can just go in for example it's free where birth control costs money actually it's easy and abortion to get birth control or some control of medicine right there's a very interesting point yes as we're talking about a Catholic position and a study I wish I could make some day to extremely fascinating that in Poland a basically a Catholic country I'm going to Czechoslovakia which are quite catholic abortion has been completely accepted and I've talked to a number of people from there and it seems to be no religious conflict admitted church officials themselves oppose it but the people seem to accept it as completely and such maybe they. Think that explains it how about some of the Catholic countries back to the Scandinavian the difference between. Japan and the communist countries which have illegal immigration and the Scandinavian countries. Sweden Norway Denmark Iceland. Which have a liberal abortion. Similar a little bit broader but some were basically stuck. So that countries like hungry Japan liberation rate is about fifty percent as just in contrast to abortion rate in Scandinavia which are about five percent and then you take Western Europe South America and North America and they have these restrictive laws which are completely uninformed so that the chief method of birth control in Chile for example or France for example is not a pill or injury right now right or what every might think it's abortion and this in a way brings this conversation for circle because we have. Discussed how religions proscribe the practice of abortion we have discussed how the law was circumscribed the practice of abortion and we discussed how the medical profession through its cervical Bush and boards and its own code of ethics narrowly interpret these laws and put them into practice yet despite all of these. Major professional. Infringements upon the practice of abortion in every country in the world abortion is practiced rampantly so that including all it including ours where birth control is readily available as a post back with countries where it may not be so that these laws are completely and thoroughly unnatural and ignored and wanted. And therefore should be changed and this brings us back to the second bell which I am as in favor of as you Mr Julian. Because I agree with you I just stepped in the right direction but that's just far as I would go because it doesn't I was very later said when I take a nibble at the problem if every for stating our union changes lot and in conformity the certain bill we probably would have two or three times as many abortions as we do now in other words instead of having ten thousand we have maybe twenty five thousand abortions I would guess in this country per year and there's still a million illegal ones other words this doesn't even begin to. Cope with the problem that the whole touches on something I don't think we ought of overweight from too fast and that is the fact that there are so many Bosch's in this country is an indication that our society does not stand by the abortion law and any time society and large numbers ignores violates the law it in just society in general goes this kind of. It's kind of a vision of law in large numbers hurts the whole fabric of the arts the whole community hard society as well and a law that is so widely violated cannot continue as it is requires change as in the case of prohibition this is the really basic point because. I feel. It's most a down statement to make that the abortion laws on the most broken laws on the books the most absurd laws are books I speeding laws of violated even go that I don't find I'm sorry they're a disgrace Mr Jordan because I don't consider as being laws relating to the fundamental facts of life I mean abortion relates to the most fundamental fact of life the bringing of a child into those who are of and whereas you and I might occasionally break a speeding law as I'm sure we have done we don't consider this. Making you know we are not i'm just citizens on the other hand if we break an abortion law this is little more serious I happen to believe that these abortion laws should be broken right and left as a least a million women a year I doing I think that the only way we can eliminate them is to go to court to break them openly and openly over and over again because that they are as you say they're doing nothing but harm to society to the women who are injured the only possible person they're benefiting is the hack Andre nonmedical abortionists who may be getting lodged fees for buggering a woman it has become a big business for some people and he's a really magical people nobody else is being benefited by this abortion ought to be a privilege for a small amount of money just like any other operation so the woman can walk into a hospital as she can with any other thing that concerns her body and her health and get this operation I don't think he meant to imply Larry that the way to cope with this. Impossible situation is to encourage people to break the law I'm sure you're already thinking of the Hundred Yeah I think the solution. Change you know you cannot I doubt you on our program so. I don't know whether I'm talking. Leftism rightism I'm talking common sense we can see why the situation with a more orderly way separate through the courts or through I guess what I'm advocating is that quite honestly as I said I support reform bill but I think this reform bill isn't going to get anywhere I cite just one case in New Hampshire they tried a nine hundred sixty one to put a new bill through I believe me this was not a reform bill it changed a little area crept into the back about eight hundred sixty seven when they were confident that it was so tiny that nothing really do with reform and yet the Catholics basically interpreted this as reform the bishop of New Hampshire came out this became a. Religious tug of war it's the state it was passed by both houses and vetoed by the governor and never got through so much that I'm sorry to interrupt you but since we have just a few minutes left I'd like to go around the table and have you just take about a minute to answer this final question under what circumstances or maybe you think under all circumstances abortion should be permitted whether the woman is married or not or let me get your views on under what circumstances abortion should be permitted. I think any intelligent. Unbiased influenced mind who really thinks this subject through to its logical conclusion and. Investigates the legal aspects the religious as with the medical aspects etc The social aspect cannot help in my belief. Eventually concluding that the right person to make the decision as to whether a woman should have an abortion is not the minister alone he should help or wherever it is not jurist or the right or go he perhaps should have and the doctor or the doctor is the woman and her husband who should make this basic decision so I really think. That the only intelligent solution the only way we're going to about which these million broken laws are here is to legalize eventually we're not ready for it yet unfortunately people haven't haven't studied this problem thoroughly enough to realize that I'm sorry to say they should agree with me but I think eventually if you do study it and if. This is the only logical answer. I feel I must be more pragmatic I deal with things as they are now and as I hope they can be changed from a political standpoint I know that you can't do the entire job at one time I don't agree with Michael panelists and tall that abortions on purely economic grounds because a woman and her husband if she has one the size that should be abortion ought to be permitted when not ready for that nor am I frankly but I don't believe that at the present time society is ready for an abortion law which permits I you mean abortion where the mother's life or health and the child's life or health. Are in any way in danger if the pregnancy is allowed to come to fruition and particularly in cases of drugs and cases of narcotic at diction I'm sorry we haven't had time to treat with that because that's a really present problem we now know that a mother's addiction is just. Received by the child and that the child becomes an addict and one of the most painful kinds of addiction with things like that where ready for this you may not option you may know. If not this year at least next year but the sooner the better Mr late I think we know how you feel but would you sum it up in a few minutes in about half a minute. That I don't understand what you mean abortion means if men and women have the right to vote if they have the right to live as human beings they have the basic right of deciding whether they should have children are NOT have children you have no moral right to take away that right I don't think you must do it in a hospital committee the president United States no one has the right to tell me whether I shall or shall not have a child and if they try to I will fight them to the other death or whatever I want to call it this to me is one of my basic rights in this country and if I don't have it I think women should be on a street screaming as they develop viable Thank you Mr I'm quite a few the result of your talk and we just repeat there is of course the point of view which says that all life whether it has been born or not whether it's just in the process of being born is sacred and therefore cannot be destroyed now take your choice we hope that this program will help you our guests have been Julian New York attorney past president of the American Trial Lawyers Association. Dr Robert Holder who is and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia and Lawrence later who is a writer and the author of a forthcoming book called abortion thank you very much and this is the Graham saying that no subject as you know is taboo on this program in the free exchange of ideas.