Obstetrician sentenced

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33773, 20 February 1975, Page 15

Obstetrician sentenced

(By

JOHN KIFNER.

<?f the "New York Times," through N.Z.P-A.)

BOSTON, February 19. Dr Kenneth Edelin, convicted of manslaughter in the death of a male foetus after a legal abortion, has been sentenced to one year’s probation.

Judge James McGuire of Suffolk Superior Court yesterday immediately stayed the sentence pending appeal of the case and released Dr Edelin on self-bail. Meanwhile, a spokesman for Boston City Hospital said that Dr Edelin could continue to practice medicine there.

' The light sentence pleased the doctor and his supporters. who had been shocked by the jury’s verdict. “The Judge was extremely fair,” Dr Edelin said. Courtroom observers had regarded Judge McGuire’s charge to the jury, delivered on Friday, as favourable to the defence position. He had instructed the jurors that they could only return a manslaughter verdict if the foetus had attained independent life outside the mother’s body. Normally at the close of a trial, judges deliver a short speech thanking the jurors for their service and reflecting on the importance of the jury system, particularly in a complicated trial or one in which the juiy has been sequestered, as this one had been for six weeks. Judge McGuire did not do so when the jury returned its verdict on Saturday. Yesterday’s action was somewhat unexpected. On Saturday Judge McGuire continued the case indefinitely. But yesterday he summoned the prosecutor, Mr Newman Flanagan, Dr Edelin and his attorney. Mr William Homans, to his courtroom.

Dr Edelin faced a maximum sentence of 20 years. Mr Flanagan made no recommendation for Dr Edelin’s sentence. SUPPORTERS

During the trial, the courtroom was frequently packed with women supporters of Dr Edelin, including a number of nurses from the hospital. But today, it was almost empty. Three members of the jury have reported to the Boston police that they have received threatening telephone calls and one has said that his car windows were smashed. In a case with important medical, political and religious overtones. Dr Edelin | was convicted of manslaughter after performing a legal abortion on a 17-year-old ' patient. ‘VICTORY’ So-called “right to life” groups and officials of the Roman Catholic church viewed the verdict as a victory in their drive to limit the effects of the 1973 Supreme Court decision.

Women’s rights advocates and many in the medical community say it will make doctors fearful of performing second trimester abortion because she did not drive women back to dangerous illegal abortions. The verdict raised the possibility that a woman could come to a hospital for an abortion because she did not want to have the baby, only to have it kept alive for an indefinite period by extremely expensive medical technology.

NEW POLICY At Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, for instance, officials said that they had instituted a new policy of keeping lifesaving equipment on hand in all late second trimester abortions. The policy, they said, would add hundreds of

dollars a day to the cost of the abortion. Mrs Beatrice Blair of the National Abortions Rights League in New York, said the women most affected were those who underwent a hysterotomy, the type of operation Dr Edelin performed, which is used when other means fail. These, she i added, fell generally into! two categories. The first consists of women, usually older, I who face the possibility of ■ bearing a baby who is deformed or has a congenital disease that cannot be detected until the later stages of pregnancy.

The second consists of women who, through ignorance, do not realise they are pregnant until it is too late for the simpler operations that are performed in the earlier stages.