Administrative Incongruence and Authority Conflict in Four Abortion Clinics

Warren M. Hem is a physician who is Director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder, Colorado. Marlene Gold and AnnuGail Oakes are the Director of Counseling and Head Nurse, respectively, a t Boulder Abortion Clinic. w HEN THE REFORM New York abortion law was passed and came into effect in July, 1970, one of the most extraordinary upheavals in medical practice occurred in U.S. history. An operation which had been illegal, stigmatized, and clandestinely performed under the most sordid circumstances suddenly became legal and accessible, at least in New York City. Most traditional medical practitioners and hospitals in the state of New York were unprepared to cope with the enormous demand for services. The New York City Health Department made strenuous efforts to prepare hospitals in that metropolis, but officials had no way of knowing the impact of the new law. Thousands of women streamed into New York City from throughout the United States and Western Hemisphere. One of the results was the emergence of the free-standing abortion clinic devoted entirely to the performance of this procedure. As laws in Washington, D.C. and California changed, more clinics sprang up in these areas. The 1973 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court resulted in the establishment of clinics in most of the major cities (Hausknecht 1973 :985; Burnhill 1975:431)

Abortion · Abortion law · Family medicine · Family planning · Political science · Population · Pregnancy · Research methodology · Sociology · Supreme court · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Demography · Law · Medicine

• Life on the front lines

  Open Access•Warren M Hern•Women s Health Issues•1994

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• Retracted

  Open Access•Warren M Hern•Women s Health Issues•1993

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• Types of Power and Status

  Herbert Goldhamer, Edward Shils et al.•American Journal of Sociology•1939

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