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Now, welcome to the award-winning Best of a Left Podcast with clips today from all in

with Chris Hayes, The Rachel Maddo Show, Counter-Spin, The Young Turks, Melissa Harris-Perry,

Making Contact and Activism from Ney-Row.

We were one of the few hospitals in the United States in 1970 that was doing abortions.

And I did my first abortion before Roe v. Wade.

That's where we took care of so many of the patients that had problems with their either

self-attempted or back alley abortions.

And that converted you in some way.

It didn't convert me.

I think it really just awakened me that this was just, you know, somebody had to do it.

And it was a, it ain't wrong.

It was wrong not to do it.

Before 1973, abortion was illegal across much of the country.

To receive proper medical care, a woman not only had to have enough money, but she had

to live in or near just a handful of states.

And if she didn't, she had little choice, but to terminate her pregnancy on her own.

She had opened out a hairpin, placed it within the cervix.

It was a public health crisis.

It would have a permanent effect on me psychologically, because I'm not capable of being a mother at

this time.

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