The executive editor for the Los Angeles Times revealed in an op-ed Sunday that he once helped his girlfriend get an illegal “botched” abortion.
Norman Pearlstine explained in an op-ed entitled “Men cannot be silent on abortion rights” that he and his girlfriend, Charlene, were 19-year-old students at Haverford when they discovered she was pregnant. The two sought an abortion in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 1962 before the passage of Roe v. Wade.
The LA Times editor said that he felt compelled to tell his story because he thinks it’s “important to remind myself and to tell others what life was like before Roe vs. Wade.” Pearlstine has been the executive editor of the LA Times since 2018 and worked for the previous 50 years internationally as an editor and reporter.
Pearlstine describes how one of Charlene’s dorm mates recommended an osteopath who would perform stealthy abortions since the procedure was still illegal. (RELATED: These Abortion Survivors Have A Message For Planned Parenthood’s Leana Wen)
“A friend in her dorm finally referred us to an osteopath who worked out of a shabby office in one of south Philadelphia’s rougher neighborhoods. He wanted $500, equal today to $4,200 when adjusted for inflation,” Pearlstine wrote.
https://t.co/DA991ZCSKS. A personal piece on college days, abortion, and the silence of pro-choice men.
— Norman Pearlstine (@NPearlstine) June 16, 2019
But after the abortion, Pearlstine said that Charlene hemorrhaged and the osteopath would not return the couple’s calls. Though a gynecologist performed a dilation and curettage procedure to stop the hemorrhaging, the botched abortion had damaged Charlene’s uterus and left her unable to conceive.
“The gynecologist performed the surgical procedure. I was so relieved to see her alive and out of pain that I barely recalled hearing the doctor tell us that the botched abortion had damaged her uterus, making it unlikely that she could have children. Although we subsequently married, she failed to conceive during the years we were together or later,” he wrote. Pearlstine wrote that Charlene died of natural causes in 2018 after the couple married and subsequently divorced.
“Charlene and I had no regrets about her having the abortion, and she was openly and passionately pro-choice for the rest of her life,” Pearlstine said.
The LA Times editor maintained that men must speak out in defense of access to abortion, adding that “should Roe vs. Wade be overturned, there will be a spike in illegal abortions resulting in increased injuries and death.”
“The ACOG estimates that before 1973 and the passage of Roe vs. Wade, ‘1.2 million U.S. women resorted to illegal abortions each year and that unsafe abortions caused as many as 5,000 annual deaths,'” Pearlstine wrote. “I remain grateful Charlene wasn’t one of them.”
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