Psychiatric Experience with a Liberalized Therapeutic Abortion Law
LEON MARDER M.D.1
1 Associate professor, department of psychiatry, University of Southern California School of Medicine, 2025 Zonal Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90033
The author reviews the experience of a California hospital with 147 patients treated under a liberalized therapeutic abortion law. Concern and proper care for these patients minimized the development of guilt, remorse, and depression; they generally described marked relief of symptoms and reported improvement in their relationships with others, along with improved living situations. The author feels that therapeutic abortion should be maintained as a medical consideration under the medical practice code and should be removed from the criminal statutes.
