Steven A. Levine
Coordinator for Educational Programs
Last week the New York Times reported
the death of Dr. Jean Pakter at age 101, director of New York City’s Bureau of
Maternity and Child Services from 1960-1982. As her obituary
noted, Dr. Pakter was not an ordinary functionary, but a pioneering researcher
and clinician “who made New York City a national model for providing safe,
legal abortions and led an innovative effort to educate women about the
benefits of birth control, prenatal nutrition and breast-feeding.”
Dr. Pakter was also one of the first
researchers to note the rise of unwed mothers and her article “Out
of Wedlock Births in New York City, 1961”was cited by Daniel Patrick
Moynihan in his controversial and influential report, “The Negro Family: The
Case for National Action.” She also published some of the initial research on abortion
in articles such as “Two
Years Experience in New York City With the Liberalized Abortion Law-Progress
and Problems” in the American Journal
of Public Health, June 1973.
She came to prominence in Mayor Robert
F. Wagner’s Department of Health compiling reports about the commerce in
abortion when it was illegal, including statistics on the number of women
injured or killed by illegal practitioners. After New York State made abortion
legal in 1970, Dr. Pakter, who had advocated for the law, set up the guidelines
for clinics performing abortions and mandated that all abortions performed
after 12 weeks be done in hospitals, which became national models. Supreme
Court Justice Harry Blackmun cited her research in the Roe v. Wade decision in
1973.
To
learn more about Dr. Jean Pakter or public health in New York City please feel
free to contact to contact the Archives or go to our Health in
America
website and “You and
Your Health: Public Health in New York City” curriculum.
No comments:
Post a Comment