Jane Elizabeth Hodgson

Infobox Person
name = Jane Elizabeth Hodgson


image_size = 175px
birth_date = birth date|1915|1|23
birth_place = Crookston, Minnesota
death_date = death date and age|2006|10|23|1915|1|23
death_place = Rochester, Minnesota
occupation = Physician, obstetrician, gynecologist
spouse = Frank W. Quattlebaum

Jane Elizabeth Hodgson (b. January 23 1915, Crookston, Minnesota – d. October 23 2006, Rochester, Minnesota) was an American obstetrician and gynecologist. She is the only person ever convicted in the United States of performing an abortion in a hospital. Hodgson received a bachelor's degree from Carleton College and her M.D. from the University of Minnesota. She trained at the Jersey City Medical Center and at the Mayo Clinic. Hodgson's 50 year career focused on providing reproductive health care to women, including abortions. She opened her own clinic in St Paul, Minnesota and co-founded the Duluth Women's Health Center. In addition to providing medical care to women, Hodgson was also an advocate for women's rights, challenging state laws that restricted access to abortion. [cite news | last = Fox | first = Margalit | title = Jane Hodgson, 91, Supporter of Abortion Rights, Is Dead | work = New York Times | date = 2006-11-05 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/us/05hodgson.html?ex=1320382800&en=1e3b94f26f5891f2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss | accessdate = 2007-08-18] [cite news | url = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001281.html | title = OB-GYN Jane Hodgson, 91; Prominent Foe of Abortion Limits | accessdate = 2007-09-22 | author = Adam Bernstein | date = 2006-10-31 | work = Washington Post | page = B07]

Education and career

Hodgson received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Carleton College in 1934 and her medical degree from the University of Minnesota in 1939. Hodgson met her future husband, Frank W. Quattlebaum, when they were both interns in Jersey City, New Jersey. Together they completed their medical training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. They both gave time and talent to Project Hope, serving in Tanzania, Peru, Ecuador, Egypt, Grenada, and China. [cite web | url = http://www1.umn.edu/usenate/usen/040930sen.html | title = Memorial Statements: Frank W. Quattlebaum | accessdate = 2007-09-28 | author = Samuel W. Hunter | date = 2004-09-30 | format = | work = Meeting of the University Senate | publisher = University of Minnesota] Hodgson eventually opened her own clinic in St Paul, Minnesota in 1947, and for the next 50 years provided reproductive health care to women. Her early research included pregnancy-testing methods and in 1952 she became a Founding Fellow of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.cite web |url=http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_150.html |title=Changing the Face of Medicine - Dr. Jane E. Hodgson |publisher=National Library of Medicine |accessdate=2008-06-10 ] In 1981 Hodgson co-founded the Duluth Women's Health Center. [cite web|url=http://www.thebuildingforwomen.org/DrJaneHodgson.htm|title=The Building for Women] [cite news | author = Lisa Belkin | title = Women in Rural Areas Face Many Barriers to Abortions | work = New York Times | date = 1989-07-11 | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7D9143EF932A25754C0A96F948260 | accessdate = 2007-09-20 ] [cite news | author = Anna Quindlen | title = Public & Private; A Very Loud Silence | work = New York Times | date = 1994-08-03 | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE5D81231F930A3575BC0A962958260 | accessdate = 2007-09-20 ]

Hodgson's opinion of abortion was influenced by both the women she cared for in her own practice, and by those she met on her many trips she took with her husband to the third world during the 1950s. She later told an interviewer: "My position on abortion evolved. I had been taught that abortion was immoral. I gradually came to change, I came to feel that the law was immoral, there were all these young women whose health was being ruined, whose lives were being ruined, whose plans had to be changed. From my point of view, it was poor medicine, it was poor public health policy."cite journal | author = Joffe C | title = The unending struggle for legal abortion: conversations with Jane Hodgson. | journal = Journal of the American Medical Women's Association| volume = 49 | issue = 5 | pages = 160–4 | year = 1994 | pmid = 7806761 | url = http://www.amwa-doc.org/download.cfm?DownloadFile=33A15A77-D567-0B25-55ACBFDFAA9E03A3 | format = pdf | accessdate = 2007-08-18] She was, however, optimistic about the future: Pulitzer prize winner Linda Greenhouse cited an article in the Mayo Clinic alumni magazine in which Hodgson predicted: "Someday, abortion will be a humane medical service, not a felony." [cite news | author = Linda Greenhouse | authorlink = Linda Greenhouse | title = The Evolution of a Justice | work = New York Times | date = 2005-04-10 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/magazine/10BLACKMUN.html | accessdate = 2007-09-20 ] Hodgson summarized her opinion of the medical profession and abortion in a letter to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association: "Lest we forget—legal, competent, medical professionals are all that stand between safe health care for women and the dark days of the back-alleys. We in medicine have a moral obligation to provide that health care." [cite journal | author = Hodgson JE | title = The law, the AMA, and partial-birth abortion | journal = Journal of the American Medical Association | volume = 282 | issue = 1 | pages = 23–4 | year = 1999 | pmid = 10404900 | doi = 10.1001/jama.282.1.23]

Awards and honors

Hodgson's advocacy for, and contributions to, the field of women's health earned her the National Abortion Federation's Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award in 1981, [citation | title = Annual Report 2006 | publisher = National Abortion Federation | year = 2006 | url = http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_research/publications/downloads/about_naf/annual_report_2006.pdf | format = pdf | accessdate = 2007-10-28] the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Margaret Sanger Award in 1995,cite web | url = http://www.plannedparenthood.org/issues-action/abortion/roe-v-wade/articles/before-roe-6159.htm | title = Planned Parenthood - Before Roe | author = Molly M. Ginty | date = 2006-01-20 | accessdate = 2008-06-08] and the American Medical Women's Association’s National Reproductive Health Award in 1994. [cite web | url = http://www.mmf.umn.edu/bulletin/winter2007/alumni/story2.cfm?id=644&sidebar=645 | title = Minnesota Medical Foundation: Medical Bulletin Winter 2007 | accessdate = 2007-09-30 | date = | publisher = University of Minnesota ] She was one of the first physicians to be inducted into the International Women in Medicine Hall of Fame in 2001. [cite web |url=http://www.amwa-doc.org/index.cfm?objectid=202D7E8C-D567-0B25-5FB4434F3AD60507 |title=AMWA : International Women in Medicine Hall of Fame |accessdate=2007-08-18 | publisher = American Medical Women’s Association]

Abortion court cases

In 1970, Hodgson performed an abortion on a 23 year old married mother of three children who had contracted rubella, which can cause serious birth defects in the fetus and child. The abortion, a dilation and curettage (D&C), was performed at the St. Paul-Ramsey Hospital (now called Regions Hospital [cite web | url = http://www.regionshospital.com/Regions/Menu/0,1640,2175,00.html | title = Regions Hospital: Our History | accessdate = 2007-09-30] ). At the time, abortion was illegal in Minnesota, unless the pregnancy was a threat to the woman's health. Hodgson was charged, pled guilty and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.cite web |url=http://www.reproductiverights.org/crt_roe_30_providers.html |title=30 Faces of Roe: Providers|accessdate=2008-01-05 |publisher=Center for Reproductive Rights] This was the first time that a licensed physician had been convicted for performing a therapeutic abortion in a hospital. She appealed to the state supreme court which overturned her conviction after the pivotal Roe v. Wade decision by the United States Supreme Court.cite book | author = Garrow, David J. | title = Liberty and Sexuality: the Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade | publisher = University of California Press | location = Berkeley | year = 1998 | pages = | isbn = 0-520-21302-5 | accessdate = 2007-09-30] [citation | url = http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/spring03/humanrightshero.html | title = Human Rights Hero: Jane Hodgson, M.D. | accessdate = 2008-01-05 | author = Marcia D. Greenberger, Rachel K. Laser | date = Spring, 2003 | format = | journal = Human Rights Magazine | publisher = American Bar Association] In response to her lawyer's question during her trial, "Do you regard the fertilized ovum as equivalent to a human person?" Hodgson replied, "No, and most women would not. We are more pragmatic than men, more concerned with reality. I'm concerned with the sacredness of life, but this is only a few embryonic cells." She continued, "We, as physicians, should be concerned with the quality of life as it develops." [cite book | author = Irons, Peter H. | authorlink = Peter H. Irons | title = The courage of their convictions: sixteen Americans who fought their way to the Supreme Court | publisher = Penguin | location = Harmondsworth Eng. | year = 1990 | pages = | isbn = 0-14-012810-7 | oclc = | doi = | accessdate = 2007-08-18]

In 1981, Hodgson lent her name to a suit (Hodgson v. Minnesota) brought by Planned Parenthood against Minnesota, challenging that state's law requiring that both parents be notified at least 48 hours before a minor has an abortion. When the case was heard in District Court, Hodgson testified that "...one 14-year-old patient, in order to keep her pregnancy private, tried to induce an abortion with the help of her friends by inserting a metallic object into her vagina, thereby tearing her body, scarring her cervix, and causing bleeding. When that attempt failed to induce an abortion, the patient, then four or five months pregnant, finally went to an abortion clinic. Because of the damage to the patient's cervix, doctors had to perform a hysterotomy..." [cite web |url=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=497&invol=417 | title = HODGSON v. MINNESOTA, U.S. Supreme Court 497 U.S. 417 (1990) | publisher = FindLaw for Legal Professionals | accessdate = 2007-08-18] The United States Supreme Court upheld that law in 1990, in part because the law included a 'judicial bypass', allowing a judge to permit the abortion without parental notification. [cite web |url=http://www.reproductiverights.org/crt_roe_timeline.html |title=A Timeline of Supreme Court Decisions Protecting Privacy Rights |accessdate=2007-08-18 |publisher = Center for Reproductive Rights] [cite news | author = Linda Greenhouse | authorlink = Linda Greenhouse | title = States May Require Girl to Notify Parents Before Having Abortion | work = New York Times | date = 1990-06-26 | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDB1638F935A15755C0A966958260 | accessdate = 2007-09-20 ] In most cases, judges permit the abortions. [cite news | last = Bonner | first = Brian | title = Champion for a Woman's Right to Choose - St. Paul Doctor's Court Battles, Clinic Projects Drew Fame and Ire | work = St. Paul Pioneer Press | pages = A1 | date = 2006-10-29 | accessdate = 2007-08-18]

Hodgson was in court again in 1993 as a co-plaintiff in a case in which the judge struck down Minnesota's ban on Medicaid payments for abortions.cite journal | author = "Anon."| title = Minnesota court overturns ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion | journal = Reproductive freedom news from the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy | volume = 3 | issue = 12 | pages = 3 | year = 1994 | pmid = 12345511 | doi = | accessdate = 2007-09-30]

Bibliography

Books and book chapters

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Journal articles

*cite journal | author = Hodgson JE, Taguchi R | title = The Rana pipiens frog test for pregnancy | journal = Minnesota Medicine | volume = 33 | issue = 12 | pages = 1208–10 | year = 1950 | pmid = 14796512
*cite journal | author = Quattlebaum FW, Hodgson JE | title = The surgical treatment of varicose veins in pregnancy | journal = Surgery, gynecology & obstetrics | volume = 95 | issue = 3 | pages = 336–40 | year = 1952 | pmid = 14950668
*cite journal | author = Hodgson JE | title = Office use of the frog test for pregnancy | journal = Journal of the American Medical Association | volume = 153 | issue = 4 | pages = 271–4 | year = 1953 | pmid = 13084385
*cite journal | author = Hodgson JE | title = Use of hyaluronidase in the frog test for pregnancy | journal = Am. J. Clin. Pathol | volume = 25 | issue = 9 | pages = 1096–8 | year = 1955 | pmid = 13248837
*cite journal | author = Hodgson JE | title = The use of the chromatin smear in gynecology | journal = Minnesota Medicine | volume = 41 | issue = 6 | pages = 381–5 | year = 1958 | pmid = 13565852
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* cite journal | author = Hodgson JE | title = Violence versus reproductive health care | journal = BMJ | volume = 310 | issue = 6979 | pages = 547–8 | year = 1995 | pmid = 7888921
url = http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/310/6979/547
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References

Persondata
NAME= Hodgson, Jane Elizabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Physician, obstetrician, gynecologist
DATE OF BIRTH= 1915-1-23
PLACE OF BIRTH= Crookston, Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH= 2006-10-23
PLACE OF DEATH= Rochester, Minnesota