This month, which is by the way Black History Month, Glenn tells us about
Mildred Fay Jefferson.
Born in the 1920s in Texas, the daughter of a minister and a school
teacher, Mildred wanted to be a doctor from a very early age. She graduated from
the local segregated high school at age 15, enrolled in a small black college
and eventually made it to Harvard Medical School. In 1951, she became the first
African American woman to graduate from that esteemed institution. Then get
this: She became the first woman to intern at Boston City Hospital and the first
female surgeon at the Boston University Medical Center. She eventually became a
professor of surgery at Boston University Medical School.
As Glenn writes, “Coming from the segregated South in an era of intense
racism, Dr. Jefferson’s accomplishments as a pioneer for women and blacks in
medicine would be cause enough to celebrate her life. Yet today she is most
remembered for her tireless work opposing abortion, both as a physician in the
Hippocratic tradition and as a Christian.”
It was in 1970 when the American Medical Association proclaimed that it
was ethical for doctors to perform abortions wherever it was legal. Dr.
Jefferson was outraged by this assault on the Hippocratic Oath and on
Judeo-Christian values: “I’m opposed to abortion as a doctor and also because I
know it is morally wrong,” she said. “An individual never has the private right
to choose to kill for whatever reasons, be they whim, convenience or compulsion.
Because I know abortion is wrong, I will use every means available for free
people in a free country to see that it is not perpetuated.”
And that’s exactly what she did, touring the country, speaking at public
events and on the air, eventually becoming a board member and president of
National Right to Life.
As Glenn relates, her passion for life was persuasive. In fact, one very
well-known politician, a governor who once signed an abortion bill in his state,
wrote to her after hearing her on the radio.
“No other issue since I have been in office has caused me to do so much
study and soul-searching,” he wrote to Dr. Jefferson. “I wish I could have heard
your views before our legislation was passed. You made it irrefutably clear that
an abortion is the taking of a human life. I’m grateful to you.”
That letter was signed “Ronald Reagan.”
I do hope you’ll come to BreakPoint.org and read about this amazing woman
of faith and defender of life. Click on Glenn Sunshine’s article: “Christians Who Changed Their World: Mildred Fay Jefferson.”
Breakpoint.
