Two Harvard Doctors Testify Against State Abortion Law

A University Health Services gynecologist and a Medical School psychiatrist testified yesterday in Boston's U.S. District Court on behalf of birth control advocate Bill Baird's challenge to Massachusetts's new abortion law.

The law requires the permission of both parents for an abortion to be performed on a woman under age 18.

Baird, who has called himself "the founder" of the abortion movement of the last decade and operates non-profit abortion clinics in Boston and New York, said last night he is challenging the law on behalf of two unnamed 17-year-old women.

Dr. Somers H. Sturgis, an obstetrician and gynecologist at UHS, and Dr. Carol Nadelson, assistant professor of Psychiatry and an affiliate of Boston's Beth Isreal Hospital, were two of three physicians Baird's lawyers called to testify.

After the testimony, the three-judge panel continued until December 30 its six-week-old restraining order halting the law's implementation. A full hearing, with cross-examination of the Harvard witnesses, will then be held in the case, lodged as Baird v. State Attorney General Robert H. Quinn.

Class Action

Baird said the judges granted yesterday a motion turning the case into a class action suit by including all district attorneys in the state among the defendants.

"This will ensure that the decision in this case will have a statewide affect, and not just justify the right of two innocent girls to decide whether they're going to become mothers," Baird said.

Judge Bailey Aldrich, who cast his vote in favor of the panel's 2-1 vote for continuing the injunction November 14, said last night, "We haven't decided yet whether it's a class-action suit."