Милдред Фэй Джефферсон: Пионер медицины и активистка против абортов

American physician (1927–2010)

Mildred Fay Jefferson (April 6, 1927 – October 15, 2010) was an American physician and anti abortion activist. The first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first woman to graduate in surgery from Harvard Medical School, and the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society, she is known for her opposition to the legalization of abortion and her work as president of the National Right to Life Committee.

Born in Pittsburg, Texas, Jefferson was the only child of Millard and Guthrie Jefferson, a Methodist minister, and a school teacher. in the Wesley Calvinist tradition. At a young age, "Millie" followed the town doctor around on his horse drawn buggy while he made housecalls, this would later inspire her to become a doctor. Jefferson married in 1963 to Shane Cunningham, whom she met on a skiing trip, a real estate manager. By 1984, Jefferson was a general surgeon at the center and a professor of surgery at the Boston University School of Medicine. She would later become the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society.

One root of Jefferson's opposition to abortion was her dedication to the Hippocratic oath, which morally bound her to the preservation of life. Jefferson concurrently wrote a column, "Lifelines", in the National Right to Life News publication. In 1975, Jefferson was the first witness for the prosecution in the manslaughter case levied against Kenneth Edelin for his performance of a legal abortion. It was in 1980 that Jefferson helped the National Right to Life Committee start a political action committee because she believed it was important to lobby and support anti abortion candidates for office. While a Republican, she helped Democrat Ellen McCormack run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1976. Apart from NRLC, Jefferson served on boards of directors of more than 30 anti abortion organizations. Jefferson is also noted for changing Ronald Reagan's stance on abortion from pro choice to anti abortion. He wrote to her in a letter, "You have made it irrefutably clear that an abortion is the taking of a human life, I am grateful to you."

Jefferson supported the one issue, anti abortion 1975–6 campaign of Ellen McCormack for president and appeared in television advertisements for McCormack. Jefferson was a self described "Lincoln Republican" and served on the 1980 Massachusetts Reagan for President Campaign. Jefferson had first met Reagan in 1973 while he was governor of California. She also unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for the 1982, 1990, and 1994 U. S. Senate elections. Jefferson opposed the Equal Rights Amendment on the basis that it is unnecessary as the Constitution has no in built inequity. She for years called for a constitutional amendment to reverse the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, rejecting the notion that abortion is a private matter between a woman and her physician. Jefferson also expressed opposition to welfare and busing, and support for the death penalty.

Jefferson died in her Cambridge home on October 15, 2010, at the age of 83 years. She was divorced and had no children. She was buried in her hometown of Carthage, Texas.