The Case Against Back-Alley Abortions  

   A politically moderate, staunch Catholic, Gary Woodcock is a retired lieutenant from the Baltimore Police Dept. His story: 

   "I joined (the Department) in 1959, 14 years before the 1973 decision. My post included Maryland General Hospital. One evening I took a report of an injured woman at the hospital. 

   "A car was parked at the entrance. Blood was on the back seat with more puddled on the ground. A trail of blood led inside. I went to the ER desk looking for paperwork. There wasn't any. 

   "A nurse and a doctor were arguing. The nurse wanted to present the case as a miscarriage, the doctor as an abortion ... which would involve the Abortion Squad - three police women, two male detectives, a male supervising sergeant and a prosecuting attorney.   

   "The abortionist was a midwife who had lost her license to alcoholism and mistakes. The young woman had wanted to end the pregnancy so she could enjoy Christmas. 

   "Another night, in the ER of a Catholic hospital, a nun supervisor was viciously berating a nurse. A sobbing young woman lay on a table. The nurse treated the woman, then convinced the attending physician to write an antibiotic prescription without examining her. 

   "The nun called the Abortion Squad ... which began the interrogation of both patient and nurse. This was well before Miranda warnings. They threatened the woman with arrest unless she named the abortionist. The nurse was fired. 

   "Teenagers, young women, women with too many children - many still bleeding from their procedures - were threatened with arrest, harshly interrogated and browbeaten until they named their providers. 

   "Informants were everywhere. Churches had the phone numbers. Parents reported their own daughters. Squads looked for the discarded fetus. They tried not to vomit. 

   "A nurse told me that a woman who wants an abortion will find a way, consequences be damned." 

 Woodcock does not want to see a return to illegal abortions.