Thank you Harvey Karman & Linking to other prochoice pros

And thanks to Kim for pointing out this obit to me.

On May 21, 2008 the pro-choice community lost a man we owe a lot to:

Harvey Karman, a flamboyant psychologist whose invention made a key contribution to women's reproductive health, making abortions simpler, less expensive and less painful, died May 6 at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 84.

The cause was a stroke, said his son, Kenneth, of Los Angeles.

Mr. Karman was drawn to the plight of women facing unwanted pregnancy in the 1950s, when abortion was illegal. While training in psychology at UCLA, he started an underground abortion referral service and eventually performed abortions himself, for which he was convicted and sent to state prison for 21/2 years.

In the early 1970s he developed a soft, flexible tube, or cannula, for a device that was widely adopted in the United States and developing countries to perform early abortions.

Read the rest of his obit at the Chicago Tribune.

As with many others, I'm on LinkedIn. About a month ago I got an email from someone who is organizing a pro-choice professionals group. So if you are a pro-choice professional, check this out:

LinkedIn is an online social networking site where professionals can meet and share CVs, post jobs, and connect with other like-minded individuals. I started a group called ProChoice Professionals to try and bring together some of the many pro-choicers from so many different medical & non-medical groups.

My goals in creating this conglomerate are to:

* Help increase awareness of reproductive rights
* Increase cohesion and networking in the many facets of the pro-choice community
* Provide a venue for pro-choice professionals to network
* And, really, to get the word out – there are so many of us! The Pro-Choice community is everywhere!

There are already almost 200 members from around the world—NAF, NARAL, PPFA, IPAS, media groups, lawyers, academics, activists, students and self-identified ProChoice individuals!

I wanted to extend an invitation to readers of this blog. When you sign on, you create a profile and will have access to all of the other profiles of our group members. It's a great way to see potential job applicants, colleagues and find people that may help out your research projects.

To send your request to join the group, just click here. If you don't use LinkedIn, when you click you will be asked to create a profile. And you can make your profile as private or as public as you wish.

Please let me know if you have any questions. And please, feel free to extend this invitation to any pro-choice list-serve, friend, or colleague you think would be interested.

Thanks for your support!

Justin Diedrich, MD
Family Planning Research Coordinator
San Francisco General Hospital
The Bixby Center, UCSF

See you in the group!

Technorati tags: abortion, pro-choice, LinkedIn, Harvey Karman