Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson was born in Carthage, TX, in 1927. She was the first African American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, and she was the first female surgeon to graduate from Harvard. She was a professor of surgery at Boston University. After Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, she helped to found National Right to Life and served as president for three terms. She was a tireless voice for the unborn. She often linked the atrocities of the slave movement with those of the abortion movement:
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court looked at the slave, Dred Scott, and came up with the wrong decision, declaring the slave as ‘property’ and not a ‘citizen’ under the U.S. Constitution. The slave’s life was still protected. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court got it wrong again and handed down decisions on abortion which declared ‘open season’ on unborn children throughout the full nine months of pregnancy. After 44 million abortions, most people have not noticed that the population descended from U.S. African slaves, comprising around 12% of the population, make up about 35% of the abortion population. This means that more Americans of African descent have died in the abortion chambers than have died in all the years of slavery and lynchings.
Dr. Jefferson passed away on October 16, 2010, at the age of 84. May she rest in peace.