We celebrate the woman credited with changing President Ronald Reagan’s mind on abortion.
Dr. Mildred Jefferson, M.D., was a trailblazer with a long list of “firsts.”
She was the first African American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School; the first woman to do a surgical internship at Boston City Hospital; the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society.
Dr. Jefferson was also a pro-life trailblazer – she was instrumental in establishing the pro-life movement in Massachusetts and the United States. She was president of National Right to Life and helped to establish the National Right to Life Political Action Committee. She is credited with changing President Ronald Reagan’s mind on abortion.
Mildred was also my friend and her death in 2010 at the age of 84 affected us deeply.
Dr. Jefferson once said, “I became a physician in order to help save lives. I am at once a physician, a citizen, and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow the concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live.”
Unfortunately, we live in a country where Dr. Jefferson’s words are in direct contrast with a culture of death promulgated daily by a billion-dollar-a-year abortion industry. It is the underprivileged, the imperfect, and the unplanned who are targeted for destruction.
In New York City alone, African-American abortions outnumber African-American births.
At National Right to Life, we fight the culture of death daily. We take Mildred’s words to heart with every pro-life action we take.
Your donation today will help us to continue to take the fight for life to where it matters most and protect the vulnerable Mildred so deeply cared about.
For their lives,
Carol Tobias, President
National Right to Life