Merle S. Goldberg (April 13, 1936 – November 29, 1998) was an American
journalist and an
abortion activist. She was head of the National Women's Health Coalition which later became the
International Women's Health Coalition The International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) is a non-governmental organization founded in 1984 based in New York City. It focuses on issues relating to women and girls' human rights, health and equality and represents part of the women's movem ...
. Goldberg also founded the first legal
outpatient abortion clinic in the
United States.
Biography
Goldberg was born in
New York City and later attended
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
.
She had a master's degree from
Columbia University.
Goldberg was a former ''
Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'' staff writer.
Goldberg created the National Women's Health Coalition which monitored abortion clinics and hospitals performing abortions in order to help maintain good standards of health. She also worked with various abortion providers, including
Harvey Karman. Karman worked with Goldberg on
menstrual extraction
Menstrual extraction (ME) is a type of manual vacuum aspiration technique developed by feminist activists Lorraine Rothman and Carol Downer to pass the entire menses at once. The non- medicalized technique has been used in small feminist self-h ...
, which was called the "lunch-hour abortion." A menstrual extraction cost about $30, compared to the price of a regular abortion which ranged from $150 to $1,500.
Goldberg also collaborated with Karman in 1972 to help perform abortions on women in
Bangladesh who had been
raped by the
Pakistani army.
reported that hundreds of thousands of women had been raped in Bangladesh at this time. Later, Karman and Goldberg had a serious problem with an experimental abortion method known as the supercoil abortion which later caused dangerous side effects.
Goldberg intended to help women from
Chicago who were scheduled to have abortions, but whose clinic had been shut down. On the weekend of May 13, 1972, she brought the women to
Philadelphia where Karman would use the supercoil method. The method had not been tested carefully prior to using it on the women from Chicago.
Critics of the incident said that women were being experimented on, however, Goldberg insisted that they knew the risks going into the procedure.
Karman and Goldberg again helped provide abortions in
Cyprus in 1974 where women had been raped during the
Turkish invasion
The 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, code-named Operation Peace Spring ( tr, Barış Pınarı Harekâtı) by Turkey, was a cross-border military operation conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the Syrian National Arm ...
.
Goldberg managed the
United Nations 1975 Conference on the Status of Women.
Goldberg later helped Kabir obtain funding to start the
Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition in 1980.
Goldberg moved to
Washington D.C. in 1984.
She died at
George Washington University Hospital of
renal disease
Kidney disease, or renal disease, technically referred to as nephropathy, is damage to or disease of a kidney. Nephritis is an inflammatory kidney disease and has several types according to the location of the inflammation. Inflammation can b ...
on November 29, 1998.
References
Citations
Sources
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American abortion providers
Journalists from New York City
1936 births
1998 deaths
American feminists
Brooklyn College alumni
Columbia University alumni
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