{"id":20830,"date":"2025-01-26T17:03:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T18:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20830"},"modified":"2025-01-26T18:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T18:25:17","slug":"carol-downer-feminist-leader-in-womens-health-dies-at-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20830","title":{"rendered":"Carol Downer, Feminist Leader in Women\u2019s Health, Dies at 91"},"content":{"rendered":"
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She opened clinics, worked to educate women about their reproductive health, and promoted an abortion technique she felt was safe enough for laypeople.<\/p>\n

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Carol Downer, a leader in the feminist women\u2019s health movement who drew national fame for her role in a case known as the Great Yogurt Conspiracy \u2014 so named because she was charged with practicing medicine without a license for dispensing yogurt to treat a yeast infection \u2014 died on Jan. 13 in Glendale, Calif. She was 91.<\/p>\n

Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her daughter Angela Booth, who said she had suffered a heart attack a few weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

Ms. Downer was a self-described housewife and the mother of six in the late 1960s when she joined the women\u2019s movement and began to work on the abortion committee of her local chapter of the National Organization for Women. Years earlier, she had had an illegal abortion, and she was determined that others should not suffer as she did.<\/p>\n

A <\/span>psychologist named Harvey Karman<\/a> had refined a technique for performing an abortion by suctioning the lining of a women\u2019s uterus. It was safer, quicker and less painful than the more traditional dilation and curettage technique, and he was using it to perform early-term abortions and teaching doctors how to use it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms. Downer and others thought the technique was so simple that it could be performed without medical training. They learned to practice the procedure themselves.<\/p>\n

Lorraine Rothman, another member of NOW, refined Mr. Karman\u2019s device into a kit she patented called the Del-Em, which included a flexible tube, a syringe and a jar. Doctors called the technique a vacuum extraction. The women called it a menstrual extraction \u2014 it was also a way to to regulate menstrual flow \u2014 as a kind of linguistic feint.<\/p>\n

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She opened clinics, worked to educate women about their reproductive health, and promoted an abortion technique she felt was safe enough for laypeople.Carol Downer, a leader in the feminist women\u2019s health movement who drew national fame for her role in a case known as the Great Yogurt Conspiracy \u2014 so named because she was charged with practicing medicine without a license for dispensing yogurt to treat a yeast infection \u2014 died on Jan. 13 in Glendale, Calif. She was 91.Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her daughter Angela Booth, who said she had suffered a heart attack a few weeks earlier.Ms. Downer was a self-described housewife and the mother of six in the late 1960s when she joined the women\u2019s movement and began to work on the abortion committee of her local chapter of the National Organization for Women. Years earlier, she had had an illegal abortion, and she was determined that others should not suffer as she did.A psychologist named Harvey Karman had refined a technique for performing an abortion by suctioning the lining of a women\u2019s uterus. It was safer, quicker and less painful than the more traditional dilation and curettage technique, and he was using it to perform early-term abortions and teaching doctors how to use it.Ms. Downer and others thought the technique was so simple that it could be performed without medical training. They learned to practice the procedure themselves.Lorraine Rothman, another member of NOW, refined Mr. Karman\u2019s device into a kit she patented called the Del-Em, which included a flexible tube, a syringe and a jar. Doctors called the technique a vacuum extraction. The women called it a menstrual extraction \u2014 it was also a way to to regulate menstrual flow \u2014 as a kind of linguistic feint.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20832,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20833,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20830\/revisions\/20833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}