The Canadian Jewish News, Friday, August 13,1976 - Page 7
Organizations and People
IS a
By ELLIE TESHER
TORONTO-
Dr. Maj[^ Cohen is a family practitioner actively involved in trying to get the present abortion law out of the criminal code and into perspective as a private matter between patient and doctor,
"I am not pro-abortion," states the 45-year-old mother of three sons. "Abortion is the unfortunate solution to an unfor-. tunate problem. Until you have 100% perfect contraception, and 100% perfectly motivated people to practice contraceptive measures, you will have unwanted pregnancies. Sometimes abortion is the only alternative."
Dr. Cohen, a gold medal graduate of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine in 1955 (her husband Jerry was the silver medalist in the same graduating vear), is co-chairman of
the steering committee, for a national movement called Doctors for the Repeal of the Abortion Law. The 30Q paid-up members and large numbers who have shown interest. have joined the umbrella organization, the Canadian.Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Law.
The attractive and energetic May Cohen, who has delivered 40-50 babies a year, became concerned with abortion law when ishe served on the therapeutic abortion committee of a . local hospital. In 1%.9, thctcriminal code of Canada was amended to allow abortions on medical, grounds, if the preg-n a n c y endangered a woriian's life or health. Application for. abortion would have to be approved by a therapeutic abortion committee in an approved hospital.
Dr. Cohen was quick to discern discrepancies in
is dead at 86
TORONTO-
Dorothy Dworkin, one of this community's earliest travel agents and a promineht backer of the Yorkville Mount Sipai Hospital, died_ here recently. She was'SSr^"
Mrs. Dworkin, who came to Toronto in 1904 with 11 brothers and sisters, was the first president of Mount Sinai's women's au.xiliary and a secretary of the board up until the hospital's move to University Avenue.
She followed in the footsteps of her husband Henry (Chanan) who acted as a "travel agent" until his death in 1928. Agents at that time took it upon them themselves to arrange passage for immigrants, secure them employment, put them in touch with relatives and offer them loans — a combination travel agent, vocational service and social worker..
Henry Dworkin, and later his wife, also served as the Toronto link for the Yiddish daily. Fbrverts, distributing the paper to vendoi-s and hosting Yiddish writers who fre-
quented the city.
After her husband's, death, Mrs. Dworkin and. her brother Boris Gold-stick, published a Canadian supplement to the Amci-ican Yiddish paper from 1935-55..
Born in Latviai Czarist Russia, she became one of the prime volunteers operating the Free Jewish Dispensary on Elizabeth Street, in the days long before government medical assistance programs. Trained in Columbus. Ohio in 1909 in nursing and midwifery, she was one of the first Jewish women to practice in that field in Ontario.
As well as' her involvement with Mount Sinai. Mrs. Dworkin served as the secretary of the Jewish . Labor Committee in the, niid '30s and was active in the early years of Canadiari Jewish Congress. ORT and Pioneer Women.
Sht is survived.by her . daughter. Honey Arthurs: g r a n d c h i 1 d re ri H a r ry Arthurs, dean of Osgoode Law School, and Cindy Ulster, as well as five great-grandchildren.
toneer,
dies in Montreal
MONTREAL —
Esther Elkin. one of the early pioneers in many of the present Jewish organizations in Montreal, died here recently. She was 86.
Last year's co-winner of the Samuel Bronfman Medal, the highest award in Jewish communal work, with Ben ChazoT noff, Mrs. Elkin was in-Striimental in the formation of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, the National Council of Jewish Women in Montreal. The Welcome Club (forerunner of the YW-
HA) and the Womien's Auxiliary of the Hebrew Orphans Home.
She was also associated with Hadassah, as chairman of several chapters;
•the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, the State of Israel Bonds, the Women's Federation of Allied Jewish Gommu-hity Serviceis and the advisory council of Shaar
. Hashomayim Congregation.
Widow of the late Jacob Elkin, she is survived by daughters Beatrice and Sunny, son Victor and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Family practitioner Dr. May Cohen
the law;. Individual hospitals were hot required to establi.sh such committees, nor was it manda^ tory for them to provide abortion services for Canadian women. Some 'hospiital cornmittecs set up quotas for the number-of allowed abortions with no reference to t h e patients' needs.
A staunch believer in the rights of the individual. Dr. Cohen points out that too much of the committee decisionmaking remits on the personal, prejudice of the doctor, on the kind of letter that is written on the patient's behalf, if indeed the doctor agrees to write at all. •
Of extreme . significance, stresses the outspoken physician, is that there is no definition of "health" in . the law, leaving any consideration of.a threat to health as, an arbitrary decision of the doctors on the committee. If there arc those among them who advocate punishment for premarital sex as an unwanted pregnancy (and unwanted child) will they consider a possible nervous breakdown for the harried mother as endangering her health?
May Cohen's question
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does not'mcan that she looks to ^abortion "on demand". She considers the latter "a bad phrase" clouding the physician's role as much as denial of abortion as a possibility. After nearly 20 years of joint family practice with her husband. May Cohen has strong ideas on the doctoi-'s function as know-ledgcablc counsellor, discussing and presenting alternatives to help the
patient make a choice.
The problem of abortion won't go away by being made illegal, insists Dr. Cohen. She points tea United Nations study fe-poined in February.of this year, that said, "the international record shows that legal prohibi-. lion of abortion does not prevent its practice but only determines whether it is safely performed in hygehic conditions under competent medical supervision, or inexpertly carried out under clandestine circumstances.
■■'Compulsory pregnancy is bad medicine,^' says the strong-minded family physician. The Dr, Cohen team, husband and wife, will soon have a large forum to express their definite opinions on ' the abortion issue. They are giving up their suburban Toronto practice to be full-time teaching staff at Hamilton's McMaster University, where they will be associate professors in. the department of family medicine in the medical facultv. .
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Summer wouldn't be summer without the Ex.
There's something for everyone, every day!
The Canadian National Exhibition brings you 20 days of great entertainment for the whole family. Once you're through the turnstiles, you can enjoy all this for FREE.
• Aquarama '76 - three exciting water shows daily
• Lumberjack Show - action-packed fun, four times daily
o Parades
• Concerts on the bandshell
• All kinds of sports
• Great places to picnic Horse Shows
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Fashion Shows Ontario Place ^
• Fireworks every night and much, much more. So bring the whole family for a fun-filled visit to the Ex!
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Aug. 18-Sept. 6, Toronto. Open Sundays
Admit to ground prices: Adults S2. Youths $1 -1 (13 to 17 yrs.). Children 50rf (12yrs. & undof)
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notice
Oiir Back to -School issue will be published Aug. 27. 1976. This edition will also carry men's, women's and children's fall fashions, news and advertising.
Deadline for advertising material arid space reservations will be Friday, Aug. 20, Arrange now for your requirements with our Display Advertising Department, 481-6434.
Kindly note that our weekly space deadline is 2 p.m. Friday before date of publication, and copy deadline is 4:00 p.m. Friday before date of publication.
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