Dr. Morris Wortman
					"For anyone who has lived a full life, there is a 'turning point'. That defining moment came, for me, with the death of Dr. Barnett Slepian. In the following months I chose not to be known as a gynecologist who happens to perform abortions, as I had been in the past, but as an abortion provider who happens to be a gynecologist. I am not blind to the moral dilemmas inherent in the decision to obtain and perform abortions. However, my commitment is driven by this fact: that unless abortion services are legal, accessible and safe, women will die. It is my mission to protect these women's lives. In protecting their lives I preserve the lives of their husbands, sons, daughters, parents, siblings and future children. By participating in this project I have chosen, along with my colleagues, to stand up and be visible in the hope that it will inspire a new generation of providers. Finally, it is my prayer that those like Dr. Slepian who have given their lives for this cause did not do so in vain."
			Dr. Morris Wortman is a gynecologist in Rochester, NY—about an hour from where Dr. Slepian was killed. After the shooting, Dr. Wortman invested in an elaborate home-security system to protect himself, his wife, and his teenaged daughter. At the same time, he started speaking out publicly about why he provides abortions. Dr. Wortman has made abortion an integral part of his private practice, and is one of the few such doctors to accept Medicaid. Why does he provide abortions? His mother was a Polish Jew who came to New York City after losing her family in WWII and spending much of the war in concentration camps. Too poor to seek an illegal abortion when she became pregnant with her second child in 1950, she tried to self-abort, but ended up giving birth to the future Dr. Wortman. Though he and his mother were very close throughout her life, awareness of what she suffered still haunts him. The pain Dr. Wortman feels when he tries to imagine his mother’s experience helps him see abortion as a question of public health, and it keeps him motivated and vocal in the face of constant threats and harassment.