For You From The Word
I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. (Malachi 3:1)
For You To Think About
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded an M.D. by Geneva Medical College (known today as Hobart College) in upstate New York. She was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States and later became the first female to be listed on the UK Medical Register.
Blackwell was appalled at the burgeoning abortion business and the term “female physician,” which at the time referred to abortionists. One reason she entered the field of medicine was to promote the true welfare of women.
“That the honorable term ‘female physician’ should be exclusively applied to those women who carry on this shocking trade (of abortion) seemed to me a horror,” Blackwell wrote in her diary in 1845. “It is an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women (as mothers) … I finally determined to do what I could to ‘redeem the hells’; and especially the one form of hell forced upon my notice.”
To do so, Blackwell went on to open the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first American hospital with an entirely female staff. She later helped to found England’s London School of Medicine for Women in order to equip more women to become physicians.
History remembers Dr. Blackwell as a pioneer who paved the way for women in medicine – and as an advocate for life.
For You To Pray
Loving Father,
Thank You for women in history who have taken a stand for life. Allow us to honor their work by continuing it. Move in hearts to value life.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
More Stories of Women Who Have Taken a Stand for Life
Early Feminist Takes an Outspoken Stand for Life