The doctor who treated botched abortions pre-Roe | Morning Newsletter

Grab your umbrella and rain boots because it’s going to be a wet day. With a high temperature near 83, we’re looking at a mix of showers and thunderstorms throughout the day.

First, we hear from a retired ob-gyn who, in the days before Roe v. Wade, treated many pregnant people with abortion-related injuries. He fears that, after Friday’s ruling, even more doctors will be forced to treat the haunting injuries he saw.

Plus, Philadelphia City Council approved a city budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 that brings the Police Department’s total funding to nearly $800 million.

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— Felicia Gans Sobey (@FeliciaGans, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

“How dare they?” Daniel Belsky, a long-retired ob-gyn, said on Friday as he watched the news of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade from his apartment in a Voorhees retirement community. “After all the work we did.”

Belsky, now 90, treated hundreds of women in his 35-year career. But the ones that stand out are those he saw at their darkest moments, he told my colleague Sarah Gantz. Before the Roe ruling in 1973, he treated many patients at the former Osteopathic Hospital of Philadelphia who had suspected abortion-related injuries. Without doctors licensed to perform abortions, many of these pregnant people were forced to resort to unsafe practices to end their pregnancies.

Seeing Friday’s news, Belsky was filled with rage — and worried that a new generation of doctors may have to start treating the abortion-related injuries he saw.

“I would say to the patient many times, ‘Who did this to you?’” Belsky said, “and they’d never reveal a name.”

Read more here about Belsky’s career and his fears for the future.

Philadelphia City Council has approved a $5.8 billion city budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 with a $30 million budget increase for police, bringing the Police Department’s total funding to nearly $800 million for the year. It’s the highest allocation for any city agency.

Here’s a look at where the money is going:

My colleague Anna Orso tells us more about how the city plans to spend millions on policing and violence prevention.

Philadelphia’s University of the Arts awarded its first batch of doctoral degrees during the spring in a new doctorate program. Today’s question: What is the degree? Take a guess, and find the answer here.

a. Ph.D. in innovation

b. Ph.D. in imagination

c. Ph.D. in creativity

d. Ph.D. in originality

📖 Reading: This story by the Inquirer’s commentary and ideas editor, Devi Lockwood, who writes that she wouldn’t be alive if her mother hadn’t been able to get an abortion years earlier.

🍬 Learning: How salt water taffy became a staple at the Jersey Shore.

⚾ Wondering: Whether the Phillies will be able to make the playoffs after losing Bryce Harper to a fractured thumb. 🔒

This Philadelphia band (now based in Los Angeles) behind the 2020 album Dream Hunting In the Valley of the In-Between is performing at the Ardmore Music Hall this week.

AM NA NM

Think you know? Send your guess our way at morningnewsletter@inquirer.com. We’ll give a shout-out to a reader at random who answers correctly. Today’s shout-out goes to Nicholas Malfitano, who correctly guessed David Lynch as Sunday’s answer.

👋 My colleague Evan Weiss will be in your inbox tomorrow.