Bruce S. Steir, M.D.
I wrote this memoir---- “Jailhouse Journal of an OB/GYN” while serving time. With the possible demise of Roe v Wade my memoir will be timely and of great interest for anyone concerned about the abortion issue.
My memoir explains the events that led to my being charged with homicide as it explores the collaboration between the anti-abortion network, the Medical Board and the District Attorney’s office.
My memoir consists of anecdotal experiences that motivated me to study medicine, encouraged me to become an OB/GYN physician and compelled me to be a full-time abortion provider.
The autobiographical adventures travel from college and medical school in Florida to my sleepless internship in New Orleans, through my OB/GYN residency training. It continues with my service in the USAF in France as a medical officer; to Seattle in private practice; then again in the direction of military service as an OB/GYN attached to the Marine Corps and finally as a traveling abortion provider and eventually a convicted felon doing time. My experiences have filled my life with inspiration, love, humor, sadness, joy and much irony.
(My memoir does not contain any fiction!)
Bruce Steir is a retired physician living in San Francisco. He was raised in Miami Beach, Florida and received his undergraduate studies at the University of Florida and then attended medical school at the University of Miami.
After completing his internship and residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology he served five years as a medical officer in the US Air Force where he helped to pioneer “fathers-in-the-delivery-room” in military hospitals.
During his 12 years in private practice in Seattle, Washington he became Board Certified in OB/GYN and was the recipient of the Margaret Sanger Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for his contribution to the advancement of voluntary family planning. He opened and operated the first outpatient Alternative Birthing Center in Seattle.
Returning again to the military, he served as a Commander in the US Navy attached to the US Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton, California.
The author then received his Masters in Public Health from the University of California in Berkeley.
He can be contacted at: bsteir@mindspring.com
This memoir is about the events that would terminate my career of forty years as a physician and have me incarcerated as well. These are some of the milestones in my life that inspired me to become a physician, encourage me to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology and eventually to compel me to become a full time abortion provider.
Although my professional life had been filled with exciting and remarkable adventures, my experiences as a doctor terminated as the result of the tragic death of a patient. This was followed by the collaboration between the anti-abortion network, the Medical Board of California and the District Attorney’s Office in Riverside County. Their combined efforts enabled them to transform a civil lawsuit of malpractice into a criminal case with the charge of homicide.
My tumble into professional oblivion and financial collapse began on Friday the thirteenth of December 1996. On that day I performed sixteen abortions at a clinic in Riverside County, California. One of the women died that day. It was the only death I had ever been responsible for. Over the course of my career I performed somewhere around 40,000 legal abortions. That was one death too many for the patient, for the Medical Board of California, for the DA from Riverside County, for the anti-abortion activists and for me.
