fayfreethinkers.com

I don't know that he ever came to one of our meetings but from what I have read of his writings, he seemed like a freethinker living in Fayetteville, to me.

Dr. William Harrison dies at 75



Dr. William F. Harrison, 75, the Fayetteville obstetrician and gynecologist, died this morning, friends report. He'd become a central figure in the debate over abortion rights. He continued to perform abortions in Fayettevile despite organized protests and threats of violence. Diagnosed with leukemia, he closed his women's clinic earlier this summer. Doug Smith editorialized about Harrison then. Dozens of women who'd been his patients gathered to pay him tribute.

Harrison wrote on occasion for the Times. That work included a cover story he wrote last year after attending the Wichita funeral of his friend Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider who was murdered in church by an anti-abortionist.

A memorial service is planned for 5:30 p.m. Oct. 4 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

Arkansas Times

An article about Dr. Harrison in the New York Times:

Dr. William Harrison, Defender of Abortion Rights, Dies at 75

Those who attended Dr. Harrison's memorial service at St. Paul's this past Monday received a copy of a poem written by Dr. Harrison. It is insightful and worth sharing. Thanks to Bill Farrell for passing it along:


When I leave you, know that I loved you.
Know that I have not really gone
For I leave my essence with you
In all whom I have loved and who have loved me.
And it will reside in these also,
Those tens of thousands whose lives I have touched
With healing and compassion.

I have not left you for my atoms still inhabit this world,
Tiny particles once arrayed in the form and substance of a man,
Now returned to the great basket of particles that make up All of nature.

And someday, in some distant future,
Your atoms will join with mine to form a new being,
Bird, bee or even another human being-
Perhaps a species not yet known.
And we will touch with the recognition
That once we were joined by love and kinship,
By common experience and a shared past.

This truly will be heaven.

--William F. Harrison