FAYETTEVILLE — Dr. William F. Harrison, a Fayetteville obstetrician-gynecologist, died Friday after being diagnosed with leukemia in May. He was 75.
For more than 30 years, Harrison operated the Fayetteville Women’s Clinic where, by his count, he performed about 20,000 abortions.
The clinic opened in 1979 and closed in July. At the time, it was one of only two clinics in the state where surgical abortions were performed. The other is in Little Rock.
Protesters - sometimes as many as 500 - regularly picketed the clinic on College Avenue during the late 1980s. Harrison endured death threats and a firebombing at his clinic.
The number of protesters dwindled over the years, but until the clinic closed, a small group often held signs and prayed across the street from the building.
The threats didn’t stop Harrison from being an outspoken advocate of a woman’s right to have a safe, legal abortion.
“He was very verbal about it,” said Betty Waggoner Harrison, his widow. “He had a passion and a cause. ... He has been known to say that’s why he thought he was put on this Earth.”
The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 established a woman’s right to an abortion without undue interference from the government, and Harrison began providing abortions the next year. By the mid-1980s, his clinic “became the place where you came for an abortion in this area,” Harrison told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2006.
Harrison delivered about 6,000 babies before he stopped in 1991 to concentrate on a run for Congress in Arkansas’ 3rd District. Harrison received about 15 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. He continued his gynecological practice and abortions after the congressional race but didn’t deliver any more babies.
On an episode of ABC’s Nightline in 2006, Harrison was labeled the “abortionist of Arkansas.”
A native of Sharon in rural Faulkner County, Harrison graduated from Forrest City High School and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He attended the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock and did his residency at University Hospital, now UAMS Medical Center, in Little Rock.
Harrison wrote a novel titled There is a Bomb in Gilead about the dangers faced by doctors who perform abortions.
Betty Harrison said her husband had influenced physicians across the United States and in Canada through speeches at meetings of Medical Students for Choice, which promotes the training of abortion providers. Since the clinic closed, Betty Harrison said her husband received about 150 letters, cards and e-mails from doctors who wrote that he had influenced them through the organization.
“He has been a tremendous influence on the rights of women, and it’s never been more obvious than lately with all of these messages we have gotten,” she said.
Betty Harrison said abortions accounted for about 25 percent of her husband’s practice until the beginning of this year, when the portion was probably half. She said her husband always provided counseling before performing abortions.
“He always did a lot of counseling before he did an abortion,” Betty Harrison said. “No one can make you have an abortion. No one. There was even a sign in his office that said that.”
Betty Harrison said her husband probably had leukemia for a year before it was diagnosed. He had previously had eight heart bypasses and a grand mal seizure, she said.
Margaret Salassi of Fayetteville, who has known Harrison since 1974, said he will be missed by many.
“He was funny,” she said. “He was a wonderful man and a friend to so many people, just part of our life here in Fayetteville. We’re all going to miss him. Everybody who knew him loved him that I know of. Of course, there was controversy.”
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 09/25/2010