Robert Elliott Hall was an American obstetrician, psychiatrist, professor, and early advocate for the liberalization of abortion law in the United States.
[5]: 31 Hall served as the chairman of ASA, which funded research into abortion practices and law, and published educational materials aimed at the public.
In it, he estimated that around half of abortions performed in the country were done for reasons which were not permitted by the laws of most states: to preserve the mental health of the mother or because the child was likely to suffer from birth defects.
He also warned that current practice effectively discriminated against poor mothers, for example by requiring multiple psychiatric consultations to establish whether an abortion would be permitted.
However, by early 1969, Hall had embraced the repeal position as viable,[1] and ASA would provide legal support to the lawyers who argued the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.