HERSHEY -- Dr. Lamar Ekbladh once watched a young girl die on the operating table while doctors tried to save her from the infection of a botched, illegal abortion.

"That hit home. That is the only patient I have had die, ever," he said calmly, sitting in the obstetrics and gynecology library of the University's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

Hospital wards were filled then with women who suffered from life- threatening infections. And Ekbladh performs abortions today because he so easily remembers the effects.

"When I started out, abortions were not legal," Ekbladh said. "That is probably why I do terminations."

Prior to abortion's legalization with Roe v. Wade in 1973, Ekbladh was a resident medical student at North Carolina Memorial Hospital and doctors were not allowed to perform abortions. Women often turned to any means they could to abort a fetus, he said.

Today, Ekbladh is chairman of the obstetrics-gynecology department at Hershey and abortion is one of the most hotly debated political and moral issues in the country.

Doctors, hospitals and medical institutions are beginning to question their ethical stance on the issue as clinics and doctors are picketed or threatened and the high court alters its stance.

Many doctors refuse to perform abortions for moral, religious or personal reasons while still others refer patients who want abortions to their colleagues.

Since he was a resident, Ekbladh said, many ideas have changed in the medical community.

For example, resident students today do not know how to treat a septic abortion -- an infected uterus that often occurs after an unsanitary, illegal abortion. Medical journals used to be filled with articles about how to treat women who had septic abortions, he said. Now the procedure is rarely mentioned.

Abortion is much safer today than when it was first legalized, he said. This is mainly because women are having abortions earlier in their pregnancies and doctors have developed safer techniques, such as the suction method, as opposed to the scraping method to abort fetuses.

Because of Hershey's abortion policy, Ekbladh and other doctors there perform abortions only when the fetus is severely deformed or the woman's health is jeopardized by the pregnancy. It is up to the woman to decide whether she wants to terminate her pregnancy, he said.

Ekbladh admits that his job is not an easy one. It is difficult not to let opinions interfere.

He would have less anxiety, he said, if he could be at one end of the abortion spectrum or the other. Yet there is too much gray middle ground, he said.

"I feel comfortable with some terminations and uncomfortable about others," he said bluntly.

But Ekbladh said he has learned to stand back and allow the patient to make her own decision, feeling better when the patient knows all the ramifications.

"One thing I have learned," he said, "is that people have a right to make decisions even if I do not agree."

He added, "I wish I could be black or white, because I'd have a lot less anxiety about it."

While some doctors at Hershey refuse to perform abortions, resident medical students learn to perform them in the first or second year of residence training, he said.

All residents learn the procedure because in some instances, such as a missed abortion (a developed embryonic sac without a fetus), an "abortion" is performed to clean out the uterus.

Ekbladh said a fine line can be drawn between ethics and morals.

"What if you would not do an indicated abortion?" Ekbladh asked. "Would you recommend that your patient see another doctor? If you refer your patient (to a doctor who will perform an abortion) are you condoning abortion?" he said.

Another question arises with victims of rape. If a doctor does not normally perform abortions, Ekbladh asked, should the doctor conduct one in the case of rape? Some doctors have a hard time deciding, but the minute an exception is made, the whole moral issue is diluted, he said.

If abortion ever became illegal in Pennsylvania, Ekbaldh said he would fight hard to change the law.

He said, "I would not put my career on the line, but I would let a patient know all that she needs to know (about where she could get a safe abortion)."