staff members at the clinic had been practicing medicine and insisted that all the procedures should have been performed by a qualified doctor. He is quoted with demanding: "Who are they to diagnose a yeast infection and prescribe yogurt for it?" To the women at the clinic, Schacter's attitude hinted towards men's monopolistic control of women. Downer pleaded not guilty and went to trial. Downer's main defense for the trial was that the law that forbade laypeople from diagnosing and treating others was too vague. She argued that "if the state truly did enforce this law, a person could not pass a sneezing friend a tissue or bring over chicken soup for a cold." She even asked a doctor involved in her trial if a mother diagnosing her child's illness would qualify as practicing medicine without a license, to which he replied: "Well, we can't do anything about that." Her feminist attorneys, Diane Wayne and Jeanette Christy, requested and received a woman judge for the trial, which was a major accomplishment given the scarcity of women judges at the time. Downer closed her appeal with the quote: "This trial is a direct threat to our rights to know our own bodies. We not only expect to win, but we also want to give emphatic notice to all who would deny us this right as we will control our own bodies." The public's reaction Men and women around the nation rallied together to support Downer. This had the effect of disseminating more information on self-help across the nation. Women from all over called and wrote to Downer and the FWHC to offer their encouragement. Many people also sent money for the defense. Several well-known personalities, such as Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, and Dr. Benjamin Spock, publicly declared their support. Congresswoman Bella Abzug is reported to have stated that "the trial was nothing less than a test case to determine whether women were allowed to examine their own bodies." Feminist anthropologist Margaret Mead is reported in the LA Times to have stated: "Men began taking over obstetrics, and they invented a tool... to look inside women. You would call this progress, except that women tried to look inside themselves, this was called practicing medicine without a license." Verdict The LAPD raided the clinic based on information given from two undercover witnesses: an ex-nun who had attended the session where the yogurt incident