how to perform abortions themselves. While there, she took a vaginal speculum and figured out how to do a vaginal self-examination. After Downer and others formed the Los Angeles Abortion Task Force, they called a meeting on April 7, 1971 at a feminist book store to educate women about abortion and their bodies. Downer demonstrated the vaginal self-examination to the estimated two dozen women who attended. Downer's group founded the Women's Abortion Referral Service, the first of its kind to offer pregnancy screening. "Women came from all over for help", Downer said. The result of this first meeting of the Self-Help Clinic was the development of the concept of menstrual extraction and the invention of the Del-Em kit by Lorraine Rothman. This provided women with a less traumatic abortion option than the use of a metal tool to scrape the inside of the uterus, which was predominately used at the time. Downer and Rothman travelled across the country and many Self-Help Clinics were formed. During this time, abortion, birth control and fertility information were not widely available to women. The menstrual extraction and vaginal self examinations that Downer pioneered with her team provided women with the means to learn about their bodies and take control of their reproduction. Barbara Ehrenreich described Downer and Rothman's efforts as "legitimizing the notion that we have the right to know and decide about procedures...that affect our bodies and our lives." In 1972 she also gave a notable speech to the American Psychological Association on September 5, 1972, in Hawaii, entitled "Covert Sex Discrimination Against Women as Medical Patients." She and Rothman were leaders of a group that founded the Feminist Women's Health Center in Los Angeles in 1971. Equipped with vaginal speculums, they traveled the United States to share their information with women around the country. Downer and Rothman also promoted group meetings where they taught women how to self-administer cervical exams and provided them with information on a procedure called menstrual extraction. Downer and Rothman trained women how to suction out menstrual material on or near the time of the menstrual period; if the woman is pregnant, this constitutes a non-professional abortion. When they came back from their trip around the US, Downer and her followers started a women's abortion referral service at their own clinic. In 1972, the police conducted a search of Downer's clinic/health center and arrested her and Colleen Wilson