Some stories

[kate_schaefer]

Some time in the early nineties, I was unable to get to my doctor's office because its waiting room was completely occupied by protesters from Operation Rescue. I don't remember the details of how this affected me; my need to see my doctor that day was routine and easily rescheduled, whatever it was. I do remember that my doctor and her staff took refuge in the office of my dentist, a few floors below, and that my dentist and her entire staff wore NARAL buttons on their lapels for many months thereafter; that my doctor later told me that among the patients she was unable to see that day was a pregnant woman with preeclampsia who very much wanted to have her baby and who suffered a dangerous delay in getting care because of the sit-in (she and her baby survived; I know nothing else about them); and that one of the protesters arrested and released in her office that day was Shelley Shannon, who a few months later shot Dr. George Tiller, wounding him badly but not killing him.

I remember asking my doctor, some time before, why she did so many abortions. Didn't those patients have regular doctors? Yes, she said, but their regular doctors were afraid to perform abortions because of the harassment. And yes, she had performed abortions on women who regularly protest against legal abortion; she recognized them from walking past them to get to her office, and they knew where they could go when they needed an abortion because they spent so much time standing there. They'd ask her not to tell anyone, and she'd remind them that she could not reveal that information about any of her patients, but she'd appreciate it if they would not picket her office any more. Some of them stopped picketing; some of them didn't.

My doctor retired from practice shortly thereafter. The doctor who bought her practice continued to have a general family practice with an emphasis on reproductive care, which included all aspects of obstetrics and gynecology. A few years later, she decided to cut back her hours and dropped the general practice to concentrate on providing birth control and abortion, because even fewer general practitioners would perform abortions by then and the need was so great.

Let's just look at that sentence, shall we? The need was so great. Why is the need so great? Because people make mistakes. Because birth control doesn't always work, even when used properly. Because some people don't pay attention in sex education classes. Because some people don't think sex education classes should be taught. Because some people believe that women and girls are property that needs to be controlled. Because some women and girls are raped. Because some women and girls make different choices after they get pregnant than they think they would make beforehand. Because some wanted pregnancies turn out to be dangerous for the would-be mother. Because people make mistakes.

In my youth, I at first believed that abortion should be a private choice of the woman involved. Later, I came to believe that abortion was wrong in every circumstance. Later still, I came to believe that it is always a tragedy, always a very sad choice, but that for the woman making that very sad choice, it may be the right choice, right then, and that she is the only one in a position to be able to make that choice. The role of the rest of society -- all of us who happen not to be pregnant with that particular fetus at that particular time -- is to make sure that the woman has all the support she needs to be able to make that choice: to carry to term, or to abort safely, where safely means that only one life is lost.

I do mourn for every aborted child, as I mourn for every dead person in any time (which is to say, this is a somewhat abstracted mourning, folks, but real nevertheless). I do not use the word "tragedy" lightly in this or any other case. I hope for a time when abortion is much more rare than it is now, rare because women are able to choose when and whether to have intercourse as well as when and whether to try to conceive. In the meantime, knowing that the choices women make when they find themselves pregnant are different from the choices they think they would make -- and knowing women who got badly hurt getting illegal abortions in the seventies as well as women who were able to pay a lot of money to have safe illegal abortions in the forties -- I support a woman's right to choose and a doctor's right to perform abortions in a safe, sterile environment.

And I mourn Dr. Tiller.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I remember reading a story like that. I just went looking for it again.
Is this the one you were thinking of?
http://www.msmagazine.com/summer2004/womanandherdoctor.asp

One thing I found significant was that her regular doctor couldn't do the surgery. It's not just that she didn't want to. She didn't know how. A medical procedure eventually stops being "safe and well-known" when medical schools and hospitals stop teaching it, stop allowing it to be done in their facilities.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes that's the one. I knew I wasn't remembering all the details right, but in many ways it's much scarier than I remember, because as you say, D&Es are rapidly becoming a lost art and when they are, only less safe options for ending a still-birth pregnancy will remain.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I keep thinking about that story. It's rare; it's not unique. Doctors need to know how to do this, because it happens.