dear readers,
i sat down to share with you a story of a one patient's explanation for her abortion decision. but then this story came my way. my story will wait. today this physician's tale is more moving.lou
My Moral Choice
by docswede
Thu May 31, 2007 at 02:21:09 PM PDT
Since I was about 8 years old I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I have always loved science and loved people – there was no better way for me to put the two together in my mind. All the way through the second year of medical school, I envisioned myself as a cardiothoracic surgeon, or perhaps a trauma specialist. But these plans faded after I did my gynecology rotation in my third year.
I fell in love with gynecologic oncology. The cancer patients really needed their doctors. I could see myself helping women and their families through difficult treatments and emotionally trying times. It felt so rewarding to be a part of the team that was helping to fight cancer.
As a matter of fact, that is exactly how I started my residency: with a plan to go on to do an oncology fellowship. But careers, just like life, make their own plans.
- docswede's diary :: ::
This is a story about the first time I realized that I was not going to be a gynecologic oncologist. I will never forget this patient; she changed my life. ‘Fran’ was a 30 year old, single mother of an 18 month old son. Her partner was unfaithful and she had not seen him in over a month. Fran had a large, cancerous tumor in her neck. She was 10 weeks pregnant when it was diagnosed and she needed chemotherapy, radiation and possibly surgery immediately. Even with aggressive treatment, the chances were better than 50/50 that Fran would be dead within a year. She came to our clinic for an abortion, which I performed.
I got a surge of emotion after I did the procedure. I cried when I got home that night. I wasn’t crying about doing the abortion, I was crying for her.
She had no one to accompany her to the procedure. She had only one friend who was willing to watch her baby, but was adamant about her prompt return to pick the child up. The only contacts she had with her family were phone calls from her sister, and they were infrequent. All I could think was, ‘Who is going to take her to her chemo appointments? Who will watch her baby while she recovers from surgery? Who will take her baby when she dies?’. I felt helpless. There was nothing more that I could do to help her.
While I could not take care of Fran’s baby, or hold her hair back while she was vomiting from chemotherapy and radiation, I could prevent her from having to bring another child into this world when the time was clearly not right. I helped her prevent a child from being born to a mother who would be dead before it was a year old. It was such a sad situation, but I felt like I had been an important part of her care.
After the procedure, she thanked me and with tears in her eyes said, ‘You don’t know how much you’ve helped me today’. The gratitude she expressed took me by surprise. This was one of my earliest personal experiences with performing an abortion and I never expected patients undergoing this procedure to be grateful. At best I thought they would be polite and quiet, at worst I thought they would be angry at me or incredulous that I could possibly even do the procedure. I have since learned that this is not the case at all.
I realized shortly thereafter that I didn’t ‘only’ perform her abortion. I provided her with a service that most doctors do not even offer. I was able to help her in a time of unique need. I was not fighting her cancer, but I was helping her to live out the end of her life the way she wanted to. From that point on, I knew where my calling in medicine was: to be a provider of abortion care.
There are very few of us willing to do these procedures. Most obstetrician-gynecologists do not offer them to their patients. With the history of anti-choice extremism we have witnessed in this country, it is easy to understand why a physician would decide not to offer abortion services in their office. They may be afraid of being protested or worse. What I do not understand is how someone could call refusing to provide abortion care, or at least provide a referral, a ‘moral choice’.
What is moral about telling a woman with a terminal illness that she has to continue her pregnancy? What is moral about telling a woman who can not afford to support the children in her home to have another one? What is moral about bringing a child into this world that will not receive the love, support and attention it needs because its mother has to work two jobs just to pay the rent and their father is long gone? Frankly, I do not see it.
Abortion is a moral choice. It is about a human being’s right to determine their own destiny and the destiny of the family surrounding them here on Earth. It is never an easy choice, but it is always moral.
My career has led me to dedicate my life to making sure women can make that choice. I decided that I could help more people this way than I ever could by treating cancer. Providers of abortion care are relatively few, but we can change that. I hope that other young doctors will be similarly inspired by the depth of the impact providing this procedure can have upon their patients. I hope that they see abortion as part of comprehensive gynecologic care. After all, we do over a million of them a year and 1 in 3 women will have one at some point in her lifetime. If we do not do them, then where will our patients go? It is physicians’ moral obligation to be sure that they can come to us for compassionate, safe abortion care. It is one of the times when they need us the most.
Evvie: That was a nasty thing which happened to her at that particular PP, but this is not emblemic of all PPs. I do object to your final line calling abortion "the easy path", because that claim is no more than a slogan. It's just as hard as adoption.
Posted by: Julie | Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 01:43 PM
Wow - what a thoughtful piece to make a thoughtless point. Abortion is always a moral choice? How high does one have to be to think the life you snuff out is some kind of stab for freedom? What is wrong with you people?
I'm not one of those "anti-choice extremist" you're so afraid of. I'm a pro-choice Republican who knows the bloody genie is out of the bottle, so the battle is for hearts and minds. I'm not worried about the ultra-rare situations of abortion for medical reasons, it is the overwhelming number of cases of elective abortions that are performed for reasons sometimes as transient as 'poor timing.' You can keep massaging your ego over your benign intentions, but you know that abortion as a remedy for inconvenience is too common.
I know you will hate to hear this, but let me tell you about a small victory of mine. Years ago my roommate's girlfriend came to me with shocking news. She was pregnant. I went through her choices with her: have the child, abort the child, give the child up for adoption. At 22 years old she wasn't ready to be a mother, and considering that she was a stripper who smoked, did drugs and drank to excess, it was a miracle that this hadn't happened before. Her boyfriend and her family urged her to get an abortion. Her friends told it was easy. Of all the voices that clammored for her attention, I was the only one who counseled adoption - the hardest choice. She told me she would try.
She ended up at the Planned Parenthood two times. She couldn't stand not partying with her friends, and they made no effort to make her choice any easier. The stories she told me of that place, how they locked her in a room with two nurses who tried disparately to bully her into an abortion had us both crying. The rebelliousness that had so often brought her trouble now worked to sustain her. Under the brooding eyes of her family and friends we researched adoption agencies, interviewed parents and ultimately picked one. The day she had the baby was traumatic, but the red headed little girl passed from her hands to the waiting hands of a young couple already in love with her.
When I talk to Jennifer today we rarely bring up her little girl. On May 3 of every year she calls me and we talk about where she might be now. We both know she is loved, and she is living a life far better than what Jenn could give her, and certainly better than the incinerator so many insisted on. We also know that those nine months were the hardest thing Jenn had ever done, and for all the mistakes she had made in her life, there is one thing she did that proved to her that she was strong enough to rise above her weaknesses. Now she is married, the mother of an eleven month old girl, and no longer a part of the world she thought she was destined for - a life of drugs and crime. She was better than that. She knows that now.
Who is the hero here? The doctor who soothes his conscience with passing thoughts of dark chivalry, or the girl who eschews the easy path for the one that demanded more of her? It's not even close. Abortion should be legal and rare. Not celebrated.
Posted by: Evrviglnt | Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 06:13 PM
Hey, I recently added a news widget from http://www.widgetmate.com to my blog. It shows the latest news, and just took a copy and paste to implement. Might interest you too.
Posted by: Mark Vane | Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 02:01 AM
This "abortion is the easy way out" myth must be a truly comforting alternative to critical thinking. Because some pro lifers keep using it over and over to point fingers and blame, blame, blame the woman.
Posted by: Juile | Saturday, June 09, 2007 at 06:36 PM
Moral choice? are you kidding?
Given the stress level of the patient, of course you took some of the weight off. But our job is not always to remove everyones problems/issues/burdens for them. Suffering also has a purpose to help us mature spiritually, emotionally, psychologically. People don't mature because things get easier. People mature in the midst of a trial, when the most important realizations concerning life and death occur. It's a dangerous thing to end a life and await the consequences.
Posted by: Phoebe | Friday, June 08, 2007 at 12:33 PM
how do i email you my own personal story? it's short, but needs to be heard.
Posted by: eden | Sunday, June 03, 2007 at 08:18 AM