Hard, important, triggery reading

[drwex]

http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/anatomy-of-an-unsafe-abortion/
In the first posting, Dr Jen Gunter describes in sometimes graphic detail what happened when she was in an emergency room that received a patient who was literally bleeding to death from the aftermath of a botched abortion. I cried when I read this one.

http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/imagine-if-all-the-money-spent-on-fighting-abortion/
In a follow-up post, Dr Gunter assures us that this woman did survive, and urges the uncommonly sane idea that the best way to deal with abortions is to make it so that all women have the chance and means to control their pregnancies.

My thoughts...
When I read the first piece I wanted to murder the doctor who performed the procedure on the patient. How could he do something he was so obviously, dangerously unqualified to do? How many women had died unknown because they didn't make it to ERs in time to have people like Dr Gunter save them?

Then I stopped to wonder: what was the alternative for a woman who went to this guy (I bet it's a man) and were refused? Would they have gone home and found a coat-hanger? Would they have drunk some dangerous chemical? Would they simply have given up and ended their own lives? This guy is a hack and clearly dangerous, but he's far from the worst or only danger faced by women who can't find, can't afford, or are blocked from seeking safe and legal means to end a pregnancy. Does he do this out of fear that he'll turn some woman away, then read her obituary in tomorrow's paper?

Lately, Planned Parenthood has been in the news because the Komen Foundation foolishly decided to make an issue of giving PP money to perform breast cancer screenings. Lots of folk have talked about the need to make such preventive medicine available to all women regardless of ability to pay and I support that. But along the way I've detected a current in the commentary of "I support PP's breast cancer-prevention work, but not that other stuff" and it's making me uncomfortable.

I support Planned Parenthood. I made my first donation (to their Clinic Defense Fund) over two decades ago. I support Planned Parenthood because they provide abortion services that are as safe, clean, and affordable as possible - and they train doctors to provide those services when medical schools and hospitals won't. I support PP because I want never to have another story like Dr Gunter's written again.

Comments and feedback welcome. You're not required to agree with me, but please keep it civil.

Comments

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I've been involved with pro-choice activity since my teens. Bodily integrity is SO important to me personally, and I saw (and still see) being unwillingly/unhappily pregnant as a major violation of bodily integrity.

Given where I work now (high risk OB practice), I can't say a lot about abortions, or rather I can't leave a record on the internet of what I say. But I come down firmly on the side of choice, no matter what.

[mrw42.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read John Irving's _The Cider House Rules_? Beyond being a good book in its own right, it is the most compelling argument I've ever heard for why abortion should be legal, and why safe, clean, competently-performed abortions should be available to all women. We don't get to decide whether or not women will have abortions -- some women who get pregnant and can't afford (personally or financially) to have a baby _will_ choose to have an abortion. The only thing we get to decide is whether they will have a safe, clean, competent abortion or a dangerous, dirty, incompetent one.

Personally, I am morally against abortion and can't imagine a situation in which I would choose to abort a viable fetus. When I was pregnant at 18, I didn't have one -- I put the baby up for adoption instead. But, I don't expect (or even want) other people to make their moral decisions based on _my_ moral views, any more than I want live my life based on what someone else thinks is right or wrong.

Some of my friends have had abortions through Planned Parenthood, and I'm glad that Planned Parenthood was there for them when they needed good medical care.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

i come down firmly on the side of choice, because the woman who is pregnant? it's her body, and her future, and her choice. it doesn't matter what *i* think, or what the nosy neighbor thinks, or what the local priest thinks, or even what the rabidly conservative politician thinks. her body. her future. her choice. and the people who would take that away? this is how i feel about them. (http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/284899)

personally, i'm not overly fond of planned parenthood. my few interactions with them have left me thinking that their advertised prices for STD testing are wildly inaccurate, and they show no interest in posting more-accurate figures. but really, it's not all about me. PP have done a lot of good work, and improved many womens' lives dramatically, and i support them for that.

[stevie-stever.livejournal.com]

It is over-simplified thought that concludes that making abortions illegal or more difficult will somehow REDUCE the number of abortions. Reality, as these blog links suggest, is that such efforts will only reduce the number of SAFE abortions.

The Planned Parenthood broadsides aren't anything new, but I have noticed that with every election in which conservatives make positive gains at either the state or federal level, attacks versus women's choice in general increase in both scale and intensity. The Komen Foundation move was the single hardest hit I've seen, ever. It doesn't much matter that the Foundation reversed course after the outrage across the country became apparent. Expect yet another series of attacks even greater than this if Republicans take back the Senate, -especially- if they retain the House of Representatives. A few organizations revealed proof that none other than Ari Fleischer recommended the person most responsible for Komen's failed strategy for defunding PP. I think this was a carefully choreographed move a few years in the making, and had it not been for such an earth-shattering kaboom of a backlash, it would have worked.

But along the way I've detected a current in the commentary of "I support PP's breast cancer-prevention work, but not that other stuff" and it's making me uncomfortable.

The intensity of the attack versus PP has, if nothing else, encouraged those who were more closeted with their disapproval to be more vocal. I don't honestly see that changing anytime before the end of this election cycle, sorry to say. Additionally, I don't think the current you've observed will die down at all unless conservatives are set back significantly at the polls in October, and I don't mean just Obama's reelection here. I mean failing to retake the Senate, and/or losing control of the House, plus considerable losses in battleground states where collective bargaining was weakened.