In the Medical Post (not available online) there’s a full page article on abortion and grieving from the doctor’s perspective by one Shane Neilson in Erin, Ontario. Very interesting, in particular because the doctor is not pro-life. He doesn’t like abortion, but he does refer for them. He says he has but once seen a women who had an abortion and didn’t regret it. The remorseless 19-year-old who shows up in his office one week after an abortion is the subject of his column.
He says she appears to live in an “emotional dead zone” and that he “wants to shake her, but [does] the Pap and bimanual exam instead.”
He concludes with this line: “It haunts me that I wrote in the chart that her uterus had returned to a normal size.”
I feel for him. Seems to be strangled by his own desire not to press his opinion on others. I’d like to shake him, actually, I’m betting he doesn’t hesitate to impress his view in other areas–maybe weight loss or smoking. So here’s a doctor who consistently sees women grieving their abortions but won’t cease to refer for them. I think he sounds like a good man, a good doctor. But why won’t he stand up for what he knows to be true? That the fetus matters, even if he’s not sure it’s human? That women suffer after the fact?
In any event, sounds like this doctor doesn’t love abortion. And for that I’m glad. If it continues to haunt him, that “uterus has returned to normal size” comment after it was just violently emptied… chances are sooner or later he’ll stop and think some more about his choices in this situation.
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Brigitte seconds that: I’m glad to see he was at least disturbed. Beats this guy.
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Not giving an informed opinion in certain matters is now a standard approach with family physicians vis-a-vis their patients. If a patient needs to be told that he drinks too much, should stop using drugs, or stop being promiscuous, it is unlikely he will hear it from his family doctor. Instead, he will be diagnosed with this or that “disorder” and referred to a specialist, perhaps psychiatrist, who may or may not do the job, depending on how badly he needs the return business.
In doing so, family physicians seem to be motivated by the time factor (talking takes time), fear of losing the patient, and fear of causing offence and being challenged. After all, former vices, such as alcohol and drug use, are now legitimate illnesses, therefore not subject to moral judgement. The same reasoning is applied to abortion by those who may be otherwise “personally opposed” to it.
Taking a stand is what the doctor in the story needs to do. But he will do so at his own risk.
I don’t think I’d want to go to a doctor who isn’t sure that a fetus inside a human woman is also human. I wonder exactly what species he thinks it might be. (Perhaps he’s been watching V?)