choice.

In my career as a physician, I do plan on becoming trained in how to perform abortions.

Do i condone abortions? no. but i will be damned if i do not do everything in my power to support what i believe is true freedom: the power of free will. the ability to choose.

i believe what i believe, but i also respect what other people believe and am fine with letting them alone to believe it. it is when they try to impose their version of the world and their morality on 300 million other people that i have a problem with it.

according to their version of the world, under no circumstances must a child be harmed, including time in utero, because to them what is in the womb is considered human. even in instances of rape, when the mother's life is in danger, of situations where the child will most likely be cruelly abandoned, or if the baby will be born so severely deformed that it will only live outside the womb for an hour or two -- this baby must be born no matter what the cost, because God sanctions all life.

the fetus is sacred. therefore, no matter at what stage, it is to be valued more than the mother carrying it.

very little attention is paid to the cost that women must pay. conception is a dual act between a man and a woman, and yet it is an undeniable biological fact that the woman must suffer the brunt of the consequences, intentional or not. all this not even taking into account the great physical duress of pregnancy and childbirth itself -- ligaments stretched out, muscles weakening, incontinence, hormones -- and all that in a normal pregnancy. in most of the U.S., if the pregnancy was a consequence of rape, the woman is expected to suck up the horrendous trauma she went through and have the baby anyway. if the woman was a twelve year old who barely has any idea of what sex really is besides what she sees on tv, she must have the baby anyway. if the woman is with a man who abuses her and her other children and will most likely abuse this baby also, if she lives in extreme poverty on the streets, if the fetus has a congenital defect so severe as to cripple it for the few years it will survive costing millions of dollars in care, she must deliver the baby all the same.

and in fact, many women do.

and in fact, many women who CAN CHOOSE this, DO choose this.

no woman in the history of civilization has ever sought to get pregnant just to get an abortion. no physician can honestly say they enjoy the procedure either, especially as gestational age increases. abortion is not fun, it is not joyful, it is never a matter taken lightly. even some pro-choice women opt not to have abortion.

but they have had that choice.

thanks to the hard work and far-sightedness of some of our fellow classmates, in our medical program we have been exposed to films and talks from doctors who have been at the front lines caring for women who were unfortunate enough to not have that choice. doctors who have seen the gruesome outcomes since the 1930s, 40s, 50s, when this discourse was nonexistent in our society. they have seen those women, left with no choice, who have resorted to taking matters into their own hands. hands that desperately unwind that rusty wire hanger, hands that insert caustic substances into their vaginas that burn through the peritoneum into their abdominal cavity, hands that push themselves down staircases. they have seen these women butchered, suffer, and die, needlessly.

the consensus from all these doctors who have been practicing for decades is the same.

to deny women the right to a medical procedure done correctly by a trained professional is an act of violence in itself.

banning abortion is the most misogynistic act of society there is.

you can ban abortion and write this into law, but it will still happen. it will still happen in the dark alleyways, in solitary suburban bathrooms, it will still happen in the shady, disease ridden parts of town. it will be performed by unskilled hands, by those whose grasp of human anatomy and sterile procedure is at grade-school level, at best. women will puncture holes in through their reproductive organs, they will bleed to death, they will languish in the hot fever of infection for days upon days. they will see the potential that could have been their life come to an end. watch a documentary with interviews of women who have attempted to end a pregnancy themselves, whose friends have died in the attempt. try to remain unmoved at their stories.

you may consider a woman ending her pregnancy to be "murdering her children." but it is not our choice to make. it is hers. the blood, the burden, the shame, the guilt, the horrific pain, the emotional torment, the shadows and ghosts haunting her until the end of her life -- that choice is hers. and hers alone.

how dare we sentence her to possible death because we, in our warm and comfortable homes, having seen none of this with our own eyes and having held no trembling and terrified hands in our own hands, enforce our pure white doctrine upon a woman who did not ask to receive it.

to see women promote policy that is so completely anti-woman breaks my heart.

as a physician, it is my duty above all else to protect my patient. if for whatever reason i cannot, i will find someone who can. i MUST be my patient's advocate, no matter what they believe, no matter if they are a moral or immoral person, an irresponsible or responsible person, a shining example to society or the most wretched sliver of a human being. i am not here to judge my patients. i cannot be, and still be a good doctor.

and so i choose to become that physician of last resort. regardless of what i personally believe, i choose to learn the skills that may one day save a young woman's life.
and many of my colleagues choose otherwise.
and we are all blessed, because we are able to make that choice.