Abortion: What Do Doctors Say?
Roe v. Wade is now 40 years old and when it passed, I was 15. As an active Catholic sophomore in high school, I knew something in our world was different. My parents didn’t discuss abortion; no one did. Most girls weren’t sexually active, and I knew exactly what my father thought about me being sexually active; his beliefs kept me out of the backseat of any boy’s car. The idea of abortion was peculiar to me.
After graduating from a women’s college in the 1970s, I started medical school where only 30% of the class was women. I admired our women professors because they had forged a tough path and made life easier for me. One professor, in particular, made an impact. She was in her forties, had a few children, and was thrilled with the Roe v. Wade decision.
She had an abortion after becoming pregnant with her third child. Since she and her husband decided that one more child didn’t fit well into their lifestyle, she had the baby aborted. She shared with me how cruel other physicians were to her about her decision. “How dare they criticize my private decisions?” she used to say.
She was 20 years my senior, enormous in my eyes, and I agreed with her. What right did others have to criticize her choices? For several years, I defended my mentor. We women should have full say over what does or doesn’t happen to our bodies.
Fortunately for me, my medical school didn’t make us watch abortions. For the next few years, I thought that abortion made sense until a physician colleague described one to me. He described watching a woman lie on her back, her face turned away. He talked of the sound of the vacuum used to extract the arms, the legs, and the shredded torso of the tiny child. I cried. In a mere ten minutes, I hated my mentor. How could she?
New York is considering increasing the fetal age for legal abortions. They want abortion to be legal for babies in the third trimester. As a pediatrician, I have successfully cared for many babies born at 25-26 weeks gestation. Neonatologists devote their lives to saving these children.
But while politicians, pro-life and pro-abortion groups fight it out, I don’t worry too much about the outcome. Here’s why: the overwhelming majority of obstetricians in this country don’t want to perform them. Abortions haven’t just gone down because of the success of pro-lifers like me. Has anyone considered that they have gone down because doctors won’t do them? That’s a reality.
Why won’t they do them? I asked a gynecology colleague. She said, “There are a limited amount of times in one’s life when you can see torn arms, fingers and a mangled face and know that they are broken because of your hands. For most doctors I know, once is too many.”
Politicians, women’s rights activists, and pro-abortionists will spew venom at one another over Roe v. Wade. I’m glad the fight continues because abortion is an abomination. If you have any question about what you think, next time you visit your doctor, ask if he or she can arrange to have you sit in on an abortion. I guarantee that you—like most of the physicians in the U.S.—will decide that’s the last one you see.
9 Responses to “Abortion: What Do Doctors Say?”
Thanks for your perspective as a dr.
Thank you again, Dr. Meeker for speaking the truth and being bold. I came upon a video/documentary the other day “3801 Lancaster”. While I’ve always been against abortion, this video spoke to me and opened my eyes to what abortion has done to the black community. The statistics were astounding and heartbreaking.
Thank you for your commitment to the unborn. It is clear the Obama administration will embolden the pro-abortion groups and we cannot remain silent. We must continue to object and not keep it to ourselves. Evil can prevail if good people remain silent. Thank you again for speaking up and may all that read this do the same. Blessings !
Thanks for this very intelligent and beautiful post. Your experience has been almost identical to mine. I became an RN in the late 1970s and was told in nursing school that the unborn baby was a blob of tissue essentially. Fortunately I was never asked to participate in an abortion at the hospitals where I worked. I never appreciated the reality of what occurs during an abortion until much later in my life and am sickened by it. I praise God every day for my two sons who I adopted- what we would have all missed out on if they had been aborted!
So beautifully written and powerful. Thank you for your wisdom and boldness.
I thought this was a well-written and thoughtful article until I got to the part about “Politicians, women’s rights activists, and pro-abortionists will spew venom at one another over Roe v. Wade.”
“Spew venom” is not in keeping with the tone of this discussion. Could we say they will “earnestly discuss” or “forcefully argue” or “hotly debate” this subject and not dip into demonizing those who have not arrived at the same conclusion as the author? This excessive tone is how you lose the argument with those who may be reading your post for more information.
Great insight, Dr. Meeker. Thank you!
Jenna says that ‘spewing venom’ is not in keeping with the tone of this discussion. I’d advise her never to go out to an abortion facility. A ‘clinic escort’ once threatened to mutilate me as she poked her finger in my sternum.
I think it’s fair to compare the abortion controversy with the history of slavery. The struggle to change values was a major theme in Huckleberry Finn. Unfortunately it took a war costing 100,000s of lives to straighten out what was in keeping with that conversation.
I hope and pray prolifers are not venomous but alas some of them are. It is unbecoming of a believer and indignifies or defiles the very person who slanders another. To refrain from retaliation requires Spirit-control. Father of all fathers, give us Your Grace to reflect JESUS Who, silent as a lamb, answered not his accusers.