Doing the Work that Has To Be Done

I was asked by a colleague the other day if I would be willing to head the medical advisory committee of which I am currently a member. The committee is part of a large organization whose mission includes provision of family planning services. As chair of the committee, I’d have some additional responsibilities, and would have to start attending board meetings for the organization, in addition to the twice yearly advisory committee meetings I already attend.

I don’t like to spending evenings away from family, and try to limit outside responsibilities as much as possible. I never go to drug company dinners, resent my boss for making me join our local medical society (which has monthly dinner meetings), and aside from my voice lesson and choral rehearsal (which I combine on the same night once a week) have no outside evening activities. I told my colleague that I’d think about it and get back to her, because I didn’t think it was nice to say no right away. I promptly forgot our conversation.

A few days later, I was privileged to listen to an esteemed gynecologic oncologist give a lecture about his life’s work. Amidst his tales of the lab, the operating room and the chairman’s office, he told us stories of the old days before abortion was legal. In those days, the hospital wards were packed with septic abortion patients. He told us how many lives they saved by not waiting for cultures to diagnose clostridial sepsis. They used to mix the patient’s secretions with milk right there in the ER, and look for bubble formation (clostridia is a gas forming bacteria). He told of how he stayed up all night long in the ICU with women who had attempted self-abortion with lye, only to have them die in the morning despite all his efforts. And although he had enormous responsibilities in his specialty, he served for years on the board of his local Planned Parenthood. “It was just something I felt I had to do”, he said. “I hope you never live to see the things I saw”.

That same night, I learned that South Dakota has passed a law that outlaws abortion under any circumstance.

Today, I emailed my colleague that I would accept the position.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, in 1962 alone, nearly 1,600 women were admitted to Harlem Hospital Center in New York City for incomplete abortions, which was one abortion-related hospital admission for every 42 deliveries at that hospital that year. In 1968, the University of Southern California Los Angeles County Medical Center, another large public facility serving primarily indigent patients, admitted 701 women with septic abortions, one admission for every 14 deliveries. (AGI also source for graph above)

Category: Second Opinions

8 Responses to Doing the Work that Has To Be Done

  1. Your daughter will see you do important work, and enjoy being a professional, and she will forget the evenings you are away. God bless you for taking on this noble cause with passion.

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  2. From just one random woman in the blogosphere, thank you. Most of us don’t have the skills to do what you can, but we’re going to need supportive, caring physicians in the fight.

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  3. Thank-you so much for this. Every little bit helps, and I’m glad to know that your voice will have the opportunity to be heard on this matter.

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  4. I too am a “mamadoc” and hate leaving my family in the evenings–or before breakfast, which is how I came to work parttime.
    It is imperative that we speak out for keeping abortion legal, and work hard to keep it rare, which is what your work on a family planning committee will do.
    Years ago, in my clinical medicine course, our chief of Ob/Gyn spoke to us about abortion. This was only three or four years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. He was Catholic, and told us to simply not get into arguments about when life begins, but to regard abotion as justifiable homicide. Works for this Catholic.

    He too shared tales of the horror of his days in Philadelphia at whichever hospital cared for the indigent patiens, and the children that were left motherless when their desperate mothers died after back alley abortions.

    Perhaps we need some language besides prochoice to describe our support. I am pro legal abortion. Prochoice makes what may be the most difficult decision a woman ever makes sound like she’s picking out a new lipstick.

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