Family Medicine Doctors Doing More Abortions


The ordinary primary care doctor's office where all of us going for physicals, flu and other run-of-the-mill medical problems are starting to include abortions with all their other services. This is a new development. 

During the decades of Roe most hospitals and general medical practices did not do abortions because they knew they would be picketed or there would be other complications. While free standing women's medical practices that performed abortions were low cost and provided a huge number of abortions, these clinics also created the image that abortions were different from normal and ordinary medical services. This is the image Forced Birth operatives wanted. Now that abortions are being mixed in with all other services they are appearing to be nothing different or more important than flu and constipation. Forced Birth does not like this.

The link points out that family practice doctors do not perform a high volume of abortions. Some do only two or three a day along with a dozen or more other patients. But if even a small percentage of these primary care clinic do a few abortions each it is significant because there are so many of them. The link says these clinics have been helping pick up the overload in states near Texas and Mississippi that have all but banned abortions. Family practice clinics doing abortions also buries the myth there is "an abortion industry" that persuades women to have abortions. There is no more an abortion industry than there is a "flu industry."

This development takes away some of the ability of protestors to harass women as they go to their appointments at women's clinics. There are not enough protesters to shout prayers at every family medicine practice in the U.S. It also throws off demonizing Planned Parenthood. 

It hasn't happened yet, so far as I know, but eventually there will a study of the women in states like Texas and Mississippi that have outlawed abortion who were forced to give birth rather than obtain an abortion. It those states are like everywhere else in the world where abortions have been banned studies will show women with higher incomes got abortions, poor women gave birth. To anti-abortion zealots this does not matter. But to a substantial slice of people who do not approve of abortion it not seem fair to have poor women forced to give birth while other women are not. 

Abortion rights are only starting. More is coming. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maybe the "Original Sin" Should be Reassigned

Image
We can all agree most Catholic priests are fine people and not guilty of sexual abuse. What Catholics must face, however, it that their church harbors executives who are dishonest . There is an incredible story about the Argentine Bishop Zanchetta. The Pope worked with him in Argentina and they are considered friends. Around 2015 Zanchetta sent nude pictures of himself and they began circulating world wide. He also was too friendly with young seminarians and some left because of him.  Three different officials say they made formal complaints to the Vatican about Zanchetta between 2015 and 2017. Yet, in 2018, the Vatican claimed it was unaware of any complaints about Zanchetta. This might be a good time to repeat the Catholic hierarchy claims to have the sole authority handed down from Jesus to what the faith stands for. It condemns as sinners those who practice birth control, have abortions and gay sexual relationships. Handing the hierarchy this responsibility would make som
Read more

Religious Freedom Arguments Ultimately Will Fail

Image
We are very early in the period of arguments about religious freedom. When every person can have her own god how can the rest of society accommodate all of them? While courts have often dismissed arguments other than the religious liberty of those opposed to abortion and gays, the argument is being used more often these days by liberals. Recently a doctor who provided water and food for migrants crossing the border illegally quoted scripture as justification for what he was doing. Back in the day, a similar argument was used by anti war advocates who burned draft cards. Everyone knows the list of passages in the Bible advocating peace is as long as your arm. As the flag waving political right Christians carry on about their religious freedom, they have little to no interest in that of others. Being a conscientious objector today is harder than it was when I was of draft age. If ever there was a clear violation of religious freedom, the belief that Jesus was about peace and Jesus
Read more

A Split in Anti Abortion: Christians Who Want to Help Women

Image
There are a couple of facts we all must face in the politics of abortion. One (A.) is that anti abortion politics are driven as much by the desire to punish women as it is about so called "life." The other (B.)is many decisions to get abortions have a large economic component. Many women terminate a pregnancy because giving birth present what they see as economic setbacks that are intolerable. A Christian group has decided it should focus on (B.) instead of (A.). This is going to anger those whose main focus is sin and the punishment of women who sin by having sex. This split among anti abortion people was highlighted in a great book about abortion, Her Body, Our Laws: The Front Lines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma.  The author spent years traveling and listening to women in the most restrictive countries in the Americas and in States of the U.S. She spent considerable time with women who run homes for pregnant women in conservative states. She foun
Read more