A Medical Student Explores Abortion

The Washington Post Sunday magazine is one of my favorite publications for its features. I look forward to reading it each week. But this weekend's publication was startling: the Post decided to feature an article about a pro-choice medical student who pursued training to become an abortion doctor. It was a well-written piece, and surprisingly balanced and nuanced. Even so, I did not expect the ending (spoiler alert! spoiler alert!), when this student decided she could not follow through because her experience was troubling. Here's a pivotal scene from the article. I highly recommend you read the whole thing to have a better understanding of the way doctors are prepared for this work:

It was during her time in the outpatient clinic that Lesley got to see her first abortions. OB students had a mentor they were supposed to shadow, and one of Lesley's friends had spent a day with a doctor performing abortions. The friend had held the instruments for part of the procedure, but when the doctor handed her the suction instrument, she couldn't do it. Lesley wondered what her own reaction would be. She asked to follow the doctor, too.

Most of all, Lesley was interested in the state of the patient. Would the pregnant woman be calm or crying? And how would the doctor deal with those who were emotional? What was the dynamic between patient and doctor?

"Everyone talks about the context, the morality, the politics of it," she said the night before she would observe an actual abortion, "but nobody really knows what it is like in that moment between doctor and patient."

She reported at 8 a.m. and met the doctor, whom she described as friendly but gruff. The nurses joked with him, she observed. And when she asked what she would be doing, she said he teased her, "I don't know what you'll be doing, but I'll be doing procedures." He got up and walked down the hall. Lesley whipped on a gown and gloves and ran to catch up with him.

In the procedure room, the patient had been sedated, but her eyes were open. As Lesley watched, the doctor grabbed the tenaculum, numbed the cervix with a needle, grabbed the specula for dilation, then the suction machine. He was methodical and very fast. The patient was in obvious pain. Her screams gave Lesley the chills, and she thought she might throw up.

"I'm getting dizzy," she said aloud. The doctor told her to sit down. She backed away, found a bench and sat. She was hot and sweaty.

The procedure took five minutes, and when the doctor was done, he took off his gown and threw it into the trash. Lesley apologized for being squeamish. "I don't want to seem like a baby," she said she told him.

He started to ask if she was "one of those who don't agree" with abortion, but before he could even finish the question, she interrupted. "No, no," she said she told him. "I'm one of the Medical Students for Choice. I'm not one of those."

The second procedure was easier. This time the woman had fallen asleep from the sedative. Lesley's stomach was stronger now. "I can take it," she told herself. The doctor put Lesley's hand on the instrument, his hand over hers, and she let herself be guided by him, using the dilator, the suction machine and finally a metal loop for scraping the uterus.

The abortions were over by 10 a.m., and for the first time in her obstetrics rotation, Lesley did not want to leave. She asked to stay, and she spent the afternoon following a nurse practitioner as she counseled and prepared patients for more complicated second-trimester abortions the next day.

"What about the women who come in distraught?" Lesley said she wanted to know.

A woman crying was a red flag, the nurse replied, and she'd gently ask if the woman wanted to go through with an abortion.

The only woman crying that afternoon was one who was too far along to have an abortion and was sent away. Lesley helped with that ultrasound and saw the fetus moving. It was 20 weeks, 3 days old and "pretty real" to her. In previous weeks, she had tried to keep similar-sized babies alive. This "conflict of effort" was, to Lesley, "weird, even surreal."

Amen. This article is a good reminder we need to be praying for medical students. May more of them come to see this "conflict of effort"--and may God use that to open their eyes to gospel truth!

Comments

[Vanessa]

I am a nursing student just finishing up an OB rotation. Fortunately, my training has been in a Catholic hospital where abortions are, of course, not performed. However, I have been able to observe the tremendous hypocrisy of a profession that goes to tremendous lengths to save one unborn child while deliberately murdering another. There are many things about abortion that the public is not told. One example is the myth that abortion is occasionally necessary to save a mother's life. From reading my medical textbooks, I have learned that there is no medical condition a mother can have that actually necessitates the deliberate killing of her unborn child. It is a travesty that so many Christians think that abortion is acceptable for "rape, incest, or the mother's life".
This article was very interesting. Thank you for posting it!

[Allie]

Thank you for this article. I referred it to several of my friends in med school. When I was a pre-med student, we went to some conferences where they had some abortion practice workshops. Terrible! Thanks for the very relevant article.

[Gracie]

In the end, she still advocated abortion rights.

[nicole]

My heart rate doubled while i read that. TO think that, before coming to Christ, I championed such cold blooded disposal of human life. There but for the grace of God go I...

[Aisha Hoffman]

I concur with Gracie. I read the article and it still made me very sick. The article goes on to state that she saw a second trimester abortion and that the body looked like "doll parts," and that she knew it wasn't a real person.

She still advocated abortion rights in the end. I don't know, maybe I have a different perspective, but I came away from that article with a deep sadness.

[Grace]

Wow.. that's a very strong reminder to pray for the med-student. When I was in university I was considering of going to medschool. Although, I later on chose another path, but the thought that medschool student would have to face this kind of situation never entered my mind..

Will definitely start praying for them...

Thank you so much!

-gRaCe-

[Mrs. Taft]

I find it interesting that she ended up not being able to "walk the walk" but continued to "talk the talk". It's interesting that she realized what a conflict of effort it was, and how troubling it was, and how hard it was on both the woman having an abortion and the doctor providing it. Instead of allowing this to either change her heart and mind or prove her own words, however, she ran. She couldn't commit to it fully, but couldn't give up totally and "let everyone down", so she decided to support it in name but tender her skills elsewhere. When faced with it, she couldn't go through with it, so she hid from it instead of fully embracing the reality of it, one way or another. Sad.

[galife]

Doesn't mean that she's no longer pro choice.

[Jess]

Thanks for posting this article. It was a very eye opening read and much appreciated as I am going to be starting to volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center. Praying that God will be opening eyes to the evils of abortion.

[Erin]

It's sad to me that she couldn't perform abortions not because she was troubled about what was happening to the baby, but for lack of care given to the mother. She had no concern for the unborn, but more for the pain the mother experienced and brutal (my word) instruments used.

[Jessica]

True, she remained pro-choice. But she is one less future abortion provider.

And perhaps this is just the beginnings of God's workings on her heart regarding abortion. Pray for the grace of God to work her heart towards repentance.