My day yesterday

Now that I am done with my 12 hour day at school today, I can actually sit back and write about yesterday.

This is a political post. So, if you’re just here for the birth stuff, you are forewarned.

But, considering all the stuff I have posted about race recently, if you are still sticking around, you must be OK with my ranty side.

Yesterday was a fantastic yet very confrontational day. I can feel a little adrenaline release just thinking about it.

First of all, we had a very successful Medical Students for Choice meeting. I billed it as a “Common Ground” event. We had a wonderful speaker, Rev. Dorothy Chaney, a Baptist preacher and a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I met her at a meeting of the Planned Parenthood Interfaith Council. I was so moved about her story about when her aunt almost died from an illegal abortion. She prayed, and told God that if she survived, she would dedicate her life to making sure this didn’t happen to other women.

Well, now she is a preacher who provides counsel at a local abortion clinic, and supports sex education and outreach through her church in a predominantly black and impoverished community in Miami, one that has a high teen pregnancy rate. She also was part of the Institute on Religion and Democracy at Howard University.

Rev. Chaney did a wonderful job. We only gave one day’s notice for the event. We had standing room only. Many people showed up who were not members of Medical Students for Choice, including a few medical students with bibles. Don’t get me wrong, there are members of Medical Students for Choice, at our chapter and that I have met at the national conventions, that take their religious faith very seriously. But, these particular students with bibles were not there to be members.

A few highlights from what I thought was a very successful event. At one point, after she was done speaking, one of the attendees asked her something about “killing babies” and she corrected him and said “Honey, they’re not babies yet. They’re fetuses.” (Which, technically, they’re not, since we were discussing first trimester abortion, which is still the embryonic stage, but anyway….) The medical student said “No, they’re not, they’re BABIES!”

I wanted to freeze frame them and say, “Hold on, which one is the preacher and which one is the medical student?”

At the end of the event, a first year student held up her bible and said “I have something to say..” and Rev. Chaney said “I have the same bible as you!” brightly. The first year student continued “I want you all to to read the bible for yourself and decide what it says.” And I smiled broadly and said “Thanks so SO much. That was exactly the point of our event to find common ground. Thanks for attending and participating so respectfully!”

So, if that wasn’t enough, there was a health care rally at Senator Bill Nelson’s office. I went, and so did the other research fellow. It was…interesting. There were more pro health care reform people than antis, but not by too much.

OK, I’m pretty biased, but the signs and arguments on the anti side were pathetic. Many referred to killing seniors. I can’t believe anyone would hold a sign with the thoroughly debunked death panels lie on it. I find it really offensive, to tell you the truth. A woman with one asked me if I ever heard of the Heritage Foundation. I said “My father worked at the Heritage Foundation. And he had a living will.” End of life counseling is not euthanasia.

There were also a lot of references to the Constitution (these people who love their federally subsidized flood insurance think that the Constitution outlaws federal spending on anything not spelled out in the original document?) and socialism (and many admitted they loved their Medicare. Except for the guy with the socialism sign who said he had no insurance and took his children to the department of health. Seriously).

Some highlights:

The other fellow is doing research on end of life. She had a bunch of surveys with her, and was asking people to fill them out. It is a research study for the medical school. She is collecting opinions and knowledge about hospice and living wills. It is an IRB approved survey, not biased or politically slanted. One older gentleman with a sign saying “Kill the bill, not our seniors” refused to fill one out.

So, you’ll demonstrate with a sign about end of life counseling and options, but you won’t fill out an opinion survey about it? I guess he has his own way of getting his opinion heard.

Oh, and I got called a “racist bigot”. This is seriously how the conversation went:

Him: “I don’t want to pay more taxes. I like my insurance.”
Me: “Well, that’s where we don’t see eye to eye. I care about the general public good, and you care about yourself.”
Him: “That makes you a racist bigot! You think you are more important than everyone else!”

Yeah, and liberals are playing the so called racism card? I recently got called a Holocaust denier by a friend of my brother’s because I said it was OK (and precedented) for the president to address schoolchildren. What is wrong with these people? If lies about killing the elderly and full term babies (oh, yes, they were yelling about infanticide, too) don’t work, then start calling people the worst random insults that spring to mind, even if they are completely unrelated to the conversation.

And, I’ll end this with some photos of misspelled signs! This one said “KILL THE HEALTH CARE BILL, NOT GRANMA” but his arms got tired before I could take a picture of it in its full glory.

And, here’s the woman in the garbage bag with the sign about who works for us. It was raining about an hour before I took this picture. I guess she was afraid the rain might come back, and maybe her clothes were dry clean only. She drove off in a gorgeous new convertible Mercedes. You’d think she’d have a nice raincoat. Or maybe a dictionary. I am sure she earned that Mercedes by merit, intelligence and hard work. Wouldn’t want any giveaways.

I write letters, activist style

A double hat tip to Shakesville, one tip for the title and another for the story.

CNN has a headline referring to Scott Roeder, the confessed assassin of Dr. Tiller, as an “anti-abortion activist.”

Here is my letter:

I was shocked to see Dr. Tiller’s assassin referred to as an “abortion activist” by your website (http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/28/kansas.doctor.killed/index.html ) in a headline.

I am an abortion activist as a member of Medical Students for Choice. This man was many things: an assassin, a murderer, a terrorist, or simply “accused murderer” would have been accurate. He was not an activist.

Many people have complained that the popular media has normalized violent targeting of reproductive health care workers, and have theorized that this euphemization may embolden such “activists”. Please keep this in mind when covering this issue.

Signed,

A future provider of a legal, safe, necessary, common medical procedure who is sick of being maligned while violent nuts on the fringe’s feelings are coddled by the “most trusted name in journalism”.

Here is CNN’s Feedback form if you are so inclined.

At the Med Students for Choice Leadership Retreat

Getting inspired, hanging out with all of the cool medical students. It would be an almost perfect experience if it wasn’t for my stupidity.

I had a stupid, stupid mishap last night that was very careless of me that I may type more about later, but as of right now I will just say I have a bump on my head and my cell phone is ruined. It involved a few beers and diving in a shallow pool with my clothes on and my cell phone in my pocket. Typing about it on here is part of my beating myself up over this keeping myself honest.

Reply turned post, bloggers unite! style

Thanks to a tip from Feministing, I found this column on Mother Jones about the Future of Abortion Providers. I agree with the idea that we need more feminist activists and more abortion providers. I don’t agree that calling feminist bloggers sluts is the way to do it.

Here is the reply:

Blogging and activism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I blog, I joined Facebook because my medical school class had a group on there, and I am a member of Medical Students for Choice. I am one of those future abortion providers you want so badly. I am also a young (well, not so young, but still…) feminist.

I think the problem with convincing people to become abortion providers is a lack of dialogue on the subject, which makes it easier for medical students (and the rest of the public with whom they interact) to dehumanize women who get abortions. Women most certainly do not talk about it in person, if you haven’t noticed. Do you know the most effective way I get involved in changing the dialogue about abortion? Through blogging and on message boards. I can talk to one medical student at a time, one person at a time face to face. I get hundreds of hits a day on my blog right now.

I agree with your cause. I don’t agree with your methods. Slut-shaming young feminists is not going to create future abortion providers. What are you doing to support MY future as an abortion provider? I am lucky to have my in laws pay for my younger son’s day care, and my mother pays my car bills, and we still struggle for me to stay in medical school. And this is with me taking out the maximum in loans. I will be graduating with about $300,000 in debt. This is not even considering the money I will have to pay in malpractice in ob/gyn on top of my loan payments.

And where is the money come to pay for abortion services? Are YOU fighting for reimbursement of abortion and contraception by insurance and Medicaid? Do you know how I stay informed and fight for issues such as that? On (gasp!) blogs!

Please, find a better way to help me out.

Reply turned post, sex selection style

A reply turned post based on this great post from Renee at Womanist Musings.

Thanks for a great post.

I am a member of Medical Students for Choice. At every meeting, there is a session called “Words of Choice” that invites new attendees to examine how they feel on challenging issues such as sex selection.

Practitioners are important tools in this. I do realize some people (like one of the commenters) think restricting abortion access in cases of sex selection can be a slippery slope of judgment that can lead to more abortion restriction. That is a valid argument. I can understand that this may be true on a legislative level.

However, practitioners make decisions all the time about what their ethical scope of practice is, and there is a similar slippery slope in the other direction of forcing practitioners to do procedures they find morally wrong. Many practitioners do limit their practice, for example, to abortions in the first trimester (up to twelve weeks) for many reasons, and that is entirely valid.

I plan on performing elective terminations as a physician. I have not decided what limits I am going to place on my own practice. I do find sex selection utterly wrong. I spoke to a peer who said “What if the couple has five boys, and just wants to have a girl?” I do not think the gender of your child is some sort of commodity, and you need to be the first person on your block to collect one of each. (It is also not a binary system, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic).

I stopped reproducing with my second boy. People ask me if I’m going to (or tell me I have to!) try for a girl. I tell them as long as I get to trade in one the ones I have, since I only want two children. Of course I would have loved to have had a baby born a girl, but in the grand scheme of things, I am not that worried about it.

I also have issues with some aspects of genetic or pathology counseling and abortion. But, the last thing a disabled child needs is parents who don’t want them. I know there are networks set up to adopt children with Down syndrome who are given up at birth, but I think large numbers of these children do end up institutionalized or in a fractured foster care system. Forcing pregnancy and forcing parenthood are not the answer.

I write letters

Hat tip to Shakesville for the title idea.

Apparently, Talk of the Nation canceled their planned guest for today, who was supposed to be Dr. Rachel Phelps, medical director of Planned Parenthood of Syracuse, NY. They supposedly canceled her because they could not get someone to come on the show and represent the position that all abortion is immoral.

Dear TOTN,

I was disappointed to hear that today’s scheduled show with Dr. Rachel Phelps was canceled. I am a member of Medical Students for Choice. I have had the opportunity to hear her speak twice. She is a wonderful speaker. She presents evidence based information and reasonable discussion of ethics when it comes to the varied, nuanced issues for both providers and patients involving abortion.

If it is indeed true that the show was canceled because you could not find a doctor to go on and say abortion is immoral, may I politely ask why?

Abortion is a legal, overwhelmingly safe, very common medical procedure, one of the most common surgical procedures in the country. The vast majority of the country supports the right for women to choose to terminate a pregnancy. The Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates between 30 to 40% of all women of reproductive age will have a pregnancy termination in their lifetime. Unfortunately, very few of these women will talk about it to anyone other than their immediate support circle, due to the stigma. Part of that stigma is due to many media outlets not thinking that a story about abortion is complete without having someone pointing out that some people think that it is immoral.

Many NPR shows, including TOTN, are successful at providing nuanced discussion of controversial issues without resorting to having one guest that calls the other guest immoral, one who completely disagrees with their legal ability to even do what they do. For example, TOTN had a show on global warming just last week. I don’t think there were any global warming deniers on the panel. The show provides three avenues (blog, phone, email) for people to discuss or disagree with the guest. I saw global warming deniers in the comments. They got to air their views.

When you have on military experts or spokespeople, do you have a token pacifist on the panel saying war is wrong, or even someone who represents the 60%+ of us who think we shouldn’t be in Iraq? Just to remind everybody that some people think it’s immoral? Of course not. First of all, it would be insulting to your guest. Second of all, your guest should be able to provide an educated discussion of the topic of the show without being so unbalanced that you have to have someone on to tell them he or she is, essentially, a murderer. Which is a valid critique of the war, and of abortion, but it is a minority opinion and does not need to aired every time the topic comes up.

Of course some shows benefit from multiple guests, such as experts in an industry and experts from watch dog groups. But I hardly think it is necessary to cancel the show with Dr. Phelps because you couldn’t find someone to tell her that abortion should be criminalized.

Sincerely,
Mom TFH
Local School of Osteopathic Medicine
President, Student Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Vice-President, Medical Students for Choice
Vice-President, American Medical Women’s Association

Updated with the reply:
this program has not been cancelled but postponed to be aired at a later date yet to be determined.

Hmm, no grammar or spell check for their communications team.
Still wondering, why? Why did it need to be canceled? (Or not cancelled (sic) but postponed to be aired at a later date yet to be determined)?

Med Students for Choice!

I planned on making a post leading up to this, but these last two weeks have been overwhelmingly busy. I never write to do lists, and I was writing to do lists. Not that I was getting them done, but I was writing them.

Well, despite my unfinished business elsewhere, I still took off and headed to the Medical Students for Choice Annual Meeting! I am so excited. It is a magical and wonderful place. It is amazing to be in an atmosphere with intelligent, progressive people who are actively interested in reproductive rights and have thought about the subject enough to have an intelligent discussion. The workshops are great. The speakers blew me away last time.

It’s surprising that there is so much nuance in reproductive rights conversations. Well, not to me, but I am sure it is surprising to some people. I am hoping with the resounding defeat of all ‘of the ballot measures attempting to restrict choice, the national conversation on abortion and reproductive rights might tone down a little, and become a little more reasonable. Just like the national conversation on sex (prude in public, insatiable porn consuming in private), the discourse on reproductive rights is shudder inducing at times.

I am happy that there isn’t much of a chance of someone saying “slutty girls” shouldn’t have access to emergency contraception without “supervision”. I heard this was from a medical student from my school. This was her reaction to finding out that emergency contraception is available over the counter. She is a woman, and the president of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association chapter at our school, so she is someone who I assumed would be an ally to the reproductive rights movement, or at least would not be a slut shamer. But, being a medical student does not necessarily mean you are informed on reproductive rights, being a woman does not mean you can have a sensitive discussion on reproductive rights, and being progressive on certain issues does not mean that you are supportive of reproductive rights.

So, therefore, we need Medical Students for Choice. The more dialogue we have, the more informed and intelligent the discussion is. Hopefully we can all spread the nuance back home.

Happy election day!!!

I am so excited! I haven’t voted yet, so wish me luck. Ehhhhhh….

So, for Med Students for Choice, we are making custom buttons for election day. We have sold tons of buttons, from “McCain/Palin” to “I think, therefore I am liberal”.

The ones I made for myself:
“Obama by a landslide!” on the Obama “O”. I woke up to that phrase on NPR and I was so thrilled. I found out soon after that they were referring to a small election in New Hampshire in which exit polls indicated that Obama got 15 votes, and McCain only got 6.

I also made myself a cool peace sign, and the feminist symbol with the women’s symbol with a fist in it.

Ugh, 12 more hours of excruciating suspense. I sincerely hope there is no recount (especially not here in Florida. Please. Please please please please.) and that the results are conclusive. I don’t want to wake up like I did Nov. 5th in 2000, and hear the confusion and chaos I heard on NPR that morning.

Say it with me…

“Obama by a landslide!”

OK, make it so!

Wish she could speak for me

I have to write a speech for recruiting the new first year students to join medical students for choice.

This made me cry at the end. It is definitely worth the few minutes. I wish I could just play this.

OK, back to studying Pharm. Sigh.

Outed in Nashville!

I am at the Medical Students for Choice (MS4C) leadership training in Nashville. I was in a crowded elevator with one of their organizers, and we were chatting about how much we liked the hotel staff at the annual meeting we went to earlier in the year in St. Paul, Minnesota.  When I told her my porter story, she gave me a funny look and said, “Do you have a blog?”

“Uh, yeah, you know it?”

“We all read it!” she said, and then other people in the elevator started laughing, and someone asked me for the name of the blog. If any of my elevator mates have searched the blog and found it, uh, “Hi!”

When we got to the staff room, I was outed to a few more staff members who hadn’t put a face to the blog.

I am a little embarrassed and a little proud.