Itching to write, but tooooo busy (and clitoris)

I have a post brewing about reproductive health care and enlisted women, but right now I am up to my eyeballs in stuff to do.

I am catching up on reviewing the chapters I am assigned for the new Our Bodies, Ourselves. It’s been really exciting. I have been researching the anatomy of the clitoris for the last two days. (Hello, weird search engine hits to my blog). I am having trouble finding a consistent, comprehensive description in one source. I was watching Rachel Maddow interview Ana Marie Cox while reading about the clitoris last night – I feel like I earned an honorary lesbian card. (OK, now I’m asking for the weird search engine hits. But, it’s better than being caught by surprise by even weirder ones. You have no idea.)

My Essential Clinical Anatomy is passable, but not detailed enough. I can’t find my Netter’s, and I feel sorry for whoever has it, because it stank of formaldehyde and had some very questionable stains on some of the pages. I wish my library has access to the Journal of Urology, since it has what appears to be a good article on it. In fact, I am kind of surprised it doesn’t. I did find an interesting article in the Australian Nursing Journal by Helen O’Connell, who is the author of the unavailable J. of Urology article, in which she complains of the, ahem, shortcomings (her word) of the treatment of the clitors in anatomy texts, including Grey’s Anatomy.

Anyway, as usual, my “I’m too busy to post” post has gotten long. Two reviewed chapters, one eggnog Bundt cake, a few batches of spiced nuts and Christmas cookies, and a roasted chicken from now, I hope to be writing about military reproductive health care.

Edited to add: I had no idea the clitoris was so complicated! (Insert joke here). I think I get it. Well, as much as I can when the sources aren’t consistent with their terminology.

Thank you, Shark fu

What she said.

Stopping by to say hi

I used to blog here, right?

I had company in town and a lot of social commitments over the Thanksgiving holiday. I have had a few ideas for posts, but no time to write them. In the meantime, in light of the total lack of any contraceptive coverage requirements in either health care bill, and the Stupak amendment, here’s a cartoon:

From In Contempt, hat tip to Alas, a Blog.

Synopsis

I have been really busy lately and overwhelmed with various issues in my real, meat world life.

So, although I don’t have the emotional energy or time to write a full post, I just wanted to say a few things.

Stupak-Pitts Amendment? Makes me furious.

Obama administration’s and other progressive groups’ responses? Disappointed and furious, but not surprised.

What do I think of the chances of the health care (method of payment and abortion) reform bill passing in the Senate? Well, considering the Senate is less liberal than the House, we have “friends” like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, and a pro-life Catholic majority leader in Harry Reid, I am not optimistic.

Oh, by the way, I highly recommend this book: The Healing of America, by T.R. Reid.

Reply turned post, conscience clauses can be OK style

I am starting to grow weary of being the contrary voice. I duck out of many confrontations, believe it or not. But, sometimes I still speak up.

More than once, a liberal, pro-choice site has taken a stance against conscience clauses in general. Although I am a pretty vocal pro-choice commenter in the interwebs, I find myself defending conscience clauses in these conversations.

This time, I replied on a Feminists for Choice post asking if conscience clauses were ethical:

I am a medical student and a member of Medical Students for Choice.

I strongly believe in conscience clauses and plan on refusing to perform certain procedures and to dispense certain medications when I am a physician. I think every physician follows her conscience, and am afraid anti-choice activists are using this important part of medical ethics to refuse to provide services that are in the best interest of the patient.

I plan on refusing to perform unnecessary procedures that are requested all the time as an ob/gyn. I will not perform any genital mutilation, male or female. This includes any routine newborn male circumcision, or elective vaginoplasties. This of course does not extend to any medically indicated procedures, which would be in the patient’s best interest.

I will refuse to do labor inductions because a mother is sick of being pregnant or because I am going on vacation. I will refuse to do non medically indicated cesarean section because a mother is afraid of the birth process or wants to have her baby on a certain date, or because I want to get home in time to have dinner with my family on a day I am being paid to be on call.

I think practitioners that are truly ethical do not use conscience clauses as an excuse to deny medical treatments to their patients or clients because of some idea that premarital sex is immoral. It is easy to find work in an area that does not involve refusing to provide necessary medical care. Most of these people who are refusing reproductive health care want to make an issue out of their refusal to control women’s sexual autonomy, not to support their own ethics, and it’s a shame.

There are two students in my medical school class who have stated they will refuse to prescribe birth control. Both identify as Catholic. One was more than happy to take handfuls of condoms our club was passing out for when he has sex with strippers (I wish I was kidding). He said he is using them for disease prevention, not birth control, so he is not a hypocrite.

I hope he goes into radiology, or urology.

The other is a Jesuit priest. He is planning on going into psychiatry, so most likely won’t be in a position to be a birth control prescriber often. He is also honest and out in regards to his homosexuality, and is an activist to change the Catholic position on homosexuality. So, he thinks some rules are meant to be changed.

The point of these two stories is to say, ethics mean different things to different people. Physicians and other health care practitioners are too diverse a group to force into one group of practices. However, we can encourage responsible application of conscience clauses and try to make sure essential health care does not get refused in the process.

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.

Personhood bill in Florida

The radical anti-choice lobby has brought a so-called “Personhood” Bill to Florida. This would try to extend human rights to conceptus “at the beginning of biological development”.

If the physiology of pregnancy (like, there is no biological test for conception, and the vast majority of fertilized eggs do not implant, and no major medical organization defines that as the beginning of life) and the major ethical concerns with this don’t already sway you to sign this petition against the Personhood amendment in Florida, maybe this will:

Comment policy

I don’t have an official policy. I obviously don’t routinely censor anyone who disagrees with me. I am all for constructive conversation.

I do have my comments set that any new commenter has to be cleared by me, and I get notified of every comment. So, just a tip to anyone who wants to post comments calling Med Students for Choice “fucking liars”, that killing an abortion provider is somehow defensible as a “choice” with equal footing as termination of early pregnancy or anything else along those lines, it’s not going to get through. I will use such comments as proof that so called anti-choice activists are unreasonable fringe elements that defend murderers, however, and are not pro-life. So, thanks for the fodder.

I also don’t allow anonymous posting, so I will have your email address. Not that I would want to communicate with someone with that point of view on purpose, I’m just saying, spewing hate with a trail is kind of….stupid. Especially if it’s a work address or you are affiliated with a university.

If you are of the anti-choice persuasion and for some reason enjoy reading my blog, however, please feel free to check out my blog for choice day post from this January and see if you are believing any of these myths and letting them guide your comment attempts.

I have wanted to do a post on common ground for a while, and I may have time to do it soon. I am totally cool with people wanting to support women with unplanned pregnancies and who want to help them keep their pregnancies and raise happy, healthy children. Hell, I carried two unplanned pregnancies to term. Obviously I support that option. However, hateful rhetoric is not welcome here. Exercise your freedom of speech on another site where such filth is welcome. Thanks!

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.

Reply turned post, why not one more Tiller one style

Here is the original post talking about, you guessed it, late term abortion. You don’t necessarily have to read it, because many of the commenters didn’t read it. Ironic, because the post is all about how people don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to late term abortions. I saw yet another person say that their own, healthy, not very preterm babies (twins in her case) makes her against all late term abortions, and then she talked about a 23 week old baby that somehow survived somewhere.

My reply:

You are completely misrepresenting the chances of a 23 weeker to survive. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not even recommend attempting resuscitation before 24 weeks.

Here is an entire scientific article that is a position statement on the debilitating health effects on the measly few who survive. This is from the AAP, the organization that is responsible for infant and child health in the entire country.

The resuscitative techniques and medical treatments can be torture, especially on a newborn who is only receiving futile treatment because its chances of surviving are miniscule, and its chances of being functional are even smaller.

The few women who get 32 week procedures do not get them just because their babies would be premature. Here are their stories. I don’t see why people can’t realize that this has NOTHING to do with their healthy premature babies. And, anyone can still choose to carry any pregnancy to term if they so desire, even if a 10 year old who was raped can still get an abortion, or a women with a fetus with anencephaly.

If you are uncomfortable with that choice, please exercise the freedom to not choose it. I would be uncomfortable with carrying a fetus that would never survive for 20 weeks while having to talk to every nosy stranger about my deformed, dashed hopes, and at the same time face greater health risks, because someone with healthy twins is uncomfortable about a medical procedure while commenting on a message board. If you don’t mind, I will ask physicians what they think about this instead.