SPOTLIGHT ON ABORTION CARE & REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE
Walking in the Footsteps of Courage
Written by Joy Udoh, AMSA Reproductive Health Project Fellow
There are many exciting things about the field of OB/GYN that I am looking forward to as July approaches: the joy of supporting a patient through all nine months of gestation, providing counseling on contraceptive care, and helping a young patient understand the changes that her body is undergoing. But, there are also things that concern me. A friend of mine recently reached out to find out how I had been. They wanted to know if match day had happened already but also how I was feeling about the future of my role in OB/GYN under the present social and political landscape.
The question perfectly encapsulated the mixed emotions that I have felt in the past months. In many ways, I feel eager to move on to the next milestone in my medical career but, this feeling is stymied by apprehension about the state of reproductive healthcare.
What does it mean that hospitals are walking back their efforts to promote
diversity, equity, and inclusion?
Will I have to step aside as ICE officials raid a labor and delivery unit?
Can a state I don’t practice in file a lawsuit against me for
providing abortion care to a patient that requests it?
I used to think that I would be able to look to medical institutions who have built the foundation of my training on the oath to Do No Harm for direction during times like these. This has proven to be wrong as I watch the medical institution inch closer and closer to crossing the line of harm in some cases and outrightly leaping over it in others either through complacency, inaction, turning a blind eye or demurring to authoritarian demands.
As Abortion Provider Appreciation Day approached this year, I kept feeling frustrated because in an ideal world, it shouldn’t be courageous to do the right thing: to provide abortion care as part of the spectrum of support that I am able to give to my future patients. But that world doesn’t yet exist. However, there are individuals and coalitions that not only understand the impetus to Do No Harm but also act in accordance with their beliefs. They understand that the ever changing chimera of legality is often a tool of racism, sexism and eugenics. I have long since turned my gaze from the institution to these groups of people who embody the values that I set out to uphold as a young physician.
I recently watched The Janes, a documentary about an underground group of women that provided thousands of safe abortions in Chicago during the 1970s and something that one of the former Jane members said has remained with me:
“We did this not just because of the need, but a philosophical obligation to
disrespect a law that disrespected women.”
Sometimes, courage looks like a group of individuals answering a philosophical obligation and staring defiantly in the face of injustice masquerading itself as a respect for life.
In reflecting on my friend’s questions, one of the enduring emotions during my turmoil has been hope.
I draw my courage from the people who have come before me and faced the same things
and insisted on justice nonetheless.
I have the path that they have paved and I will use it as my guide.
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