Abortion's Stigma Affects Doctors' Training and Choices

[MountainLaurel]

This is why I'm giving a monthly donation, however small, to Medical Students for Choice.

When Devin Miller, leader of the abortion rights group Medical Students for Choice at Virginia Commonwealth University, heard about the slaying of George Tiller, a Kansas physician who performed late abortions, she "took a step back" to ponder her future. The second-year student plans to become an obstetrician-gynecologist or family physician and expects she would sometimes terminate pregnancies. But the May 31 death of Tiller, who was shot in the head at church, allegedly by an antiabortion activist, has left the 23-year-old deeply shaken.

"I think for a lot of students right now, it's very hard to be confronted with the constant negative energy and constant fighting" that surrounds abortion, said Miller, who grew up in a southern Virginia city where antiabortion sentiment runs high. Just learning about the procedure at the state school in Richmond can be a challenge. Medical students who want training in the procedure usually must arrange an elective "externship" in Northern Virginia, she said.

Thirty-six years after it was legalized, abortion remains one of the most common procedures in American medicine -- and the most stigmatized. In 2005, 1.2 million abortions were performed, dwarfing the number of appendectomies (341,000), gallbladder removals (398,000) and hysterectomies (575,000). "There's this feeling it's dirty and should not be spoken about," said Miller. "It's hard to be brave and seek everything out yourself."

Her soul-searching underscores a long-standing problem some reproductive health experts say is worsening: a shortage of physicians willing to perform abortions. Although nearly one-third of American women will have an abortion by age 45, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a respected New York research organization, the number of abortion providers dropped from 2,908 in 1982 to 1,787 in 2005. Eighty-seven percent of counties in the United States and 31 percent of metropolitan areas have no abortion services.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/28/AR2009082802785.html

[slackmaster]

1. I take exception with phrases like "Thirty-six years after it was legalized"

It's really not accurate. Before Roe v. Wade elective abortions were legal in some places and illegal in others. It was a mess.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Good point

With the copyediting cutbacks at the Post (as well as every other newspaper in the country), I'm not surprised.