When preparing for direct patient care, many medical students take the time to identify what ‘choice’ means to them and what values those meanings carry. Questions may include: Are there certain motivations or barriers that affect my advocacy for abortion care? What are my emotional and professional responses to the varied needs of women seeking abortions? What role does my conscience play in wanting to provide abortion care? Here, Christine from Philadelphia explains why she plans on becoming an abortion provider.
“I am a future abortion provider. I lead my medical school’s MSFC chapter, volunteer at an abortion clinic, and give money to Planned Parenthood. I call my political representatives to protest alleged “women’s health” legislation a few times each year. I have held signs at rallies, I check several pro-reproductive rights news sources daily, and I very much want a pair of sneakers just like Wendy Davis’.
I am also not pro-choice.
I am committed to becoming a provider because I am pro-safe choice, a distinction I learned from a mentor of mine who practiced as an Ob/Gyn before Roe vs. Wade. It’s a subtle difference to some, but one with a great deal of importance to me.
Women have been getting pregnant for centuries. And throughout that long history, their choices have not changed: have the child or attempt to terminate the pregnancy. What differs amongst the centuries, cultures, and permutations of law are the methods available to terminate. Historical abortifacients include inserting leeches, gunpowder, lye, turpentine, ‘herbs’ of uncertain origin, cayenne pepper, coat hangers, or knitting needles into the vaginal canal. Lackingthose, women took a variety of oral substances, bludgeoned their abdomens, or ended their lives. [Now in places]where abortion is illegal, [women with wealth]can find a way to terminate safely, [while]poor women arrive septic at the hospital, are rendered infertile, or die along with their unborn.
…Women today have the same choices as women did 700 years ago, but I’m glad the methods have changed. I am pro-safe choice because I don’t want women dying on my watch. If the choice is to terminate, the method should be a safe one.”
The desire to prevent death is a shared motivation among providers and the pro-choice community at-large. It’s also a widespread issue—according to the World Health Organization’s latest report, about 21.6 million unsafe abortions took place worldwide in 2008, and 13% of maternal deaths were caused by unsafe abortions that year. Is this a driving force for you? What are your reasons for being a pro-choice medical student or ally? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
I came into medical school not knowing exactly what I was interested in, but having a vague sense that I was interested in underserved populations and healthcare inequalities. Early in the Fall of my first year I went to a MSFC General Interest meeting and found myself taken in by the passion with which the then-student coordinators spoke and how much they encouraged us to become involved in MSFC activities. They also mentioned the Family Planning conference that would be taking place in St. Louis a couple of months later. It came off as a wonderful opportunity to learn more about an issue that I had always supported but never actively considered as part of my future work. How much that was about to change! I went to the conference and was absolutely blown away by the knowledge and passion of the speakers and workshop leaders, and the enthusiasm of the students, doctors and other professionals that were attending. The energy was so committed to social justice and ensuring that the fight for choice stays alive. From learning about global issues surrounding abortion to the domestic legal culture around choice, I suddenly understood how much as a current medical student and future physician I have a responsibility to not only become the best healthcare provider I can be, but also to actively advocate for and support the rights of my patients. I’ve always identified myself as a feminist, but after going to the Family Planning conference and subsequently getting more involved in MSFC and family planning research, I have felt that over the past year a light bulb has switched on in my head. Almost seamlessly, the interests I have always had for social justice, health care equality and women’s rights merged into a very clear passion and future direction, which is to become a physician dedicated to reproductive health rights and access to care for all women. I owe all of the realizations over the past year and my current strong interest in family planning and Ob-Gyn to that first MSFC conference I attended. As a current student coordinator at my school, I am very excited for the possibilities for education and advocacy in the years ahead. I also am determined to advocate for my own education now and in the future as a future abortion provider and a physician dedicated to women’s reproductive health.
As a medical student, I was actively looking for opportunities to educate myself further in women’s health. I reached out to MSFC because their mission resonated with what I believed in terms of the care I wanted to provide for families out there. They recognized the need to educate students from early training years so they are completely prepared to offer the best care upon graduation. On top of early clinical rotations in 3rd and 4th year, students who share an early interest in reproductive health need opportunities to observe established health care providers who give such service to patients. MSFC makes sure students have this opportunity through their externship programs and even gives funding to materialize this.
I chose to be a Medical Student for Choice because I believe as a health care provider; we need to provide exemplary care for the women and their families that sought our expertise. I believe in delivering the care women need without involving external policies, politics or personal belief and MSFC gives that opportunity to its members. Being an MSFC member is my own way to enhance my exposure to latest medical procedures practiced across nation and come together in the medical community with others who share my same passion. As a member, I am educated on a regular basis through newsletters, conferences and workshops set up every year for its members. Since I am the first member to join MSFC from my medical school, I hope to set up a strong chapter at the school so other students can access the same opportunities I receive. I am now working towards setting up workshops across the teaching hospitals I work under, so students currently in clinical rotations have easy access to demonstration workshops by qualified physicians willing to share their expertise. I hope that my journey from here forth will change the way we medical students view reproductive health of women. I hope we can empower ourselves through MSFC by receiving the best training we can to serve the people.
Medical school is a time when many enthusiastic and intellectually curious students are forced to stifle their interests and passions in anything not directly related to anatomy and pathophysiology for the sake of becoming competent and knowledgeable physicians. The rigors and demands of the medical school curriculum and the seemingly endless volumes of information that must be understood and integrated into an arsenal of basic science and clinical knowledge render it difficult for any student to think outside the textbook. However, deep inside we all know that to be good physicians, we cannot suppress our appetite for advocacy, social justice, and humanism, which drove us to pursue careers in medicine in the first place. It is organizations like MS4C that reach out to medical students and remind them of the broad world of healthcare beyond the cadaver or the stethoscope. Medicine doesn’t exist in a vacuum and must therefore be learned and experienced in the context of the many social, political, economic, and cultural issues it involves. MS4C provides a platform for medical students passionate about women’s equality in healthcare and reproductive rights to engage with other likeminded students and to try to educate their less-aware classmates. It reminds them that to be good doctors, we can’t just study medicine from PowerPoint slides, but we need to learn to advocate for our patients and for healthcare justice.
Both as a medical student and as a woman who is a consumer of healthcare in the US, I am constantly frustrated by political infringements on women’s reproductive health. MS4C has given me the opportunities to complement my medical education and interest in women’s health by learning about reproductive rights and to mobilize as a medical student and an advocate for reproductive justice and choice. Being part of MS4C has also reminded me that there is a vast network of other medical students and physicians who share my ideals and empowers me to serve as an activist for reproductive rights.
At my school we got about seven weeks of straight up study time to prepare for boards, which just meant cutting out the fat of our daily lives (you know, no more licking your fur or calmly warming your reptilian brain in the sun). Instead we get to work on that awful hyper-kyphotic posture we’d nearly perfected during first and second year while sitting at desks all day long.
In the ebb and flow of motivational juices (i.e. dopamine, caffeine, actually caring about biochemisery, etc.), I often caught myself sitting at the desk staring off into space, not really feeling that old motivational push I had in the past. Then, one day, as the motivational tide began to reach alarmingly low levels, along came an unexpected saving grace: an e-mail. Not from mom with news that my “care package” would be delivered to the wrong building, but from Medical Students For Choice! I had a conference to attend soon! Holy crap! I love these people! They fight one of the hardest fights, with the most hot-button topics, putting personal safety at risk, and they do so with greater intellectual elegance and moral grounding than all of the anti’s combined! And wait – I’m one of them! (What happened next, you ask? I then had the mental fortitude to relearn the brachial plexus! Hooray!)
MSFC not only enhances my medical education in the most obvious ways (by increasing my procedural skills, cultural sensitivity, overall medical knowledge, etc.), but is, dare I say, one of the prime motivators getting me through memorizing things like lists of exotoxins and drug toxicities. So it’s no exaggeration to say that MSFC has picked me up and made me a more knowledgeable future-doctor in ways that are totally unrelated to becoming an abortion provider. Indeed, without MSFC, I’d be a significantly less happy student in general. So, to you MSFC, Happy Birthday, and I can’t wait to see everyone in November!
The MSFC Rwanda chapter has provided a good opportunity for the promotion of reproductive health topics, including abortion care. Despite the legal restrictions around matters of abortion, MSFC is the only opportunity for Rwandan medical students to discuss abortion issues, and it is a good occasion for all members to realize the burden weighing on women’s health and reproductive rights in general. MSFC Rwanda is a good opportunity to identify advocacy strategy and means to reach the right targets. It is important to recognize the need of reproductive health rights and to advocate for them in the context of human rights.
Given that I’m a physician in training and prone to practice this care, MSFC plays a significant role in medical education, especially when it comes to abortion care awareness as a reproductive health choice. It also has been a good opportunity to learn various contraceptive methods like LARC (Long Acting and Reverse contraception), which are not a focus in our daily classes. In the future, the skills and knowledge gained from MSFC will play a significant role in improving the curriculum in the matter of reproductive health.
There are a lot of legal restrictions concerning abortion care in Rwanda, and this is a challenge for people who wish to become providers. However, as we continue advocacy for full reproductive health rights, there is hope that we will be able to offer not only counseling but also abortion care itself; and this will have a big role in reducing the high mortality rate in Rwanda. The most valuable MSFC experience has been taking part in the international Conference on Family Planning 2012, and the meetings and workshops carried out in MSFC Rwanda, where students not only gathered knowledge and skills, but they also learned from each others experiences and knowledge.
Chris, MSFC Rwanda Student Leader, National University of Rwanda
Henry Morgentaler died at the age of 90 on Tuesday, May 28, 2013. He was a hero to Medical Students for Choice and to many of our students. His dedication to giving his patients’ excellent reproductive healthcare and his leadership in establishing abortion rights in the eyes of the law shaped reproductive healthcare in Canada.
Morgentaler remained steadfast in the face of threats and stigma and worked against restrictions to abortion access throughout his life, even when others took that access for granted.
This perseverance made reproductive health education more accessible around the world, and created a legacy that will live on in the work of the next generation of abortion providers and pro-choice physicians who follow in his footsteps.
