I am a retired female OB/GYN.
Doctors and nurses in my field are fortunate to live in the
great state of NY where women are respected and valued. Here a woman enjoys
privacy and trust in her relationship with her medical care provider in the
most intimate part of her life, deciding when she is capable of becoming a good
mother.
I graduated from medical school the year NYS legalized
abortion and then began my OB/GYN training. The difference legalization made
was profound.
Before that wealthy women had access to legal abortions by
traveling out of the country, and the rest of the women had to seek out illegal
providers (including mafia) or try to do it by themselves. As gynecology
residents, we took care of the results in the Emergency Room; bleeding, febrile
victims often in extremis.
It is alarming that presently politicians (usually well-off
white males) in many states are targeting the health care safety net of women
and their families by criminalizing abortion as well as threatening Medicaid
and Title X with the gag rule. The cruel result of this will of course be to
disrupt families that have a tenuous grip on middle class life and to take away
the hope of the poor. Medical care for all women will be degraded, and sisters,
mothers and daughters will suffer and die unnecessarily.
I am grateful to live in NYS where medical professionals do
not have to worry about going to jail for doing our job properly. Access to the
life saving benefits of modern health care should not depend on one’s wealth
and gender.
Margaret M. Craven, M.D.
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