I have been an abortion provider since 1972. Why do I do abortions, and why do I continue to do abortions, despite two murder attempts?

The first time I started to think about abortion was in 1960, when I was in secondyear medical school. I was assigned the case of a young woman who had died of a septic abortion. She had aborted herself using slippery elm bark.

I had never heard of slippery elm. A buddy and I went down to skid row, and without too much difficulty, purchased some slippery elm bark to use as a visual aid in our presentation. Slippery elm is not sterile, and frequently contains spores of the bacteria that cause gas gangrene. It is called slippery elm because, when it gets wet, it feels slippery. This makes it easier to slide slender pieces through the cervix where they absorb water, expand, dilate the cervix, produce infection and induce abortion. The young woman in our case developed an overwhelming infection. At autopsy she had multiple abscesses throughout her body, in her brain, lungs, liver and abdomen.

I have never forgotten that case.

After I graduated from University of British Columbia medical school in 1962, I went to Chicago, where I served my internship and Ob/Gyn residency at Cook County Hospital. At that time, Cook County had about 3,000 beds, and served a mainly indigent population. If you were really sick, or really poor, or both, Cook County was where you went.

The first month of my internship was spent on Ward 41, the septic obstetrics ward. Yes, it's hard to believe now, but in those days, they had one ward dedicated exclusively to septic complications of pregnancy.

About 90% of the patients were there with complications of septic abortion. The ward had about 40 beds, in addition to extra beds which lined the halls. Each day we admitted between 10-30 septic abortion patients. We had about one death a month, usually from septic shock associated with hemorrhage.

I will never forget the 17-year-old girl lying on a stretcher with 6 feet of small bowel protruding from her vagina. She survived.

I will never forget the jaundiced woman in liver and kidney failure, in septic shock, with very severe anemia, whose life we were unable to save.

Today, in Canada and the U.S., septic shock from illegal abortion is virtually never seen. Like smallpox, it is a "disappeared disease."

I had originally been drawn to obstetrics and gynecology because I loved delivering babies. Abortion was illegal when I trained, so I did not learn how to do abortions in my residency, although I had more than my share of experience looking after illegal abortion complications.

In 1972, a couple of years after the law on abortion was liberalized, I began the practise of obstetrics and gynecology, and joined a three-man group in Vancouver. My practice partners and I believed strongly that a woman should be able to decide for herself if and when to have a baby. We were frequently asked to look after women who needed termination of pregnancy. Although I had done virtually no terminations in my training, I soon learned how. I also learned just how much demand there was for abortion services.
Why I am an abortion doctor

I found the article interesting.

In the abortion "debate" (if you can call it that), there is often a misrepresentation of reality.
People against abortions sometimes claim it is all about the $$$.
People for abortions sometimes claim that it's about people interested in subjugating women.

Both claims are bullspit.

I thought this article provided a fresh and frank identification of one doctor's observations.

Abortions are going to continue, whether they are legal or not, whether they are safe or not.

Give that fact, and it IS a fact, I prefer that they continue to be, as Bill Clinton put it, "safe, legal, and rare."

Now we just need to get to work on the "rare" part. And abstinence-only education is taking us further from that goal.

Poor guy writing memoirs to ease his guilty mind of the countless abortions performed on his watch... I have no use for this poppy cock.

What part of his words even suggested he feels the slightest bit guilty?

It's clear this man feels he is saving lives. And he is.

Before you start in with a "yeah, right, he kills babies!" consider that the abortions he performs were most likely going to happen anyway, under less safe, less professional, less SURVIVABLE conditions.

He feels (quite correctly) that he is saving women's lives.

If he DIDN'T do this work, maybe THEN he would feel guilty for NOT helping save women's lives, but that's just speculation on my part.

On Saturday mornings that I go to my church to do work, I pass by the medical building where there is an abortion provider. Out in front of the medical building, there are at least 6 to 8 people with signs and bibles, praying. One or two are kneeling as well.

Another part of that speculation is to ask whether anti-abortionists have any "guilt" when it comes to women who wind up dead because of an abortion they sought under unsafe conditions...

Why would they? People make stupid decisions all the time. I would feel no more guilt for her than the women who die from breast implants. Unless she was a cancer victim who had a mastectomy, no need for a woman to have voluntary surgery to have bigger fake breasts than she was supposed to have. Stupid is as stupid does.

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Even if you hold the minority opinion, stick to your guns and go against the flow if that's what you truly believe. (CnRedd)

All I have to say is I'm glad I'm not that doctor. If there is an afterlife and the law of karma operates, I would hate to have to fulfill the amount of karma that man has accumulated over the many years he has terminated human fetuses.

First, let me say that I'm in favor of legalized abortion but not a fan of the Roe v. Wade ruling. I too believe abortion should be rare, but I don't think the government should be able to force sexual education on children in that it infringes on many parents' moral beliefs. Abstinence only certainly won't work for some, but for others there ought to be a parental 'opt out' opportunity.

Now, as to the quote I culled, it sounds like the good doctor didn't save two lives but in reality simply postponed an eventual family blow up. His perception is clouded because he doesn't want to consider the termination of the fetus to ever be a bad thing. Furthermore, how the heck do you get to 18-19 weeks pregnant and just finally decide you need an abortion. While I don't think I personally could agree to an abortion, good gosh folks ... if nothing else the sooner the better.

In this day and age, in modern western society, the vast, vast, vast majority of pregnancies aren't 'accidents' where birth control was used but failed. I'm tired of hearing that excuse.

Abortion will never become more rare because it's not a matter of teens (or adults) not knowing how to prevent pregnancies, it's a matter of them not being responsible ... and you can't educate someone from irresponsibility to responsibility. Responsibility is a value that is either nutured over many years or ignored, and all the education in the world won't make an irresponsible teen do the responsible thing.

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