My Thoughts About Doctors and Abortions

[curiousnorway]

I've noticed that a new debate have started about if doctors should be forced to partipicate in an abortion or not. Here's my opinion about it.

I think it's up to the doctors if they wants to participate or not and that nobody should be forced to do it regardless if they're religious or not. A doctor is supposed to trying to bettering someone's health and I think you can't expecting a doctor to kill someone.

More reasons on why forcing a doctor is wrong:

1. Abortion clinics

There's many pro-choice doctors out there willingly to do it and many works in abortion clinics.

As long abortion is legal and you want to get rid of your child, there's many voluntarily professionals who's willingly to do it. There's no point going to a place with doctors who don't want to undergo the procedure if there's many who wants to. There's many pro-choicers out there, so I don't see the problem of lack of abortion doctors.

2. Refusing harming someone =/= Discrimination

A doctor giving necessary treatment to patient.

Refusing an abortion isn't the same as a doctor supporting racism, sexism, homophobia etc. A doctor's job is to help people improving their health regardless how the person looks like, which opinions they've, gender etc. A doctor refusing to treat someone may harm someone and if the patient don't get help quick enough, their health may worsen and in some cases they may die. Harming someone and refusing to harm someone is two different things.

Most of the abortion cases aren't related to rape, incest or the mother's life being in danger anyway. In the majority of the cases it's a perfectly fine and healthy woman who got accidentally pregnant because she and her partner choose to have sex and wasn't careful. It's almost 99% it's voluntarily none-incestuous sex. Pregnancy isn't forced. As a pro-lifer I'm a pro-choicer, because the man and the woman had a choice to decide if they wants sex or not, the use of contraception and if they wanted to penetrate or not. I support people's choice to choose if they wants sex or not, but they should take the consequences of it.

3. The medical field is broad

There's many types of doctors.

People can work with the similar things and still have different tasks because of different interests and they wants to specialize themselves into different fields. That means not every doctors works with the same things. Some works as heart surgeon, while other as a brain surgeon for instance. There's also many other things you can job with within the medical career. Pro-lifers would choose to work with something different than abortion.

A hospital can't expect an experienced heart surgeon to undergo an abortion anyway for example, because the surgeon would be better trained in heart surgery than other types of surgery. Every surgeons needs training in every types of surgery before they can operate and just because you're a surgeon don't mean you can perform all kinds of surgeries. At least not in my country. So just because you're a doctor don't mean you've to become an abortion doctor!

4. Career choice is often related to values

A doctor's job is to improve someone's health and save their life. In other words caring for someone.

Why do many choose to become doctors or work in other medical related jobs? Many choose to do so because of how they values human lives. They wants to make someone's health better and help the patients out of the difficult situations they're in. Most doctors values human's lives and therefor choose to become one. They wants to save people's lives, not take them away. As long abortion is legal, the employees values should sometimes; for example in this case being taken into consideration. Doctors wanting to participate in abortions often have different values than other types of doctors. They may want to make someone happy, but they're not necessary for saving someone's lives since they're taking someone's lives.

Some doctors values human lives so much that they refuse to take it.

I've written another related MyTake about my pro-life view. Click here to read it.

#Abortion #DoctorRefuseAbortion

[Anonymous]

It's disturbing that there are a significant number of people that think a doctor should be forced to perform abortions.

[clampfan101]

Abortion is murder!

[SkittleMayn]

Only after it's more than just a clump of cells.

[Deathraider]

Murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being. So technically it isn't murder.

[clampfan101]

@SkittleMayn Those “clumps” are like seeds ready to grow and bloom life. It’s still alive.

[clampfan101]

@Deathraider It doesn’t have to be lawful to be murder.

[Deathraider]

Well the legal dictionary defines it like that. "Murder occurs when one human being unlawfully kills another human being." https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder

[Deathraider]

So where do you draw the line? And what quality must something have to deserve rights?

[SkittleMayn]

@clampfan101 "ready to grow and bloom to life" Couldn't have said it better myself. It's not really alive yet.

[RasmusAiken]

@Deathraider Among left-liberals the difference between a clump of cells and a human being is whether or not the pregnancy is wanted. If shoving a woman down the stairs results in a miscarriage the charge will be murder.

[Deathraider]

@RasmusAiken Well have you considered that perhaps the fetus being in there is violating the woman's right of her body so she has the choice to remove it. I'm not pro abortion, I'm pro choice.

[AlexBlade]

I dont agree with you! There are a lot of different situation and everyone should make their own choice.

[YoungManTryin]

@Deathraider with all due respect, your argument is the same as that of slave owners in civil war America. The slave is on my property, so I can do with it what I want. The child is in my body, so I can do with it what I want. I would agree with you if the child were a parasite, but like slaves on plantations, children do not choose to be put into the womb. Someone else put them there. For slaves, it was the triangular traders. For children, it was there parents. If we want to be decent people, we have to recognize that the responsibility is with the parents to make sure that the child has the opportunity for life and liberty.

Also, to people saying that an unborn child is just a ball of cells, you are also a ball of cells. Does that make you not a human? At conception, a new set of DNA is made, and it is present in living human cells within the mother's body. It's not part of the mother's body. It responds to stimuli, grows, is made of cells, multiplies, etc because it is living.

[SkittleMayn]

@YoungManTryin With slaves you can do whatever you want whether they're on your property or not, not to mention that something living inside you is way different than someone living on your property. Sure the cells are alive, but you can't call cells that fall off from tip of your finger a human being — they're just cells.

[Deathraider]

@YoungManTryin How do we define when a person is a person? That is the question you should be asking.

But the problem is that the female has the right to remove it because it's affecting her body. Just you are not legally obligated to give your organ to save someone, she isn't legally obligated to provide a body for the fetus.

[YoungManTryin]

@SkittleMayn The cells that fall off of your fingertips are a part of you, a human being. They're dead, but they're dead parts of you. Generally we agree that we should not make people dead if we can help it, and generally we agree that we should absolutely not make people all the way dead unless they give to consent in the form of breaking this contract or, depending on who you ask, if they ask to be made all the way dead.

[YoungManTryin]

@Deathraider I'd say a person is a person if they are made up of living human cells. Just-concieved children meet that standard. I'm saying the child absolutely has the right to go through a full birth, occupying the mother's body as long as it needs, because the mother put it there. You can't change your mind after starting to grow a new human being in the same way that you can't go to the guy you donated your kidney to last year and rip it out of him. It's not your kidney anymore, you gave it to him.

[Deathraider]

@YoungManTryin So you define it by being made of human cells, correct? Cancer cells are human cells. I suppose that chemotherapy is immoral if you define a human by that standard.

[YoungManTryin]

@Deathraider Referring to my reply to the other guy about fingertip cells, cancer cells are your human cells. They are a part of you, and not a separate human being. I'm not worried about damaging people, especially if it's temporary and leads to more healthy life. Bodies heal, but not if you snuff them out entirely. If you kill all cancerous cells in someone, you still leave the person and all the cells they have left. It's the difference between cutting off your arm and trimming your fingernails and clearing out the dead skin underneath.

[SkittleMayn]

@YoungManTryin Not all cells that fall off your fingertips are dead (They do die eventually), but you missed my point entirely — Let me try a better analogy.

It's not immoral to cut off your own arm. You can do it if you want to and no one will give a shit. When you cut off that arm it will die, but your arm isn't exactly a human being is it? It didn't have feelings, or a functioning brain. Sure, it's a part of you, but so are your fingernails — and so is that clump of cells in your uterus. Don't get me wrong, once it's been a couple months, it is no longer moral to kill off that clump of cells, because now it is a functioning live human being. Any time before then is fair game.

[YoungManTryin]

@SkittleMayn see, you say that it is a part of you, just like your uterus itself or your arm, but your uterus and your arm do not have 23 chromosomes that came from the guy you had sex with. If it were part of your body, it wouldn't become another human being with qualities different from you. It's not made of the same stuff you are, and it's not going to stay inside of you or become another part of your body. It's just inside to use your resources in your body. It itself is not part of those resources. If you put M&Ms into one of those M&M sorting machines, the M&Ms don't become part of the machine, they're just inside it.

[YoungManTryin]

@SkittleMayn also, my relation between an arm and the fingernails on it and a person and its body was to make a distinction between a part and a whole. I suppose it was a bad analogy because the arm is a part of a body, which we all have one of. The point was that if the arm wanted to be better (which would be indicated by pain), then it would take steps to remove bad parts and strengthen good parts. However, it wouldn't destroy the whole arm because that defeats the purpose. Likewise with the body and any part of it. The problem comes when we stop seeing people as individual and irreplaceable (you can be irreplaceable without being important, don't start killing people who don't strive to be their best self) and instead see people as parts of a whole. This is a problem because the only leader of the 'whole human race's we would be able to contact would also be a human, and have flaws like anyone else, and thus would be incapable of choosing the best thing for all of humanity.

[Deathraider]

@YoungManTryin So are you now arguing about the genetics? It seems as if you're trying to shift your definition to however is suits best for you at that current moment.

[YoungManTryin]

@Deathraider When I'm talking about the 23 different chromosomes of the baby, I'm pointing out that it is not the same human as its mother. They are both human, but they are different humans the entire time. This is important because if they were at any time the same, if it ever was part of her body (such as before fertilization, when there is no sperm) it would be perfectly fine for her to remove it. I brought up genetics because someone claimed that the baby was the mother's body, when in reality the baby is just living there.

[Deathraider]

@YoungManTryin So as long as it's a human cell and it has different DNA than a mother, you think we should attribute it rights? Right?

[YoungManTryin]

@Deathraider Right.

[Deathraider]

@YoungManTryin And you say that fetus life > mother's choice. Is there any circumstances that would be an exception.

[YoungManTryin]

@Deathraider Yes, there are a few choices the mother can make. She can use birth control, she can abstain from sex, she can raise a child, or she can put a child up for adoption. I'm okay with all of those, but I'm not okay with is killing babies.

[Deathraider]

@YoungManTryin Okay, you've established that. What happens when the fetus harms the woman? You said it that fetus life > woman's choice in all circumstances. What happen if you could only save one or the other? Or what if the fetus wasn't killing her, but harming her? Would you still say that?

But how do we define harming? We can't feel someone else's pain. Maybe they should CHOOSE.

[clampfan101]

Thanks for MHO. I say abortion is always running away from responsibility.

[cerebrum]

If you work on McDonalds, you can't refuse to sell Big Macs because you think eating meat is wrong. It's no different with healthcare.

My intention is not to offend anyone, I'm just talking about the subject in general. I feel this subject is always just plain ridiculous. I very often get the feeling that people who have the need to bring this up just wants to highlight how bad abortion in their opinion is. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it seems stupid to create a problem out of something which really isn't a problem. Rhetorical question, do these people even understand how healthcare usually works? Not every professional treat the same kind of patients.

Nobody is going to force a healthcare professional to take part in abortions, unless they work on a unit which will have patients who want or need abortion. This is the case at least on majority of western countries.

If you are a healthcare professional (doctor, nurse, medic or whatever) and if you work on unit where you will come across with people who will have/want abortion, it's your job to do the abortion. No matter what your opinions or values are, you have no right to refuse to do your job. If you are not happy with this, it's your problem and you will have to find some other unit where you can do your job which you get paid to do.

I have patients who I would want to just leave there and make sure nobody will help them. However when I signed up for my job, I knew there will be those patients. It was my decision to still work on that kind of unit. Honestly I personally find it disgusting that someone who calls themselves professional would get a job while already knowing they will not be doing what they were hired to do.

Besides, it's not always as simple as the op here tries to make it. Even if there was no medical reasons, abortion still in some cases might be better decision than letting the pregnancy continue. But that's completely different subject.

[1truekhaleesi]

When I got hired at my job at the hospital, I was asked if I was okay with being involved with procedures like abortions or sex changes. I said I was completely okay with that and I will never, ever force my personal views on a patient. Its not my job to judge my patients lifestyles or decisions. People come to the hospital for healthcare, so we do our best to give them the best possible healthcare. And if any medical worker doesn't agree with that, they should find another field. One where life or death consequences do not hang in the balance. I know a nurse who had a patient who strangled her and two other nurses tackled him to the ground to get him off her. She still gives that man the best possible care.

[curiousnorway]

Like I said in the MyTake, it exists different fields you can work in while working within medicine. You can be a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon, or something else. Not every doctor jobs require being involved in procedures like abortion, so I don't get your point.

[1truekhaleesi]

So? I work on a neuro floor and I get plenty of patients who are here for reasons not at all related to the brain. The very idea of being in medicine requires being intimately involved in our patients lives and health. Patients can make decisions for themselves. If they want an abortion, so be it. If they want a sex change, then so be it. Just like if a patient chooses to be a DNR or a Do Not Resuscitate, I will not do chest compressions on them if they stop breathing nor will I put a nasal cannula on them if they start desatting. They can make their own health decisions

[curiousnorway]

Yes, the patient can do their own decisions, but that don't mean they should be allowed to demand a doctor to do an abortion if the doctor don't want to. If they really wants one, go find another doctor who wants to do it. It's not a so big problem finding a doctor willingly to do it.

[1truekhaleesi]

Thats not that easy. I want to get sterilized but I can't find a doctor willing to do the procedure because so many doctors feel they know me better than I know myself. Patients can make their own decisions, and if a doctor can't handle that, they can work at the hospitals coffee shop.

[curiousnorway]

In my country and also in many Western countries including the US there's a lot of pro-choicers, so I doubt that would be a problem anyway as long abortion isn't illegal. I don't think people can get everything in the world either and sometimes doctors can come up with recommendation of what's the best thing for the patient. The patient may not see the benefits in seconds, but maybe in long-term. If abortion is legal and women wants to have one, then the doctor should also be allowed to refuse to participate. You can't have it both; a barbaric procedure being allowed and then forcing the doctors to do it.

[1truekhaleesi]

Then the doctor shouldn't be an abortion doctor. Thats just logical. Thats like going into the military when you oppose war and then being surprised when you get shipped out. Yes the doctor can recommend and I will pretend to listen, but in the end I will always make my decisions myself. Radical concept I know.

[curiousnorway]

@1truekhaleeshi, then we're at least agreeing in something. If you're an abortion doctor, off course you're doing abortion. But if you're not an abortion doctor, but just another type of doctor, the system shouldn't be allowed to force the doctor to participate in it.

[_Enigma_]

I disagree with the idea that an abortion is killing a person, but I do agree with you that a doctor should not be forced to perform an abortion. Being very pro feedom and choice, I'm pro abortion. However, I do not agree with the idea that you should force a doctor to perform an abortion for whatever reason. You can always find another doctor willing to do it, and it's not fair to force the person to do something they don't want to do. I don't care about their reason as to why they don't want to be perform an abortion (some are silly but hey whatever) you should not force them to do it as that goes against their right to freedom.

[curiousnorway]

I'm agreeing with you that the doctors shouldn't be forced, but that abortion isn't killing is something I don't get. Why isn't abortion killing, but doing the same thing with an already born individual is killing? I think freedom may be a good thing to an extent. I think a law is needed and that your freedom stops where the other person's freedom starts. I've freedom to choose what I want to do in life, but I shouldn't be allowed the freedom to kill, because that would go against the victim's freedom to the right to live. Same thing apply to abortion in my opinion.

[goaded]

Is baking an acorn the same as chopping down an Oak tree?

[_Enigma_]

The difference between abortion and murder is that one is a collection of cells that are not sentient in any sense of the word, and the other is a being that has been born and is sentient. There are rules on when you can have an abortion because there is a point when the thing growing inside you can be considered a living being, but there are stages where it is not alive. Like killing sperm. Hell, if we really want to get into semantics, refusing to have sex could be considered murder because you're not giving the life a chance to develop You're preventing that life from being born, so therefore, if we really want to get into semantics here, refusing to have sex could be considered murder.

I don't have anything against you personally, you seem like a decent guy, I just don't agree that abortion is murder.

[sovetskii13]

It's a tough topic. Here is my view: A doctor who works in the abortion field has to follow what the upper management told him/her to do, right? And he/she chose to work in that field. I would assume that doctor is pro-abortion or else why would he/she be working as one? The doctor can provide patients with recommendations on what is best. It can't be 100% their choice though. The patient should have the final word because it's the patient's body. If the choice backfires, the doctor should not be to blame as long as he/she followed the rules or policies.

[BaileyisDarcy]

If a doctor doesn't agree with abortion, he won't become that kind of doctor.

Which kind of makes your entire take pointless because who would make a doctor do a thing they aren't trained to do?

[goaded]

It's the doctor's choice to put themselves in that position.

There are plenty of areas where a doctor can work where they will never be expected to perform an abortion; nobody is going to ask a pediatrician or podiatrist to perform an abortion. That's their choice.

If they choose to work in obstetrics and gynecology, they run that risk (although they should still have the right to have another doctor perform the procedure, as long as it doesn't put an undue burden on the patient).

[beebella]

What kind of person would try to force a doctor to do an abortion? Anyways, I believe doctors should have the option to refuse to do an abortion. There's tons of other doctors who would have no problem with it anyway.

[RasmusAiken]

The State will try to force doctors, just like they try to force bakers to make a cake for a gay wedding.

[JudgmentDay]

What about a take on "My Thoughts About Doctors and Sterilizations (Vasectomies and Tubal Ligations) next?

Sterilizations are not the same as abortions, and wouldn't they prevent or reduce the possibilities of more abortions altogether?

[goaded]

Even that's not 100% (close, but more than one in a thousand men with Vasectomies will cause a pregnancy in a year, iirc).

In general, though, more and better sex (and relatioship) education, including how to use contraceptives safely, access to contraceptives, and more societal protection for children (making them less of a financial burden on their parents) would reduce abortions.

But that would be immoral.

[carncars]

Abortion is used for witchcraft and voodoo by witches. And also your hair with the hair dressess. That is all done by witches. They own all jobs and are in terested in your garbage very much for that reason to find things about you like nails , and what comes out your vacuum cleaner.

[MlleCake]

Reason why I think your opinions don't matter on this issue:

1. You don't have a uterus.

[YoungManTryin]

But he's been in one before, just like the rest of us, right?

[MlleCake]

@YoungManTryin Men don't face this problem. This is something only women have to face. If there ever is something that is literally none of your business, this is it.

[YoungManTryin]

It doesn't matter what sex you are, if you get injected with lethal poison or cut into bits, you're most likely going to die. I'd like to prevent that from happening to people I care about. You don't have to have a uterus to care about children dying.

[MlleCake]

@YoungManTryin That's why this has to be none of your business.

[curiousnorway]

@MlleCake, I see this argument over and over again. "Only one gender can be pregnant, therefor only that gender should have a voice". I'm disagreeing with that and thinks everyone should have a say if the society are supposed to be gender equal. Actually I would be against regular abortions regardless if it was a male or a female who got pregnant. It's not because of it's females who gets pregnant I'm against, but it's because of the value in a child's life.

[goaded]

Maybe this one would suit you better?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion

You could also answer my point elsewhere that every doctor in the US since Roe-v-Wade that has gone into OB-GYN has known that abortions are a woman's right. They should accept that or go into a different specialisation.

[Goodwifie]

Sure some doctors don't do abortions as one of their procedures, some doctors refuse to prescribe the contraceptive pill either.
It's called choice.

[simpleguy23]

I think that if some doctors don't want to perform an abortion, they're free to not do one, their loss.

[michellebrown48]

hm do you think a mytake about why i am pro-choice is too offensive? especially as an editor?

[curiousnorway]

I think people should be allowed to share their opinions if they wants to and I support freedom speech. So I won't be offended of people being disagreeing with me.

[michellebrown48]

but this site is sometimes hella dumb lol and will delete those kind of things

[curiousnorway]

The site is fine with pro-choicers.

[michellebrown48]

okay

[jibidijibidi]

Parents play an important roll in this all. Therefor it is not a government thing but parents thing.

[Anonymous]

i would not do abortions ever no matter how much i get paid because i believe that it is murder

[zagor]

I never heard of a doctor being forced to do an abortion. Much more common is the state harassing those who do.

[LegateLanius]

I agree with not forcing them.

[Max_winner1]

I'm all for the female choice on abortion.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for sharing with us.

[DanFlingwing]

nice take