OBGYN clinic stories

Hi. I'm Me. I want to talk about abortion.

I work at an OBGYN clinic. I've seen a variety of situations and medical conditions. I would like to discuss some of them, and some notions of conception.

In the view of medical coding, there are 2 types of abortions. The SAB, and the TAB. This is a wild simplification. 

An SAB, or spontaneous abortions, occurs for a variety of reasons. Getting off or on a medication. Your diet is restricted. Your body is under so much stress that it can't create a new one. Glucose. The fucking moon set wrong. The fact is, this happens all the time. It's a goddamn tragedy. Sometimes it happens and we have no idea why. We call this a miscarriage. I've watched men and women weep their eyes out over this so many times. Spontaneous abortion: the miscarriage. 

There is also the TAB, or therapeutic abortion. These also occur for a variety of reasons. The one that gets everyone fired up is the choice to keep body autonomy. A person doesn't want to build a child. I support this decision, but that's not the point of this. There are other reasons for this option. In the event of a multiple fertilization, the survival of any fetus sometimes requires a reduction of numbers. Sometimes a patient has cancer, and the attempt to carry will kill them both. Sometimes the fetus failed, for whatever reason, and needs to be removed. And other times, a fetus never formed. The gestational sac formed, but a body never developed. 

Again, sometimes a sac forms with no embryo. No fetus. Nothing. And yet we comfort and console a patient. You didn't fail. You didn't kill a baby. There was no baby. I'm so fucking sorry. We have to induce labor for your uterus with no fetus in it.

Bodies are complicated. Lives are even more complicated. Claiming life starts at conception is harmful. Every time I wand a patient for fetal tones, I worry they won't be there. The women who never grew a fetus feel like killers. The women who experienced a miscarriage feel like failures. The men who support them feel hopeless. This is a generalization from observation and my own experience (one miscarriage and three live children).

I am pro-choice. I think every child should be a wanted child. I also think it's cruel to expect women to consider fertilization as humanity. Pregnancy isn't always viable, and even when it is, that doesn't mean it will come to fruition. Christians should recall that a soul enters at first breath, because even the bible understood how cruel loss could be.

I'm an atheist that believes in kindness and understanding. Be kind to people. That includes women contemplating an important choice. You have no idea what anyone is fighting. We're all just people. Be kind.