Help Us Protect Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Today!
Oct 03
Last week I saw the film After Tiller, a documentary that explores third-trimester abortion care in the United States by focusing on the only four doctors publicly known to offer this procedure. The screening was hosted by the Reproductive Health Access Project and the film was followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers, Martha…
Jun 24
When I give a presentation about the abortion services we provide in our family medicine clinic, people often ask, “Do you have a counselor to meet with your patients to help them?” I’m a bit put off by this question. I want to say, “It’s my patients with a new diagnosis of diabetes or high blood…
Apr 16
I work once a week at a high volume abortion site. When I’m there I often don’t have the chance to have much of an interaction with the patients in the minute or so that I see them before the anesthesia takes effect. But the other day, I had a quick conversation that really stuck…
Dec 06
Since I came out—over a decade ago, which was about the same time I started doing reproductive justice work—my straight friends have asked me why, as a lesbian, I care so much about abortion rights. For a long time, I couldn’t answer their question with anything more than: I’m a lesbian; I’m a feminist; I’m…
Nov 14
I’m a single, white, sexually-active young woman with no significant medical history and I want an intrauterine device (IUD). Yet after four months of trying to get an IUD, I still have an empty uterus. At the end of my last visit to the doctor, I turned to my friend exasperated and exclaimed, “Why does…
Oct 10
The medical students and residents we train are often surprised at the emphasis we put on language in the exam room. Take this recent story from a family doctor in our practice who was working with a medical student: While examining the patient she [the medical student] used phrases like, “Scoot your bottom down until…
Aug 02
I love this picture. This is Linda Prine’s family: her sister, her parents, her sons, and her son’s girlfriend at the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health awards ceremony They are so happy, beaming, full of pride, cheering Linda for being a leader and teacher of abortion care. This is no small thing, having your…