From an abortion provider:
“I think actually performing an abortion is a very refined technical skill; it’s a very delicate skill – particularly the very early procedures. A lot of people will say, you know, “Oh those early procedures are a real piece of cake.” They’re not always a real piece of cake! I think you have to have an enormous amount of respect for the uterus when you begin to do this because every woman is different. They’ll be days or weeks when, you know, everything just goes picture perfectly; you know, you just dilate the cervix and sweep the cannula in and turn on the machine and whoo, you know, it’s over in about 10 seconds. But sometimes it takes a lot of patience. It takes knowing when to stop inserting instruments, knowing how far to push the cannula and no farther.”
Wendy Simonds. Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996) 68
Even first trimester abortions take skill to perform. Some pro-choicer activists seek to make it legal for people who are not doctors to perform them. Many medical professionals believe this is a bad idea.
Share on Facebook