“That was probably the most disappointing thing about training residents [to do abortions]. You know, for what? To do nothing? I mean, they obviously would refer [their abortion] patients, and they would take good care of their patients, both pre-and post care. But, you know, it was disappointing to not have them have the guts to stand up and say, “I’m going to do it.”
Dr. Davis Chasey, retired founder and director of an abortion clinic, on how few of the residents he trained in abortion procedures went on to perform abortions
Lori Freedman Willing and Unable: Doctors’ Constraints in Abortion Care (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2010)
Apparently, many medical students and residents trained to do abortions choose not to do them when they got their medical license and actually set up practice. Elsewhere in the same book, Friedman says that many people boycott OBGYNS who do abortions, so it is become a situation where what a doctor starts doing abortions, he generally ends up doing nothing but abortions. Partners don’t want a doctor who does abortions in their office, hospitals don’t want a doctor who does abortions among their staff, Prolifers picket and mobilize against abortionists, and the abortion procedures themselves are gruesome and emotionally difficult.
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