Canada – A Week in the Life: An OBGYN Who Provides Abortions

‘Only the pregnant person can know what continuing or ending a pregnancy means to them.’ First in an occasional series.

andrea bennett, TodayTheTyee.ca
June 1, 2022

Today, The Tyee starts an occasional series that covers a day — or a week — in a person’s work life. We’ll be speaking with people in blue-, white- and pink-collar professions, about what they find stressful and joyful, and how current labour and cultural climates are affecting their work lives. Why? Because we often live in our own bubbles, with people who have jobs like our own and, often, similar lives. Getting to know other people, including what they do and how they feel about their work, can help us get out of those bubbles and understand each other’s worlds.

Our first interview subject is an obstetrician gynecologist who provides a full range of reproductive health care, including medical and surgical abortions, in B.C.

Continued: https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/06/01/OBGYN-Who-Provides-Abortions/


USA – At SIFF, a day in the life of doctors who provide abortions

At SIFF, a day in the life of doctors who provide abortions
The documentary ‘Our Bodies, Our Doctors’ profiles women’s health professionals in the Pacific Northwest.

By Brangien Davis
May 28, 2019

A day in the life of an abortion provider usually starts in a parking lot. She gets out of her car, slings a purse and maybe a lunch bag over her shoulder, and walks toward a nondescript building. She might greet a protester on the way in, might note the giant baby photo on the side of a box truck parked in deliberate view. She passes through the clinic doors, where a circular sticker bears the image of a black handgun with a red slash across it. Once inside, the doctor joins her team of receptionists, medical assistants and nurses, and prepares for the first patient.

Behind the headlines, behind the legal battles, behind the politics, protests and posters are the people who go to work every day to provide women with family-planning services, including contraception and abortion.

Continued: https://crosscut.com/2019/05/siff-day-life-doctors-who-provide-abortions


USA/Canada – Why I Wanted to Learn to Perform Abortions

Why I Wanted to Learn to Perform Abortions
With the future of contraception in question, looking back to recent history is instructive.

By Jen Gunter
Oct. 14, 2018

It starts with steel.

A speculum. A needle. A tenaculum to steady the cervix. A set of dilators. These were the instruments I used when I trained to perform abortions in the 1990s.

There was also plastic and suction. The equipment was all so hard and sharp, and yet the procedure itself required a delicate touch. This was before ultrasound was commonly used, so a surgical abortion was often performed blindly. It took experience to recognize and understand the feel of steel and hard plastic on the cervix and the uterus. Not just because you couldn’t see, but also because the tissue changes week by week as the uterus enlarges and the muscle thins.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/style/performing-abortions.html


Philippines – Secret service: Underground doctors induce safe abortions

Part 3 of 3: Secret service: Underground doctors induce safe abortions
A group of medical doctors in the Philippines risk careers to help women, in the belief that it is their duty to ensure the mental and physical well-being of their patients

By Natashya Gutierrez
August 20, 2018

MANILA, Philippines – Amanda had gotten pregnant twice.

The first time she got pregnant, her then-boyfriend left her after finding out she was expecting.

“I decided to keep the child and now have a very close relationship with my son,” she wrote in an online forum for Filipina women.

Continued: https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/investigative/209891-underground-doctors-induce-safe-abortions-philippines


U.S.: 41 Things You Should Know About Abortions And The Doctors Who Perform Them

41 Things You Should Know About Abortions And The Doctors Who Perform Them

"I'm in a constant battle to help women and it can get exhausting sometimes, but the good days outweigh the bad ones."

Posted on April 19, 2017
Caroline Kee, BuzzFeed News Reporter

Forty-four years ago, the US Supreme Court affirmed a woman's legal right to have an abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision. Today, abortion access is still being fought over in many states — but while you hear all the time from activists on both sides, the doctors who perform these procedures are often left out of the conversation.

BuzzFeed Health reached out to abortion providers across the country to find out what they wish people understood about the job, the procedure, and the women they treat. We heard from physicians who practice in conservative Southern states, liberal coastal cities, the rural Midwest, and in between. The following is a selection of perspectives and anecdotes from 11 physicians (some of whom asked to remain anonymous) that illustrate their day-to-day and the current landscape of abortion care in the US.

Continued at source: Buzzfeed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolinekee/41-things-abortion-providers-want-you-to-know?utm_term=.pu2LJ7YDp#.ctvGZnb4r