Today's whining over at Blob Blogging Wingnut.

SUZIE-CAPS-ON! gets all whiny and preachy today as she provides her own fabulation / interpretation of Rob's misgivings at The Abortion Gang. He's upset at Emily Bazelon who wrote a well-balanced report for the NYTimes: The New Abortion Providers. I think that it's excellent journalism, with in-depth historical background and insightful portraits of the physicians who ensure that contraception and pregnancy termination are taught in medical schools, and they are provided to their patients as important elements in a primary health care model.

Rob was disturbed that Bazelon wrote that money for fellowship program which funds two or three years of seed money for abortion training for OB-GYN residents at medical schools (58 campuses in the U.S. and Canada have received financing) comes from one foundation and from one family. But Pro-Lies and other abortion-criminalizing groups are aware this funding is given by the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. As well, he feels that she has irresponsibly exposed the people she interviewed to harm, and the universities to harassment.

I disagree; paragraphs such as these, given the danger and threats posed to physicians by rabid extremist zygote zealots (which STE-NITOUCHE deplores but always justifies) were surely vetted with the potential targets of anti-abortion violence.

Many of the two dozen young doctors I talked to for this article were similarly conflicted. They wanted to talk about their work. They see it as part of making abortion mainstream. But the murder of Dr. George Tiller last year scared them.

One 33-year-old family-medicine doctor I met in Rochester drives 90 miles each week to perform abortions at a clinic in Syracuse. She is pregnant with her third child, and she asked me not to use her name after her father insisted that she’d be putting herself and her kids at risk.

Still, at her Episcopal church, where she feels safe, she is open about what she does. “When people are surprised, I say, ‘Yes, a Christian can also be an abortion provider,’ ” she told me.

The honest descriptions of behind-the-scenes reality Bazelon presents are authentic and faithful to the lives of women and respectful of the choices they make, physicians, care-givers and patients alike.

Yet Blob Blogging Wingnut perorates:

"It seems that they take it for granted that "objective" media is about serving ideological ends, not giving all sides of the story. Shocking, isn't it?"

What's really "shocking" is that SUZIE-CAPS-ON! does not attack the NYTimes article. And that's because it's more than HER capacity to spin dogmatic truthiness and religious propaganda can handle.

Med Students Organize Pro-Choice Event

Remember Medical students for choice ? I decided to check up on them to see what was new at their website and found this.

Faith in Choice: A Perspective Panel

Penn State is undergoing curriculum reform to incorporate abortion education. We are located in rural Pennsylvania, and operate in a very conservative environment where anti-choice sentiment is pervasive and sometimes hostile. To disprove the misconception that Americans of faith are unanimously opposed to reproductive freedom, we wanted medical students to hear an underrepresented voice in the ongoing abortion debate.

I contacted many local congregations for speakers. We were fortunate to find wonderful panelists from Episcopalian, Jewish, and Unitarian Universalist backgrounds that were both impassioned and informed on the issue of reproductive choice. We advertised with printed posters around campus and had digital posters emailed to the first- and second-year medical students. We also sent email invitations to members of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith-based student organizations, the Women's Health Interest Group, and the chaplains of our medical center.

The Rabbi gave an analysis of abortion in ancient Hebrew scripture, and the application of scripture in modern day Judaism. The Reverend shared her personal experience with a complicated pregnancy, and the emotional process of considering abortion. The Father discussed his personal experience with interfaith reproductive health initiatives, and the social/political components of this issue.

What an admirable initiative. I'll do some research to see how Canadian medical students for choice are raising awareness with their peers and colleagues.

Medical Students for Choice.

The United States and Canada face a dangerous shortage of trained abortion providers. In 2000, 87% of the counties in the United States had no provider*. The “graying” of current providers (57% of whom are over the age of 50, violence that targets physicians, and restrictive legislation threaten to drive these numbers even lower. In addition, medical schools are simply not addressing the topic; most physicians are graduating with little more than circumstantial knowledge of abortion.

From Medical Students for Choice.

Not all schools or faculties of medicine provide a curriculum that allows their students to acquire, along with the anatomical, physiological and pathological dimensions of reproductive health, knowledge regarding all aspects of contraception in order to address the needs of their male and female patients.

The reasons why schools don't provide comprehensive family planning education go beyond simple time-management issues. For one thing, the same relentless pressure from the anti-choice movement that plagues practicing abortion providers is also directed at medical schools. Susan Wicklund, a Montana OB-GYN and author of "This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor," says, "I've witnessed pressure by antiabortion groups on administrators and professors in medical schools not to discuss abortion. There's the threat of being picketed or boycotted at the school itself if they do any teaching of abortion." Says Creinin, "For anything that creates controversy, it's easy for a med school to say, 'Look, it's not worth it.'"

Furthermore, Backus points out, "Part of it also is that largely in medicine, being equally focused on the full range of women's healthcare needs is still a struggle. What I still hear from medical students is, they get two to three hours on Viagra and half an hour on every contraceptive method combined. That's the reality in American medical education."

That's even more troubling in light of research that shows exposure to comprehensive family planning education, including abortion, is a strong predictor of whether a medical student will go on to become a provider. Says Creinin, "Some residents that come in conflicted, most of them get an idea of what it really is. They realize it's an important part of learning how to be a complete physician." Carolyn's experience bears this out. "I wasn't sure how I'd feel when I saw [an abortion], or if I really wanted to polarize my life that way," she says. But after "meeting the women who came to that clinic, hearing about their lives, counseling them through the procedures -- I can't imagine not doing abortions." That decisive experience, it's important to note, did not come from her school's medical program. "All of my abortion training prior to residency was through elective extracurricular work."

From here.

Sigh. I checked their messaging page and discovered that the information about Canadian abortion services and support was wrong. *The medical termination of pregnancy is available in nine provinces and one territory.* I wrote to them, offered the correction, as well as a source for precise pro-choice information in Canada.