18th November, 2004

A Victorian GP* tells of how God transformed her view on abortions...

Born into a middle-class Christian family in Melbourne suburbia in the mid-Fifties, I knew from my early teenage years that I wanted to become a doctor, preferably an old-fashioned country doctor who looked after generations of families and was part of the circle of life, delivering babies and being there for dying people.

One of the most difficult issues for me to face has been that of abortion. My first encounter with this was at 16 when I paid for my elder sister’s abortion and to this day, I have a sadness that I have contributed to a lost niece or nephew. My next personal encounter was at 22, when as a fifth year medical student with an overdue period I had to consider what I would do if I was pregnant. I wasn’t, but I remember deciding that I would choose an abortion rather than jeopardize my medical career. I am grateful that I don’t have this to bear as well.

In the pursuit of becoming this desired 'family doctor' it was necessary for me to complete my Obstetrics Diploma. In my third year I was not successful at obtaining an obstetrics and gynaecology position at the same hospital as my husband, and as we were recently married, I elected to stay in the same town as my husband and retry for the position the next year.

I was desperate to get the job and when the interview came up, I remember offering to work every second night and every second weekend free as well as working for third year rates instead of fourth year rates. I knew the job would involve all the hospital terminations in my role as O&G registrar, and although not comfortable with that, I felt I could kill babies in order to gain the privilege of delivering babies.

So began my medical involvement with abortion. I was responsible for co-signing legal documents that said I believed an abortion was medically necessary. Often I’d not met the woman involved (who had already been seen by a specialist) while at other times I was confronted with young ladies who just didn’t want to be pregnant. Of the many, many abortions I came to do, in none of them did the woman have such a serious medical problem that a pregnancy would have endangered her health or life. It did seem a bit farcical even then. At that time all the specialists I was working with were men and the decision for an abortion to go ahead seemed to me to be nothing more than a judgement call on their behalf after apparently adopting the view that the irresponsible young girls involved were not fit to be mothers. It seemed that in itself justified an abortion.

I have many vivid memories of my time as registrar. I can remember my fear at doing my first curettes - in which the baby is either spooned out of the uterus, sucked out with a type of mini vacuum cleaner or, the woman is 12 to 16 weeks along in her pregnancy, one may need a type of tongs - and worrying that I would not completely remove both the placenta and the baby or that the woman would keep bleeding and have to come back for a repeat curette. I can remember routinely having to sieve through what I had suctioned out of the woman’s uterus to check that I had actually removed the baby and being chagrined to find babies’ bones and body parts. I can also remember the sucker becoming clogged and having the task of removing the pieces bit by bit. All of this was “normal” for this procedure and none of the anaesthetists or nursing sisters I worked with ever seemed concerned.

I remember an unfortunate woman who had twins. I only curetted one twin and in a review, the woman said she still felt pregnant. I can remember the incongruity of hoping I had killed both babies and not just one, and then thinking to myself “how sick am I with a thought like that?”. I remember being taught all the various ways of achieving an end to a pregnancy, depending on the size of the baby. They seemed to get more and more barbaric the farther into a pregnancy one got.

When I left the hospital after four years and started my own general practice, I was still confronted with the issue of signing abortion forms before referring women on to a specialist who would perform the abortion. In time I tried to conceive and found to my dismay, that I faced many years of infertility. It was incredibly difficult for me to see women so casually wish to destroy their baby when I was silently screaming in anguish at not being able to have one. Over the years I had become more and more unhappy being involved in abortions, but felt it was my duty as a doctor to do so. It seemed that my belief in God and what I believed He stood for came second when I was in my doctor role.

I’d been working for 10 years in medicine when God took me to task and confronted me with passages in the Bible that I’d read and known: passages like that in Exodus 20:13 which states “thou shalt not kill or murder”; in Exodus 21.14 which reminded me that if I killed another person deliberately, it was my sin and the punishment for it should be my death; Deuteuronomy 24:16 which reminded me that children should not be killed for their parents’ sins; and Deuteuronomy 27:25 which says cursed is the person who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person as well as many more verses emphasising the unique, precious and special nature of each baby. I began to feel incredibly sorry that while I’d known what the Bible said, I’d nonetheless persisted in the belief that because I was the doctor working in a system which condoned abortion, I didn’t have a choice.

I felt incredible remorse that I had let God down. He showed me that even though the women involved gave permission for their pregnancy to be terminated, it was actually me and not them who had physically killed the babies - that I was guilty of being a murderer. Even if I did not perform the abortion but only “recommended’ it, I was still guilty of condemning that baby to death. I remembered all those broken babies I had held and felt shame and such sorrow. By His grace, even though I was feeling like a mass murderer, He has forgiven me. I was convicted that God did/does give me the choice of either being involved in life or death. I could/can choose whether it was/is more important to be a doctor, or more important to honor God.

People who are pro-abortion continually confirm the ‘right’ a woman has to choose, so I hope they can respect the fact that I have a right to choose as well. I have since chosen not to knowingly be involved with abortions in any way. This means I have to be scrupulous about contraceptive advice, and there are some things I just can’t prescribe or use comfortably any more. As a doctor I do have an obligation to my patients’, but nowadays I explain to them that these are my religious beliefs and I can’t help them. I am legally obliged to make sure they can get the care they are requesting and I will send them elsewhere, even if it is to other doctors within the same clinic.

Over the years I have been abused by social workers for not filling out the forms and I know it makes it difficult for specialists when the referring GP won’t sign the form, but at least this way I can stay honest with myself and also honor my God. Is there a difference if I still send the ladies on? Yes, I’m not the one who physically kills the baby, nor am I the one who recommends it. Other people have choices too.

As for me, I have chosen life. (Deuteuronomy 30:19).

* Sight has withheld the GPs name at her request.