Opinion Pieces Discuss Violence Against Abortion Providers, Future Of Profession

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 10 Jun 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post recently published opinion pieces responding to the shooting death of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller. Summaries appear below.

~ Suzanne Poppema, Los Angeles Times: "We must turn [Tiller's] terrifying end into the beginning of a new era when doctors can save lives without risking their own," Poppema, a former abortion provider and current board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, writes in a Times opinion piece. Poppema, a friend and colleague of Tiller's, writes that the state and local police, the FBI, the state of Kansas and the federal government all "should have done more to protect" Tiller, who since the 1970s had endured bombings, a nonlethal shooting, harassment of his family and other threats. "We can all pay tribute to [Tiller's] legacy by treating abortion providers as physicians, not pariahs, and by explaining and openly supporting their work as doctors," Poppema writes, adding, "Wherever women's access to abortion is in danger, our government, our medical institutions and the public must step forward to protect it." She continues, "A show of strength and support will give courage to doctors who have the training to provide abortions but are afraid to use it." Poppema writes that Tiller "trained hundreds of doctors in abortion procedures," concluding, "We must erase fear as the reason young physicians won't enter the field that George found so rewarding. ... We owe it to George to let them practice" (Poppema, Los Angeles Times, 6/6).

~ Rozalyn Farmer Love, Washington Post: Deciding to terminate a pregnancy is "a very private, intensely personal decision," Farmer Love -- a University of Alabama-Birmingham third-year medical student studying obstetrics and gynecology -- writes in a Post opinion piece. Farmer Love writes that she was raised in a conservative Christian household and used to "believe that abortion is wrong," but now supports abortion rights and hopes to eventually provide abortion services as part of her ob-gyn practice. She adds that she formerly felt that abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy "crossed a line," but she "began to see late-trimester abortions in a very different light" while working in a research job in graduate school. In a case involving a fetus with a lethal congenital abnormality, Farmer Love says she learned how the woman and her partner "needed a caring and compassionate physician to help them through this dark moment, and if they chose not to continue the pregnancy, they also needed a physician who was both skilled enough and brave enough to provide them with the care they needed. They needed Dr. Tiller" (Farmer Love, Washington Post, 6/7).

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