Are you?

[pecunium]

I am Dr. Tiller

As such things go, I am more like, "Orderly Tiller", but I defend the right to choose, and I do it in public.

Comments

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

I was one of his pro bono late-term abortion patients.

I'm not interested in getting into the details of my situation however as a former patient I can verify:

1. I was required to have two doctor referrals.
2. Every woman who was in the small group of patients he was serving that week had the same requirements in order to be there.
3. This was no walk in the park, the procedure took a few days, it was not a spur of the moment decision. Even early term abortions aren't.

I also worked in womens' health care for a number of years during some of the very worst clinic violence the last time around (this was a few years after I was his patient) -- our doctors, Dr Carhart and Dr Wicklund, did refer patients to Dr Tiller because even though they could/did perform late-term abortions, they couldn't do them in our state. Stories about the dire situations Dr Tiller's patients were struggling with are not just hyperbole or providers closing ranks to protect one of their own -- the vast majority of the cases he took on were as dire as they have been portrayed.

Where we have failed, as someone else has said in the past week (Susan Hill, I think), is that we have allowed the discussion of this topic to be diverted to how "awful" abortion is -- because abortion is messy and uncomfortable, and late-term abortion is even more so -- but telling the truth of what Dr Tiller did through his long career can take back that conversation, and that the service he performed was absolutely necessary.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's very helpful for argument purposes. Because while I do support the concept that the woman and her doctor are the best equipped to make an individual decision, I confess I'm lazy and will take the easy arguments when possible. These dire cases are the easy ones to argue, and when someone with actual knowledge tells me those are the vast majority it becomes even more so.

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

You might find this essay that someone just sent me even more helpful "for argument purposes" to support the "concept."

Aaaand, now I'm stepping right back out of this conversation.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I apologize for saying it badly. Bitch Ph.D. puts it better on the site you link to: I believe that the woman concerned is the person with the right and ability to make moral decisions on her own pregnancy.