An anonymous physician has written a great post about legally forcing women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound prior to having an abortion. It's definitely worth a read. Thanks to Physician Activist in Training for sharing the link at Diagnosing Chaos. (You should also check out her blog, which is a similarly good read.)
Off to bed in the daytime for one last time! Final night shift tonight, and then it's back to life as usually. Oddly enough, I'm actually feeling a bit bittersweet about what may be my last night float shift ever. Residency needs to slow down!
7 comments:
Interesting topic. While I agree transvaginal ultrasound is absolutely overkill and may be traumatic to some patients, I would want to be sure that these women are terminating a pregnancy for the right reasons. It's just a fact that many women, on getting a *voluntary*, noninvasive ultrasound, will not go through with it. Is it coersion? Is it part of our duty to inform the patient? It's a sticky subject, for sure.
Anon,
I have heard the opposite. That most women viewing the ultrasound will still go forward with the abortion. I searched for a study ... http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13625180902745130 is such a study. Every woman who saw the ultrasound still went through with the procedure. Though women (who voluntarily chose to view the ultrasound) reported the experience as positive.
I think every woman going in for an abortion knows what she is doing. An ultrasound is not necessary.
Thank you for a great post!!!
Anonymous @ 2:28 PM - I think we have to be very careful about phrases like "terminating a pregnancy for the right reasons". I don't think that any physician can possibly understand the complex factors at play in a woman's decision or hope to decide for them whether their decision is for the "right reasons". I think the role of the physician is to present the options and resources in as unbiased a way as possible and then to leave it to the woman to make her own decision - because ultimately she is the one who lives with whatever she decides. As for whether ultrasounds are part of our duty to inform the patient - what on earth are we informing her of? She already knows that she's pregnant, and I don't think she needs images of her fetus to make her further conflicted about her decision.
Anonymous @ 7:59 PM - Thanks for the link!
Dr. G. - Just passing it on, as I think it's such a hugely important subject. I want to write a post on my own thoughts sometime soon, although I'm hesitant to, as I don't feel like I can live up to the eloquence of others who've already written on the subject.
As someone who has had 2 abortions with absolutely no regrets or remorse and no problem with any possible forced guilt trips by any religious/conservative groups whatsoever, the fact that any political afiliated party would ever mandate by law any invasive procedure that is unnecessary and therefore unethical - all I can say is I am glad I don't live in the USA, and I hope to hell that nothing like that is done here in Canada.
Cartoon - Thank you for your insight into the issue. It appalls me to think that anything like what is going on in the States could happen here. It's just crazy.
thanks for sharing the link!
I don't think anyone makes the decision to terminate a pregnancy without a lot of consideration.
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