Ten observations about my moonlighting job...

[blogtastic_dee]

For over a year and half, I’ve led a secret professional life. My primary source of employment, and my heart’s true calling, is in the emergency services field as a 911 responder. And that’s clearly no secret! I’ll tell anybody who stands still long enough to listen about my beloved vocation as a paramedic. However, I’ve been afraid to be honest about my other employment (especially when at my main job in EMS) for almost two years. I was concerned for my workplace relationships in the occasionally conservative world of first response. There’s a dominant culture of strength, invincibility, and (sometimes) machismo that I find less hospitable when it comes to discussing certain personal matters. And my side job definitely treads upon the personal.

My clandestine moonlighting job is at an abortion provider. Several of my respected colleagues and dear friends are Pro-Life. We are at a point in history where meaningful dialogue on the subject of abortion, from opposing perspectives, appears increasingly impossible. When one side believes that the other is supporting a massive slaughter of millions of innocent lives, and the other side feels that over half the population could be deprived of the basic rights to manage their body’s functions, it’s fairly difficult to find a common ground. Knowing that this ideological chasm exists caused me to avoid the issue of my ‘other’ job when talking with casual friends and co-workers. Close friends were sworn to secrecy. I answered evasively when asked by co-workers after my days, supposedly off work.

So far, I’ve been happy with my duplicitous compromise. My employment in the provision of abortion services is not a long-term goal. Happy and harmonious work-place relationships (in the field that IS my professional destination) are very important to me. A few white lies or sins of omission are small prices to pay for smooth sailing when on the ambulance, or when hanging out with my first responding friends. It strikes me now that my delicate balance isn’t fair to the thousands of women who have trusted me to take care of them when things were at their worst. This year we are heading to polls, and we are perhaps making decisions that will fundamentally change what it means to be an American girl or woman. Many of us are making these important votes without a genuine understanding of the role that abortion plays in women’s lives. I don’t expect any woman to discuss her own abortion in a public, or semi-public, setting. If merely requesting birth control pills brands one a ‘slut,’ I shudder to imagine the risk of censure posed by admitting to having had an abortion. Yet if I can’t even be brave enough to discuss my very involvement in the abortion services industry, I certainly can’t expect the people in my life to understand what these publically silent women might be experiencing, or who they are. And how can we understand how important it is to our society, if we barely know of its reality?

I’d like to share some of my observations with anybody who would care to read this missive. In offering my thoughts to you, I’m not promoting myself as an expert. I’m not even a paramedic when I go to work in the abortion clinic. I fill an extremely entry level role in the clinic hierarchy. There, I am only a technician who secures the intravenous line (that the doctor later employs for medicine and fluid administration). I check vital signs and support the patient’s recovery. And, most importantly, I offer my ear to listen, my shoulder to cry on, and my arms to hug. The drastic professional demotion has been a source of some consternation to me. I have thought of leaving at times. I’ll truly say that the patients, and my lovely co-workers, are my only reasons for staying. I feel very protective of them. Even in California, we are not living in easy times to have an abortion, or to provide one. I am a paramedic working outside her chosen purview, in a capacity that she’s ambivalent about: a flawed narrator at best.

When I began working in the clinic setting, I held a similar impression of who has abortions, and why they do, to the one promoted by the popular media culture. And how could I think anything else? Nobody discusses having had this experience. I thought that a very small percentage of young women, who found themselves pregnant without a good partner or enough money, made this tearful choice. As a Feminist, I considered myself above the judgment of how promiscuous they might have been. My understanding has grown tremendously during my time working in women’s medicine. Here are some things that I have noticed. None of these are exaggerated in order to put forth any political agenda that I may have. There was no research done in the writing of this. Any inaccuracies noted are my misunderstandings alone. This is not informational, but more observational. The motive of posting this essay is to undo the disservice women, and society, are done by everybody’s silence (including my own) on this sensitive subject.

1. Abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures performed in America. If you know three or four women, you probably know somebody who has had one. I’ve heard it’s exceeded only by cataract surgeries (because the eyes are counted individually).
2. Women of all ages, ethnic groups, and religious backgrounds have abortions. I’ve cared for grandmothers who believed their fertile days were over, as well as twelve year old girls (who were barely aware of how they had landed in such a situation). It’s been my observation that it often matters not if a woman’s culture, religion or family proscribes abortion: if a woman does not wish to be pregnant, she will go to great lengths and risks to end it. I believe that it’s a profound survival instinct that pushes a woman to do something she may feel is immoral, if she sees it as in the interest of her life (or her children’s lives).
3. Mothers are a lot of who have abortions. The welfare of their children is nearly always paramount, and they will make great sacrifices to preserve their children’s happiness and health. Many mothers that I’ve seen in the clinic setting express great sadness, since they do love their children and babies. In some situations, the abortion may be perceived as a huge personal sacrifice made to promote the lives of their family members and offspring.
4. Some women are pressured by circumstance or people into their decision. This is a very painful truth for me. It’s extremely tragic to discuss this procedure with a person who does not appear to want it on any meaningful level. I always offer these women more time to think and plenty of ‘outs’ prior to the operating room. As a health care provider, I can only cede to their stated wishes.
5. There are rape and incest victims who seek abortions. This is not simply a myth created by the Pro-Choice proponents to validate something awful with something else even more horrible. There are women that I’ve spoken to who feel re-victimized by every second that passes with a pregnancy that was forced upon them through brutality, chemicals, or coercion. I do feel, after speaking to these women, that it would be no less than actual torture to mandate them to carry such pregnancies to term. I’m not being at all hyperbolic. ‘Torture’ IS the accurate term for such a legislative act.
6. Unfortunately, there are also women who do view abortion as method of birth control. They are the extremely, extremely small minority and much exaggerated by popular media. While there is much that can be done to manage the intense discomfort of an abortion, few would describe it as a comfortable event. Also, most of the patients that I’ve met feel the sting of society’s judgment very sharply and take great pains not to repeat the experience. This is not something that people rush toward. It’s been shared with me by a person who had sought repeated procedures that Medi-Cal would cover an abortion procedure more easily than the inconvenience and difficulty of continuous birth control. The women who have this experience are not even remotely the large group made out to be by the media, in my observation.
7. Some abortions are medically recommended. Not all miscarriages naturally pass from the womb. Some pregnancies would place the mother’s life in grave danger. It stands to reason that a fetus (incapable of independent life) would not be well-served by the loss of a mother’s life. Anybody who suggests otherwise does so without the support of any medical substantiation whatsoever. I’ve met enough of patients seeking our services at the urgent referral of their primary care provider to say that they are a significant group that deserves consideration.
8. Not all women are emotionally traumatized by the (admittedly difficult) experience of ending a pregnancy. There’s some conventional wisdom that suggests women are permanently scarred by having had an abortion. While there are women who have found themselves with a deep and lasting sadness, it’s needlessly fear-mongering to suggest that this is the most common post-abortion experience. I’ve found the process of actually working with women in that environment to ultimately be redemptive. Most of the women do heal and find a way through their loss. There’s been clear research from the United Kingdom that supports that.
9. Nobody actually likes abortion. When Pro-Life extremists refer to Pro-Choice lobbyists as being ‘Pro-Abortion,’ they’re referencing something that doesn’t even exist. It’s inaccurate and cruel. Though there are for-profit providers of abortion services, everybody could accept a world in which abortion was not needed or desired. When abortion makes some stem cell research possible, the scientists and their procurement specialists are not happy. It’s just the reality of the situation. Abortion is not a desired outcome. It occurs when something did not go according to the best laid plans of the woman having it. To judge the woman at that terrible crossroad is insane. If you truly long for a world without abortion, there are better ways to diminish its need. Education, easy access to birth control and social policies supportive of unintended parenthood will all go much farther than hostility.
10. There are really protesters in front of some clinics. And, yes, it’s a terribly awkward feeling to walk past them on your way to or from work. Most of them have been moderately civil to me. I have always been so as well, and I’ve looked over their proffered literature. Unfortunately, I’ve not yet encountered an anti-abortion tract that is medically accurate. Again, I find the distance too great to bridge when seeking a true exchange of thoughts between our ‘sides.’ There’s been a rare protester that has addressed me, or a patient, in a verbally abusive manner. I’ve not yet been scared. Yet, in such moments it’s crossed my mind why some people would be.

These are the late evening and early morning thoughts of a sometimes misplaced paramedic who is simply trying to have an ethical mark in this crazy, polarized world. I hope that some people read them. I hope that we are not too far gone, as a society, to have real and adult discussions about truths that are all too real. I’m honored that trust has been placed with me to care for some of the bravest and saddest women that I’ve ever met. I long to live in a world that also cares for them.