Organizing for America | William West's Blog

William West's Blog

I am an abortion doctor. A colleague of mine once said, "Everyone in America over the age of eleven has a great deal of information about abortion, and almost all of it is wrong." I wholeheartedly agree and do what I can to shovel some factual truth into this giant pit of ignorant false certainty. As a physician (MD) educated, trained, and experienced in both psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology and currently specializing in abortion care, I want to attempt to explain why I provide abortion care and express a deep and urgent concern I have about some of the political developments that threaten the lives, the health, and the general well-being of American women and teenage girls, as well as the integrity of their families, educations, careers, and social relationships. My concern is about those politicians and the propagandists and propagandized voters whose favor they curry who are grossly and shamelessly lying and exaggerating (or ignorantly employing the lies, distortions, exaggerations, and delusions of others) not only to impose unreasonable, unnecessary, and burdensome restrictions and limitations on women’s constitutionally guaranteed right to choose abortion for unwanted or life- and health-endangering pregnancies, but to eventually abolish that right entirely. Despite its profound seriousness, many influential politicians, certainly including our current President, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Sarah Palin seem to know, understand, and care little about this issue except insofar as they can manipulate it politically to gain votes from misguided ultraconservative religious extremists and feel themselves to be morally superior. I ask for your indulgence as I attempt to explain my concern in as few words as I can. I have attempted to moderate the language and emotion expressed herein, but I ask for your understanding if some of what I have to say comes across as less than polite. After years of unrelenting insult, harassment, violence (including the total destruction by arson of the clinic with which I was associated and fourteen other businesses in the same building in 1985 along with a thwarted attempt to burn my house), and threats of violence, even of death, against my family and myself (including two men waiting for me with a "deer rifle" outside a clinic), civil discourse on this issue does not come easily to me. My entrees are neither attempts at, nor pretenses to, scientific papers, so there are no footnotes or references. This does not mean, however, that I have been careless with truth or reason or that the views and the facts I express herein are not supported by scientific knowledge and understanding.

Abortion Rights 101 - a Primer for Politicians and Everyone Else

By William from Cedar Hill, TX - Sep 17th, 2008 at 2:49 pm EDT

Also listed in: Professional Abortion Providers for Obama-Biden

As an abortion provider (MD) I performed an early first trimester abortion on a college senior some years ago. She had been seen a number of times among protestors at my clinic, and prior to her procedure she had told a clinic counselor that she was the president of her campus "pro-life" organization. Think about that. That must mean that she was one of their most committed and hardest agitators against legal and safe professional abortion care for several years, but when she got pregnant herself, she was in the clinic having an abortion within a week of her positive pregnancy test.

After I completed her abortion, I matter-of-factly asked her what she was now going to do about her affiliation with that anti-choice club. Startled, she gasped, sat abruptly upright on the operating table, and with horrified expression blurted out in a tremulous voice, . . .

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