Fear for the future of medical care for all people should be one of the outcomes of a recent blog post on the website XOJane. XOJane, for the uninitiated, is the latest publishing venture of Jane Pratt, who started Sassy and Jane magazines. Jane Pratt is a woman in her mid-fifties still trying to be a tweenager.

Ob/Gyn resident Carolyn Payne, M.D. felt compelled to write a blog post response to an article post in the online magazine for the College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.  The College article had the long and scholarly title: “Four Residents’ Narratives on Abortion Training: A Climate of Reflection, Support and Mutual Respect.” The four residents’ article is very reflective of personal feelings and shows depth and active thought, even if I may disagree with their conclusions. Apparently, depth and reflection are trite feelings and Dr. Payne felt compelled to respond.

The XOJane blog post had the incredibly long and non-scholarly title of “I am an Ob/Gyn Resident Who Entered My Field Specifically to Perform Safe Abortion Procedures–These Are My Reasons Why.” Dr. Payne, apparently, felt that the residents in the scholarly article overthought and felt too much in providing abortion services. Dr. Payne, on the other hand, is doggone proud to suction that baby out.

Rather, providing our first MVA was a “feel good procedure,” because we had successfully performed an intervention that changed a woman’s life for the better!

The different applications of the MVA procedure can be read here. No doubt, no fear, no questions of morality or even how the woman/patient is feeling. For the doctor, according to Dr. Payne, it is a “feel good procedure”.

According to her blog post, Dr. Payne grew up in an idyllic world where playing the trombone was for boys and girls and she could “have sex, just like a man could, and go on with my life, with minimal fear of life-changing consequences (i.e. unwanted pregnancy)“.

It wasn’t until the doctor was in college that she realized how full of gender inequality the world truly was.

I began to see this play out through sexual politics. I watched mostly male legislators say medically inaccurate or horribly offensive things about the female body as they attempted to pass laws making my ability to access healthcare more difficult. I realized that my sex and gender could hugely impact my ability to access the healthcare I needed to make sure I could finish college and go to medical school.

Dr. Payne was a political science/women’s studies major. Between her progressive parents who had her on the pill at age sixteen and her indoctrination at the University of Michigan as a women’s studies major, Dr. Payne is so sure of her rightness, the fact that all women think alike and that men who want to defund Planned Parenthood desire this because:

Therefore, taking away women’s access to reproductive health services and birth control seemed like a covert, or rather overt effort to remove the work-force competition, and place women back in the home. It is true that traditional gender roles are very much in flux right now. With women currently out-earning men in bachelors and advanced degrees, their role in leadership and the public sphere is rapidly shifting too. Women should have every opportunity to explore their potential in the public sphere, and they will never be able to do that if they cannot exert agency and autonomy over their bodies. Republicans know this. Misogynists know this too.

Somewhere along the way, Dr. Payne missed out on the classes on empathy, morality and listening. At such a young age, she is convinced beyond all that she is right. If other people/patients have feelings, she is not noticing those feelings. The rightness and wrongness of actions don’t seem to bother her. Just lay down and let her suction that baby out. Does she listen? I have no doubt she is smart as a whip. Top of her class in everything. She is so right that I worry that she doesn’t hear anyone else.

The idea that the tissue that she is suctioning out in that “feel good procedure” is a human being with a beating heart and the ability to feel pain doesn’t even occur to her. Until every woman is educated, and has the resources and tools to prevent pregnancy, they will have Dr. Payne there to suction that baby out.

I don’t want my doctor to be such an ideologue. Committed to gender equality. Lacking in compassion and depth. Believing that anyone who disagrees wants him back in the home. This child is onc scary doctor. Fear for all of us.