Canada’s Planned Parenthood
Graham, a 5th-year medical student has an interesting blog about his experiences in the world of doctors. He’s currently doing a rotation at Planned Parenthood and has written a simple but sensational piece about what he’s seeing and learning.
Firstly, its really great to see a medical professional be so humble and honest about what they don’t know. He seems really open to learning from his patients and that’s something you don’t hear every day.
Secondly, and most profoundly, he clarifies in a way that I haven’t really seen elsewhere what it is that Planned Parenthood is all about. In Canada, Planned Parenthood is relatively safe (lets not be complacent about that!) but in the United States of America, where this blog is written, PP is losing funding and its ability to thrive in a significant way. The main reason for this is that PP is demonized as an organization that promotes and performs abortions as its only function.
Graham clearly and simply clarifies this myth and explains what Planned Parenthood actually does and how vital they are to our communities.
Read Graham’s blog and let us know what you think…
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two comments
I'm very familiar with this post and have been promoting it since I first saw it. My favorite thing about the piece is that Graham is an observer and an objective one at that. He doesn't claim to come from any particular movement or activist stance - he's just a guy becoming a doctor.
That's why it's so powerful; he reports what he sees and not necesssarily what he feels, confesses his own previous ignorance and enlightens those who would have assumed that PP is all about abortions that they're dead wrong.
Posted by Stacey May
October 22, 2007, 10:55 AM
Thanks for posting this Tuval, this is really great. I've had a hard time with so many doctors who do act as if patients don't know anything - it's so nice to be reminded that not all doctors are like that.
I also really liked hearing what he had to say about abortion - sometimes I feel like the "should abortion be legal or not legal?" debate misses the point.
That's not to say that the issue of whether or not women have the right to make reproductive choices isn't incredibly important! What I mean more is that I think it may be more beneficial for women's health in the long run (and for the children that women may or may not have) to figure out why there are unplanned/unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and figure out what we can do to reduce them. You know, like get to the root cause of things and all that.
Posted by Thea
October 22, 2007, 12:07 PM
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