An Obstetrics Stakeholder Concern, Essay Example

Family planning is clearly an obstetrics stakeholder concern because it includes counseling patients about abortion. Family planning’s association with abortion has been in the news recently (Calmes, 2015) and federal funding of Planned Parenthood has become a political issue. It was news to many people that Planned Parenthood even received such funding. What few of those many people may know is that such funding cannot be used for abortion.[1] However, in the heat of political battle, it can probably be counted on that few will ever find this out, or believe it if they do. Indeed, in April of this year Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl claimed on the Senate floor that “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does” is provide abortion services (FactCheck.org, 2011). As of April, 2011, the rate was closer to 3 percent (FactCheck.org, 2011).

Family planning will always be loudly controversial, even as it quietly succeeds. Contraceptives are scarcely less controversial. Probably because of the success of educational campaigns by family planners and legislation increasing contraception availability to young women, as of 2011 the need for elective abortion[2] had been falling in spite of the fall in the number of providers (Jones & Jerman, 2014). Yet the subject is highly contentious, prone to hyperbole and deliberate, outright lies. Any obstetrician or gynecologist  providing family planning services to politically vulnerable populations are themselves subject to danger. Numerous doctors  and their staff  in family planning clinics have been attacked, wounded, or murdered. Their attackers have been sentenced to life terms in prison and some have committed suicide there. Other providers have been made the subject of harassment and death threats.

Like soldiers in an unpopular war, obstetricians are front-line stakeholders. What is legal and what is right can be two very different things to very different kinds of people.

References

Calmes, J. (2015, August 27). Planned Parenthood Videos Were Altered, Analysis Finds. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html?_r=0

FactCheck.org. (2011, April 18). Planned Parenthood. Retrieved from Ask Factcheck: http://www.factcheck.org/2011/04/planned-parenthood/

Jones, R. K., & Jerman, J. (2014). Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2011. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 1-14.

[1] An admittedly dubious prohibition, since money is fungible: receiving government funding for other services frees up Planned Parenthood money to be used for abortion-related services.

[2] An abortion administered before the fetus can live outside the body. Such abortions are protected by Roe v. Wade.