Durango Herald – Page 11 – Population Matters-USA

Open Letter to the People who Picket Planned Parenthood

I respect people who have strong convictions and are willing to express them. I have demonstrated for peace recently on Main Avenue, and elsewhere, during the Viet Nam war. I also walked in the largest demonstration ever in Washington D.C., the â€œMarch to Save Womenâ€™s Livesâ€. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), of which I am a member, does not have a stand on abortion. I was brought up in this religion and attended 14 years of religious school. Standing up for our beliefs is part of our heritage.

However, I cannot agree with the tactics used by the people who demonstrate outside Planned Parenthood. If you wish to communicate with me, please donâ€™t yell; there are better ways to get your point across. My e-mail address is at the end of this article. If you have something to say, please address me (and the Planned Parenthood patients) with respect. This is what my mother taught me, and I am sure that your mothers taught you the same.

Reverend Joachim Blonski, the Roman Catholic pastor at Saint Joseph Church in Aztec, NM, was courteous in the way he corresponded with me. He wrote a polite letter accompanying a book on post-abortion emotional problems. (I donâ€™t believe that they occur frequently, but that is another subject.)

Another example of positive communication took place in Boston. The Public Conversations Project started with a small group of women, some strongly against abortion and others strong supporters of abortion rights. Over years they discussed their beliefs, got to know and appreciate each other, and found some common groundâ€”as well as differences. Wouldnâ€™t it be good to have a similar discussion group here?

Opposition to abortion is basically religious. Although some people may be against abortion on purely ethical grounds, most of the antiabortion arguments I have heard are based on religion. Some religions (such as Roman Catholicism) are officially against abortion, while many take no stand on the subject.

I have two observations on the effectiveness of religion on controlling this aspect of womenâ€™s lives. Catholic women have about the same number of abortions as other women in the United States, according to a 2002 study (www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.pdf). Furthermore, I have observed that many formerly Catholic women have given up this religion because of its stand on reproductive issues.

The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees the right to picket outside Planned Parenthood. This same section of the Bill of Rights starts:

â€œCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereofâ€¦.â€

I interpret this to mean that each person can live by her own religious beliefs, and that no one has the right to impose her beliefs on me or another person. Until you convert me to your religion, please do not try to force your beliefs on me.

Until the Renaissance, power and knowledge were in the hands (or heads) of a few men. With Gutenbergâ€™s invention of moveable type, more people had access to written material, helping literacy and education to spread. This permitted a more sophisticated populace, and aided the development of democracies. Today, with almost universal literacy and wide access to libraries, Internet and other sources of knowledge, we rely less on single authoritative sources. It seems to me that the sort of yelling that Iâ€™ve heard at the entrance to Planned Parenthood comes from the old-fashioned era of authoritarian domination. This attempt to dominate is antipathetical to respect for individuals. Many of the women who go through those gates have agonized over difficult decisions and deserve loving care. They donâ€™t deserve to be told that they have made a bad decision. Remember, too, that I am happy to care for women who decide to continue unplanned pregnancies.

From years of listening to women who come to me for abortions, I am convinced that most of them have thought hard about their decisions before calling to make their appointments. Few will be dissuaded by confrontation at the clinicâ€™s gates, although some might be intimidated. On the other hand, I hear compliment after compliment for the Planned Parenthood staff because they lovingly treat women as thinking people.

So, friends, if you want to communicate, please donâ€™t yell at me or at our patients. If you want to help prevent the need for abortion, join me in trying to decrease the number of unplanned pregnancies. Surely, one of our countryâ€™s greatest shames is that half of pregnancies conceived here are unintended.

Â© Richard Grossman MD, 2007

[The article above may be copied or published but must remain intact, with attribution to the author. I also request that the words â€œFirst published in the Durango Heraldâ€ accompany any publication. For more information, please write the author at: richard@population-matters.org]

The image of Varanasi that stays with me is not the chanting and bell ringing while seven saffron-robed priests gesture with incense and flames. It is not the nine clouds of smoke as bodies are cremated on the steps beside the Mother Ganges. It is not the press of dense crowds of people-whom I found to be more comfortable than those in New York City. I am haunted by the lepers.

This is written on a long-awaited trip to India. My invitation came over 40 years ago with a chance meeting with a man from this country. I told him that I was going to medical school because of concern about overpopulation. He responded “Come to India, we need you.”

Varanasi is the heart of Hindu India. Pilgrims have visited there for centuries because of the cleansing water of the Ganges. Believers go there to die, since it is most auspicious to have your soul released by cremation beside this holy river. Perhaps you have seen images of this in glossy magazines. But the pictures leave out an important part of Varanasi.

India’s population more than quadrupled during the twentieth century. Yet during this same period the number of children a woman bears during her lifetime has halved, from 6 to 3. This seeming paradox occurred because of falling infant mortality. In the past, a huge proportion of children died before adulthood. Although medical care has helped, the most important factors for this welcome decline in childhood mortality have been improved nutrition and hygiene.

As a medical student I was curious about Hansen disease, as this scourge is now called. The bacterium that causes it lives in amazing harmony with human nerves, but gradually causes them to fail. Injuries are common because affected people cannot feel pain. Worse, at night rats nibble unprotected fingers and toes.

Cure of the infection is possible, but prolonged and expensive. Often treatment is limited to little more than bandaging and protection of the affected part. Tradition has forced people with Hansen disease to live separate from the rest of society. There is still a strong emotional reaction to the word “leper” even though most people in the USA have never seen one. Perhaps Hansen disease was the first use of quarantine, although the disease isn’t very contagious. What I didn’t learn in medical school is that it is very much a disease of poverty and malnutrition. As proof, well-nourished health workers seldom contract the disease even with constant exposure.

Leprosy still thrives in India because of poverty. Malnutrition is too common here, although less than a century ago. This month the India Times reported the sad results of a national health survey. Only a quarter of newborn babies are given the breast within an hour of birth. This lessens their chances of successful breastfeeding, which could substantially reduce infant mortality. Half of all children under 3 years are underweight, and one in five is stunted by lack of food. Three quarters are anemic, due to parasites or iron deficiency. Another article pointed out that girls are more likely to be starved than boys. In contrast, there are many rich people in India. One woman in seven is overweight. This is a country of contrasts.

To quantify this huge gulf between rich and poor, compare the income of the richest fifth of the world’s people with the poorest fifth. Worldwide this ratio in 1960 was 30 to one. Now it is more than 80 to one. The rich are getting richer-often at the expense of the poor.

Why should we care that this chasm is widening? There are two reasons. First is altruistic-it is sad to have people suffer from poverty. The other is that poverty threatens the security of rich people. Indeed, some feel that the real reason for terrorism against the USA is economic.

The image that sticks with me is of people lining our path to the Ganges. Squatting with quiet, upturned stolid faces, they held empty begging bowls with mutilated hands.

Part of my personal attempt to narrow the chasm between poor and rich has been to help support children in developing countries. For the first 35 years we sponsored a series of boys in Columbia. Filimina Mallik, our current child, lives in a remote part of India, too far from our tour. I believe that she is healthier and better educated for the small donation we make each month through Plan USA.