Abortion doctors: credit where it’s due

After forty years of legal abortion in Britain, the doctors’ contribution is at last being recognised as a part of mainstream healthcare. Commentary by Jennie Bristow, Editor, Abortion Review.

At the beginning of this year, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) revealed the ten individuals shortlisted for the BMJ Group Lifetime Achievement Award 2010, which will go to ‘the individual who has, over his or her working lifetime, made a unique and substantial contribution to improving health care, whether in clinical practice, health services, public health, health policy, medical education, or medical research’.

Dr Wendy Savage, obstetrician, gynaecologist, academic and campaigner, has been shortlisted for this award, in recognition of the her tireless work in improving reproductive healthcare, both for women who need abortions and those who give birth.

To see the work of an ‘abortion doctor’ being given due recognition as a part of mainstream healthcare should not come as a surprise. Abortion has been legal in Britain for over 40 years, and during that time millions of women have been helped by doctors prepared to perform and perfect the procedure. The same compassion and interest that motivates obstetricians’ and gynaecologists’ desire to make childbirth as safe and straightforward as possible, and to limit the pain and discomfort involved, has also motivated doctors involved in abortion care to minimise the complications of abortion.

The result is that, for women in Britain today, abortion is extremely safe and widely available. Abortion is accepted as a necessary part of healthcare, and is funded accordingly through the National Health Service.

But unlike childbirth, the practice of abortion remains controversial. Delivering babies, or providing fertility treatment, are medical procedures for which social recognition and personal satisfaction can be taken for granted. Yet while modern British society firmly accepts the need for abortion, it is accepted as a necessary endeavour rather than promoted as a glamorous or fulfilling career move. Just as no woman ever wants to have to have an abortion, no doctor ever actively wants to perform abortions: doctors do it because they recognise that it has to be done.

Outside of the world of abortion provision and reproductive choice advocacy, the levels of skill required and compassion demanded of these doctors is rarely acknowledged. As a generation of women has grown up secure in the knowledge that they have access to safe, legal abortion, maybe this situation is beginning to change. The horrific murder of the American abortion doctor Dr George Tiller in May 2009 led to countless testimonials from women about how much his work had helped them, and widespread recognition of the bravery demanded of those in the USA who are prepared to provide controversial, ‘late’ procedures.

In Britain, the sad death of Peter Diggory in November 2009 at the age of 85 gives us cause to reflect, with less shock but with equal respect, upon the extent to which the reproductive freedoms held by women today are due to the courageous and energetic work of the doctors, campaigners and parliamentarians who brought the 1967 Abortion Act into being. Diggory, alongside David Paintin, Malcolm Potts and others, was one of the doctors whose experience of treating women suffering from the consequences of unsafe, illegal abortions motivated him to play a key role in bringing about the social legislation that would save women from the physical and emotional costs both of bearing an unwanted child, and having unsafe abortions.

Without the passionate commitment of the medical professionals involved in reforming the law back in the 1960s, the situation facing women in Britain today would be very different. And without the continuing commitment and care shown by abortion doctors today, women would find themselves at continued risk of unsafe abortion or of having to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

It is politically important that abortion is legal and accepted, but for that to mean anything requires doctors who are prepared to carry out the procedure, and who continue to bring their medical experience to bear on the social and legal discussion. For their historic contribution as much as their current work, awards to abortion doctors are long overdue.

The BMJ Group Lifetime Achievement Award 2010 is judged by a BMJ readers’ online poll, and will be announced on 10 March 2010. To vote for Wendy Savage, visit the BMJ website, scroll down and click on the poll on the right hand side.

This article appears in the Winter 2010 print edition of Abortion Review. Download the print edition for free here.
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ABORTION LAW REFORMERS: PIONEERS OF CHANGE

Peter Diggory is one of the doctors, campaigners and parliamentarians interviewed in the 2007 BPAS publication Abortion Law Reformers: Pioneers of Change.

This pamphlet presents frank interviews with many of the campaigners, doctors and parliamentarians who brought the 1967 Abortion Act into being, providing an inspiring sense of the spirit in which the Act was conceived and thoughtful reflections on how well the law has worked subsequently.

Download it for free here.