88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
THE ABORTION MINISTRY OF DR. WILLIE PARKER
In Mississippi, there is only one clinic where a woman can go if she needs an abortion. The state is trying to close it down. At that clinic, there is a doctor who tends to the needs of these women, and he has to fly in from out of state to do it. There is no shutting him down.
By John H. Richardson on July 30, 2014
Maisie Crow
In light of Tuesday's court ruling against a Mississippi law that would close the last abortion clinic in the state, we are releasing a profile a doctor who works there from our next issue, which has yet to appear on newsstands. For more stories like this one, subscribe to Esquire here.
Perfectly bald, with a salt-and-pepper goatee, a small gold hoop gleaming in his left ear, and a warm smile on his dark brown face, Dr. Willie Parker enters the waiting room. Eleven young women and one tired forty-three-year-old mother sit in a circle of chairs, regarding him with somber expressions. Eight are black. Four are white. One has jittery legs that never stop moving. Another has giant false eyelashes in constant motion. The rest are absolutely still, sitting with straight backs, like good students or condemned prisoners. One has her hair in a tight bun, another wears a Nefertiti head wrap, another wears a baseball hat that says LOVE and a T-shirt that says SOUTHERN GIRLS KNOW HOW TO PINCH A TAIL. Some have freckles, some wear glasses. One looks like a Botticelli painting, with skin so luminous it seems to shimmer. They are nurses and college students, clerks and saleswomen. One is in high school. One dances in a strip club. Another just got out of the Army.
"Good morning," Parker begins, launching into a spiel he will repeat four times that day, "I am one of two doctors who travel to Mississippi to provide abortion care."
HOW YOU CAN HELP MISSISSIPPI'S LAST ABORTION CLINIC
This is because no doctor in Mississippi is willing to provide such a service. Although the state already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, including a twenty-four-hour waiting period, parental consent, face-to-face counseling with the physician, and a ban on the use of Medicaid funding (except in extraordinary cases), it is going all out to close this clinic, the last abortion provider in Mississippi, known as the Pink House because the defiant woman who owns it painted it pink to make it stand out, bold and unashamed. The latest fight is over whether abortion doctors should be required to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital in the event of a complication, an irrelevant requirement since a hospital's emergency-room staff usually does the admitting. It's a practice no other specialty is required to observe. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes the state law that makes this a requirement. But a similar law may soon leave the state of Texas—home to twenty-seven million people—with just six abortion clinics. It is already law in North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah and looms over Alabama, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Louisiana and is likely to spread to other states, pressed by a nationwide conservative movement that uses regulation to force a result democratic votes cannot achieve. So Parker flies down from his home in Chicago for several days twice a month to perform the service so few other doctors are willing to provide.
"As you know," he continues, "there's been a lot of press recently about the efforts that the state is making to close this clinic. And we're fighting that. Just Monday, we were in New Orleans at the federal-court hearing. Right now we are waiting for them to rule on the changes in the law that would make us close. It might be a few weeks, might be a few months. But the bottom line is today the clinic is still open, so we can provide care for you. And that's what we're going to do."
"THE PROTESTERS SAY THEY'RE OPPOSED TO ABORTION BECAUSE THEY'RE CHRISTIAN," PARKER SAYS. "IT'S HARD FOR THEM TO ACCEPT THAT I DO ABORTIONS BECAUSE I'M A CHRISTIAN."
Many of these women come from hours away, one from a little town on the Kentucky border that's a seven-hour drive. They don't know much about Dr. Parker. They don't know that he grew up a few hours away in Birmingham, the second youngest son of a single mother who raised six children on food stamps and welfare, so poor that he taught himself to read by a kerosene lamp and went to the bathroom in an outhouse; that he was born again in his teenage years and did a stint as a boy preacher in Baptist churches; that he became the first black student-body president of a mostly white high school, went on to Harvard and a distinguished career as a college professor and obstetrician who delivered thousands of babies and refused to do abortions. They certainly don't know about the "come to Jesus" moment, as he pointedly describes it, when he decided to give up his fancy career to become an abortion provider. Or that, at fifty-one, having resigned a prestigious job as medical director of Planned Parenthood, he's preparing to move back south and take over a circuit roughly similar—for safety reasons, he won't be more specific—to the one traveled by Dr. David Gunn before an antiabortion fanatic assassinated him in 1993. Or that his name and home address have been published by an antiabortion Web site with the unmistakable intent of terrorizing doctors like him. Or that he receives threats that say, "You've been warned." Or that he refuses to wear a bulletproof vest, because he doesn't want to live in fear—"if I'm that anxious, they've already taken my life"—but owns a stun gun because a practical man has to take precautions. What they do know is this:
He is the doctor who is going to stop them from being pregnant.
Today Parker is wearing green medical scrubs, and tomorrow he'll be wearing an orange T-shirt that says VOTING IS SEXY. His authority is in his manner, warm but always scientific. "There's some things that the state requires me to tell you," he begins. "Some of the information I'm required to give you is designed to discourage you or to scare you about the decision you're making, so I'm going to tell you the things that I have to tell you by law, but I'm also going to tell you what in my best medical opinion is more important for you to know."
In an almost priestly cadence, he builds a sermon around the word required. The first thing he's required by state law to explain is the possibility of complications. He could poke a hole in a uterus. There could be a life-threatening hemorrhage or infection, or damage to the bowel, fallopian tubes, ovaries, or bladder. There's also a possibility that their womb could be so severely injured a hysterectomy would be required, which would mean they couldn't have babies in the future.
With this news, the faces of the women become even more somber. The still ones remain completely still; the jittery ones get more jittery.
"But guess what?" he continues with another reassuring smile. "Those are all the exact same risks that go with having a baby. In fact, they're more likely to happen giving birth than they are with an abortion; a woman is ten times more likely to die in childbirth than she is having an abortion."
The women's faces show relief. Some of the motionless ones finally shift position.
"The second thing that I'm required to tell you is that if the reason you are having an abortion is financial, then the person you are pregnant by could be required to provide you with financial assistance."
One of the women laughs.
http://www.esquire.com/features/abortion-ministry-of-dr-willie-parker-0914
Long article click for longer reading.
What's up with Mississippi still having the confederate jack in their state flag?
In Mississippi, there is only one clinic where a woman can go if she needs an abortion. The state is trying to close it down. At that clinic, there is a doctor who tends to the needs of these women, and he has to fly in from out of state to do it. There is no shutting him down.
By John H. Richardson on July 30, 2014
Maisie Crow
In light of Tuesday's court ruling against a Mississippi law that would close the last abortion clinic in the state, we are releasing a profile a doctor who works there from our next issue, which has yet to appear on newsstands. For more stories like this one, subscribe to Esquire here.
Perfectly bald, with a salt-and-pepper goatee, a small gold hoop gleaming in his left ear, and a warm smile on his dark brown face, Dr. Willie Parker enters the waiting room. Eleven young women and one tired forty-three-year-old mother sit in a circle of chairs, regarding him with somber expressions. Eight are black. Four are white. One has jittery legs that never stop moving. Another has giant false eyelashes in constant motion. The rest are absolutely still, sitting with straight backs, like good students or condemned prisoners. One has her hair in a tight bun, another wears a Nefertiti head wrap, another wears a baseball hat that says LOVE and a T-shirt that says SOUTHERN GIRLS KNOW HOW TO PINCH A TAIL. Some have freckles, some wear glasses. One looks like a Botticelli painting, with skin so luminous it seems to shimmer. They are nurses and college students, clerks and saleswomen. One is in high school. One dances in a strip club. Another just got out of the Army.
"Good morning," Parker begins, launching into a spiel he will repeat four times that day, "I am one of two doctors who travel to Mississippi to provide abortion care."
HOW YOU CAN HELP MISSISSIPPI'S LAST ABORTION CLINIC
This is because no doctor in Mississippi is willing to provide such a service. Although the state already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, including a twenty-four-hour waiting period, parental consent, face-to-face counseling with the physician, and a ban on the use of Medicaid funding (except in extraordinary cases), it is going all out to close this clinic, the last abortion provider in Mississippi, known as the Pink House because the defiant woman who owns it painted it pink to make it stand out, bold and unashamed. The latest fight is over whether abortion doctors should be required to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital in the event of a complication, an irrelevant requirement since a hospital's emergency-room staff usually does the admitting. It's a practice no other specialty is required to observe. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes the state law that makes this a requirement. But a similar law may soon leave the state of Texas—home to twenty-seven million people—with just six abortion clinics. It is already law in North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah and looms over Alabama, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Louisiana and is likely to spread to other states, pressed by a nationwide conservative movement that uses regulation to force a result democratic votes cannot achieve. So Parker flies down from his home in Chicago for several days twice a month to perform the service so few other doctors are willing to provide.
"As you know," he continues, "there's been a lot of press recently about the efforts that the state is making to close this clinic. And we're fighting that. Just Monday, we were in New Orleans at the federal-court hearing. Right now we are waiting for them to rule on the changes in the law that would make us close. It might be a few weeks, might be a few months. But the bottom line is today the clinic is still open, so we can provide care for you. And that's what we're going to do."
"THE PROTESTERS SAY THEY'RE OPPOSED TO ABORTION BECAUSE THEY'RE CHRISTIAN," PARKER SAYS. "IT'S HARD FOR THEM TO ACCEPT THAT I DO ABORTIONS BECAUSE I'M A CHRISTIAN."
Many of these women come from hours away, one from a little town on the Kentucky border that's a seven-hour drive. They don't know much about Dr. Parker. They don't know that he grew up a few hours away in Birmingham, the second youngest son of a single mother who raised six children on food stamps and welfare, so poor that he taught himself to read by a kerosene lamp and went to the bathroom in an outhouse; that he was born again in his teenage years and did a stint as a boy preacher in Baptist churches; that he became the first black student-body president of a mostly white high school, went on to Harvard and a distinguished career as a college professor and obstetrician who delivered thousands of babies and refused to do abortions. They certainly don't know about the "come to Jesus" moment, as he pointedly describes it, when he decided to give up his fancy career to become an abortion provider. Or that, at fifty-one, having resigned a prestigious job as medical director of Planned Parenthood, he's preparing to move back south and take over a circuit roughly similar—for safety reasons, he won't be more specific—to the one traveled by Dr. David Gunn before an antiabortion fanatic assassinated him in 1993. Or that his name and home address have been published by an antiabortion Web site with the unmistakable intent of terrorizing doctors like him. Or that he receives threats that say, "You've been warned." Or that he refuses to wear a bulletproof vest, because he doesn't want to live in fear—"if I'm that anxious, they've already taken my life"—but owns a stun gun because a practical man has to take precautions. What they do know is this:
He is the doctor who is going to stop them from being pregnant.
Today Parker is wearing green medical scrubs, and tomorrow he'll be wearing an orange T-shirt that says VOTING IS SEXY. His authority is in his manner, warm but always scientific. "There's some things that the state requires me to tell you," he begins. "Some of the information I'm required to give you is designed to discourage you or to scare you about the decision you're making, so I'm going to tell you the things that I have to tell you by law, but I'm also going to tell you what in my best medical opinion is more important for you to know."
In an almost priestly cadence, he builds a sermon around the word required. The first thing he's required by state law to explain is the possibility of complications. He could poke a hole in a uterus. There could be a life-threatening hemorrhage or infection, or damage to the bowel, fallopian tubes, ovaries, or bladder. There's also a possibility that their womb could be so severely injured a hysterectomy would be required, which would mean they couldn't have babies in the future.
With this news, the faces of the women become even more somber. The still ones remain completely still; the jittery ones get more jittery.
"But guess what?" he continues with another reassuring smile. "Those are all the exact same risks that go with having a baby. In fact, they're more likely to happen giving birth than they are with an abortion; a woman is ten times more likely to die in childbirth than she is having an abortion."
The women's faces show relief. Some of the motionless ones finally shift position.
"The second thing that I'm required to tell you is that if the reason you are having an abortion is financial, then the person you are pregnant by could be required to provide you with financial assistance."
One of the women laughs.
http://www.esquire.com/features/abortion-ministry-of-dr-willie-parker-0914
Long article click for longer reading.
What's up with Mississippi still having the confederate jack in their state flag?
for a moment there...
and bounced
@ this nikka saying he's doing god's work though