By Jennifer ChenThe Daily Northwestern
You cannot end a life that does not yet exist.
Feinberg medical students on Northwestern’s Chicago campus know from textbooks that a fetus is not self-sustaining until the 22nd to 24th week of pregnancy. But life? When does that begin?
On Wednesday afternoon, 73 students filtered into the McGaw Pavilion to see Dr. Emily M. Godfrey, an Association of Reproductive Health Professionals representative and assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Godfrey’s presentation, titled “Medical Abortion from the Public Health Perspective,” was sponsored by the Northwestern Medical Students For Choice, ARHP and American Medical Students Association. For an hour, students hung their fleeces and white clinical coats, ate complimentary Chinese takeout and listened quietly as Godfrey spoke of the necessity of keeping abortions legal.
“Legal abortion saves lives,” Godfrey said, urging students to consider the issue when they vote this fall. “You may personally disagree with it, but as physicians I think we can all agree that we want to improve the health and well-being of women.”
Abortion is the only procedure for which Feinberg provides an opt-out option for those doing obstetrics and gynecology rotations and residencies, MSFC representatives said.
For first-year medical student Murtaza Akhter, who described himself as “extremely pro-life,” a mother’s life is equal to a fetus’s. His religious beliefs, he said, are more important than what the medical profession dictates.
“I haven’t decided whether life begins at implantation or fertilization yet,” he said. “The most ‘liberal’ I’d be is to allow abortions before implantation, so the morning after pill would in theory be OK. But I may end up deciding (on) contraception and no abortions whatsoever … and if that means coat hangers, that women are killing themselves, then yeah, unfortunately, that’s what it leads to.”
MSFC president Tamar Carmel said her priorities lie with the mother, the life already in existence.
“As my patient, she is most important,” said the Feinberg second-year student. “Some women feel so strongly that they need an abortion that they’re willing to go to any means to get it, and that’s a risk on her life, whether it’s a hanger or drug overdose. Abortion is saving women’s lives.”
Medically speaking, she said, life begins “when the heart is actually functional, the brain is functional, when the (central nervous system) is developed.”
Some students such as Shelley Sahu are undecided, and knowing the science behind abortion doesn’t always help.
“Just a few days ago we were learning about embryology and that the primitive heart is there in the first two, three or four weeks, and you’re seeing now that you can get medical abortions up to nine weeks,” the first-year medical student said. “Now it’s like, I know the fetus has developed this far, so how comfortable would I feel morally about prescribing an abortion?”
Regardless of opinion, MSFC and Medical Students For Life are on good terms and co-sponsor events.
“I think that we as individuals within the groups respect each other as future health-care providers and that it’s just a difference of opinions,” Carmel said.
Reach Jennifer Chen at [email protected].
