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Caring For Both |
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A physician's duty of care extends to two patients in the case of a pregnant woman - the woman and her unborn child. For a woman to make a truly "informed decision" she must be presented with the facts of human embryology of her unborn child so that she will know that what she is aborting is a human being, not just a clump of cells or a piece of her own tissues. |
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The privilege of helping a discouraged pregnant woman |
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A family doctor in a modern Canadian city helps people out of all sorts of scrapes but few of those are immediately life threatening. Rarely can the doctor slump into his or her armchair at the end of the day after a direct involvement in truly life-saving care. When I worked in emergency rooms early in my career, death was near and had to be cheated daily, but general practice is made of quieter stuff. Quieter and less desperate, that is, until an unhappily pregnant woman arrives and suddenly, in my head and my heart, the klaxons sound and the alarm bells ring for this woman and her baby, whose life hangs by a thread. |