Dr. Marci Bowers is an extremely skilled surgeon with a
good “bedside manner.” Like any other
first-rate professional, she has fine people working with and for her.
Among them are the screening nurses, counselors and
others who prepare people like me for surgery.
The ones who worked with Marci when she was in Trinidad also worked with
the local Planned Parenthood, right next to the hospital in which Dr. Bowers
practiced. In fact, on the morning of my
surgery, I went to the PP office—where I passed a lone protestor—and, from
there, was escorted to the hospital.
I am thinking of that now in light of the furor over
Planned Parenthood. To religious
fundamentalists (who, almost invariably, are trying to follow a literal
interpretation of a translation of a book written, at least in part, in
languages that haven’t been spoken in more than a millennium), Planned
Parenthood can be defined in one word:
abortion. And if something has
anything to do with abortion, they are not only against it, they are willing to
believe the absolute worst things anyone can say, true or not, about it.
So it’s really no surprise that they’re in a lather over
the story that PP is selling tissue from aborted fetuses for use in medical
research and treatment. Of course, when
stories are passed along, parts of it are exaggerated, distorted or otherwise
changed. So, somewhere along the way,
some hysterical or simply mendacious person announced that Planned Parenthood
is “harvesting’ fetuses for tissue. That
story gave the conservatives just the sort of weapon they’ve wanted.
What’s commonly forgotten is that abortion is actually
a very small part of what Planned Parenthood does. For many women—especially the poor and those
who live in isolated rural areas—the Planned Parenthood office is one of the
few places, if not the only place, where they can find compassionate and
competent gynecological health care.
Sometimes even men in such situations rely on Planned Parenthood for
their needs.
Knowing such things, I can’t help but to think that
Planned Parenthood is a lifeline for many LGBT people. There are still many health care
professionals who won’t treat us or, worse, can’t or won’t treat us with the
same compassion or diligence they would provide other patients. I had one such experience early in my
transition, and I have heard stories from other queer people who were treated
with contempt or simply given inappropriate advice or care. For example, the
doctor of a lesbian I know told her that
if she doesn’t want to get breast cancer, she should have a baby. I doubt that
anyone in Planned Parenthood would have told her that.
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