Aspiring doctors defiantly choosing to enter abortion field

From the LA Times comes a story about aspiring doctors who are choosing to provide abortions. This is such good news as decades of terror and intimidation by pro-forced maternity activists (H/T Exterminator) has taken it toll on many doctors with the number of abortion providers dropping by 37% between 1982 and 2000.

Listening to news of the Supreme Court’s ruling, third-year medical student Lysie Cirona, 24, found herself shouting at her radio in frustration. Then she took a hard look at her career plans. She had always been interested in psychiatry, but now she envisioned herself flying to North Dakota or Nebraska a few times a month to perform abortions.

“It wasn’t on my radar screen” a year ago, Cirona said, but her priorities have changed as she’s learned more about the history and current state of abortion rights. Cirona has taken to badgering her professors to include information about abortion in their lectures. She attended workshops on how to respond effectively to antiabortion protesters.

Some days, she still wants to be a psychiatrist. Other days, she thinks of the women who drive 10 hours to reach the nearest abortion clinic. “This is what I’m going to do,” she tells herself.

Her roommate at the University of Colorado, Michelle Cleeves, is also drawn to abortion work; simply voting for liberal politicians, she said, no longer seems like an adequate response to the abortion wars.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe if you don’t back it up with action,” said Cleeves, 24. “The right to abortion doesn’t mean anything if women don’t have access.”

Michelle really hits the bullseye with that last sentence. It doesn’t matter if abortion is legal if doctors will not perform them. We need more doctors like the women and men in this story.