Friday, June 12, 2009

A Busy Day in the Bronx

I began my day at Dr. Emily's in the early morning. At around 11 o'clock, a girl and her boyfriend walked up to the front of the clinic. I immediately offered them a free ultrasound, knowing that if I could simply get them to go to the ultrasound van, I'd be able to talk more in depth to them about abortion. They agreed with caution, but that was all I wanted. When the girl went into the back room of the van to get her ultrasound, I was able to talk to the boyfriend. He was unaware that his unborn child even resembled a human being. He kept asking if his child (who was 7 weeks) had arms, legs, etc.

When his girlfriend came out, she was crying. She had heard her baby's heartbeat, and the thought of killing the baby now deeply confused her. The two decided not to have the abortion because they had to do a lot of thinking. I was able to give my number to the boyfriend so that he could get a hold of me in case he wanted to talk. As we were going he asked me how developed his baby was. I replied, "I bet your baby is sucking his thumb right now." He smiled at me, and right before he left, he said, "You really know what you are talking about, don't you?"

Later in the day, two girls, one being pregnant and the other simply a friend, came out of Dr. Emily's. Julie, one of the EMC staff, talked to them for several minutes before calling me over. She asked me if I could escort the two girls over to the Bronx center on E 149th. Agreeing, I led the girls to the nearest bus stop and rode the bus down with them to the center.

Once we were at the center, they received excellent counseling from Liz, the director of that particular center. It turned out that one of them was scheduled to come in on Monday to have an abortion at Dr. Emily's, but they had come in today to ask questions about the procedure. Not one single question of their's had been answered by the staff at Dr. Emily's. Each staff member at the abortion clinic claimed they could not answer any of their questions about what was going to be done to the woman during the abortion and that only the doctor could answer these questions. When the woman asked to talk to the doctor, the clinic workers apparently said that was not possible.

According to Dr. Emily's, the woman was 20 weeks pregnant. Well, when we reassessed her, we found out she was 27 weeks pregnant, which made procuring her an abortion illegal for her stage in the pregnancy. This meant that Dr. Emily's either lied to her about how far along she was so she could get an abortion, or simply didn't assess her correctly, or our assessment was wrong. Liz then told me that this woman deserved a real ultrasound because at Emily's they had not answered any of her questions. So I again took them to the bus stop, but after waiting for a bus for a long time without a bus, I located a cab and we road to Bronx Care, where we have a worker who does sonograms for us.

Finally, after a long day, I headed back to Liz's before heading back to the Lifehouse. Kathy, the ultrasound technician at Bronx Care, said she'd call Liz after the ultrasound to let her know how it went. Keep this woman in your prayers!

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