My correspondence with an abortionist, Part III

(Continued. For Part I and Part II, read here and here.)

I won't keep you in suspense! Below is the response that we received from abortionist Finkel. It does make one wonder: Did he read the same letter we wrote?? The saga doesn't end here, but for now, read on....

(Note: I have left all of the typos intact.)

7 September 1995


Dear Manning and Miller:


I am receipt of your letter of September 6, 1995. I read it with great interest and with amusement. I have always found that Pro-Lifers find my secular comments concerning their mystical beliefs to be hostile. It seems that an objective appraisal of your "relatively mild Pro-Life statement" has upset your apple cart, resulting in more parroting of the Pro-Life mantra.


Hippocrates, in the Hippocratic Oath, proscribes giving a woman a pessary for an abortion. Hippocrates does not proscribe abortion, but only a technique of an induced abortion. This polytheistic physician knew then what contemporary physicians know now. They placement of a non-sterile foreign object in a woman's uterus to induce an abortion would result in sepsis and death of the woman. The Pro-Lifers have edited Hippocrates' admonition to their political viewpoint, and claim that he has admonished all abortion procedures. I feel quite confident that this ancient physician, if he had access to sterile instruments and sterile technique, that he too would be a proponent of contemporary abortion practices.


Mainstream Arizonan's do not view me with as much suspicion and distaste as Pro-Lifers. The working Jane Doe of Arizona and my peers in the medical community view me as a valuable community asset. I am a much loved and highly respected physician in this state. It is only the Pro-Life bigots in this community that marginalize, demonize, and vilify my good works. I laughed out loud at your "offer to euthanize our toddlers". It made me want to polish my horns and my cloven hooves!


For your information, I do advise my patients about the adoption option. Each and every one of the women who comes to my office for abortion services has anguished over that option, and has found it too painful to even consider. The women who most condemn the adoption versus abortion route are those women who have already placed a child into adoption. Each and every one of these patients advises me that placing a child up for adoption was the most painful decision they have ever made, and one they will never make again.


I am not at all surprised that you have refused my invitation to visit my office and witness the circumstances that compel the women of Arizona to seek abortions. Your Pro-Life sand castle would have been washed away by the sea of reality. It is easier for you to stay in the ivory towers of the Republic Editorial Board, where your spiritual beliefs are unchallenged. Your mewling and whining about how you avoid or even dread writing articles on abortion is hypocritical to the point of nausea.


In your arrogance, you tell me that you find what I do reprehensible. I am a servant of women. I provide them with service that they want, need, and seek out. I am a physician; not a prosecutor. I do not project or inflict my personal spiritual beliefs into the personal tragedies of my patients. They seek me out because other physicians in the community will not provide or are afraid to provide abortion services to the women under their care. I take a great amount of pride in being there for the woman of Arizona when they need a physician and a friend. My only regret is that their are so many women that need my help, and that there is so little time to help them.


I agree that there is satisfaction in civilized discourse. When you stop peppering your antiabortion editorials with inflammatory and pejorative noun, I will know that you are ready to negotiate.


Once again, I offer you an opportunity to come to my office. My office is not an abortuary, and I am not the big, bad evil boogy man of your Pro-Life nightmares. I will continue to read your column every two weeks. I wan to see how long it takes you to put aside your avoidance and dread of writing articles on abortion, and once again begin your tirade as a third party who has no standing in the interaction between me and my patients.


With best personal regards.


I remain very truly yours,


[signature]


Brian L. Finkel, D.O., F.A.C.O.G.



(Stacy, you were right on!)

If you like poetic justice, stay tuned for the next two posts.

To be continued....