Poppema, a pro-choice feminist and physician, runs Aurora Medical Services, a birth control clinic in Seattle that she founded in 1986. Both an affecting, outspoken autobiographical memoir and a veritable manual for women considering abortion, her personal testament (written with Henderson, who teaches at the University of Washington School of Communications) begins with her 12 years of rigid Catholic schooling in rural New Hampshire followed by the ordeal of Harvard Medical School, where her classmates disdained her choice of family medicine over a lucrative specialty. She also discusses her own abortion while an intern in Seattle. Poppema believes that wide availability of abortion would alleviate misery by preventing unwanted children and helping poor women break out of the cycle of poverty. She describes in clear detail the counseling of patients and how abortions are performed, and discusses her clinic's trials with the drug mifepristone (brand name RU 486), the French abortion pill, which she hopes will become easily available in the U.S.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
When Poppema told her parents she was interested in medicine and might be a nurse, why not, they asked, be a doctor? She took her M.D. at Harvard and residency in family medicine. After several years dividing her time between regular family practice and an abortion clinic (her understanding of women seeking abortions was enhanced by her own abortion and miscarriage), she bought a clinic north of Seattle, where she has practiced nine years. Most of the clinic's abortions are by suction; Poppema has experimented with RU 486 (the "abortion pill" ) but feels it will be found very useful only in early abortions. Although the clinic's surroundings mitigate against antiabortion protests, Poppema has, in the wake of the well-publicized shootings and killings at other clinics, felt it necessary to buy a bulletproof vest. She has performed some 20,000 abortions, mainly, she says, to prevent the arrival of unwanted children and to lessen social misery. She also devotes much time to educating women about their bodies and choices. William Beatty
From the Back Cover
Since the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, nearly thirty million legal abortions have been performed in the United States. Every year hundreds of thousands of women choose to have abortions. Yet a veil of secrecy is drawn across abortion sites, disturbed only by protest demonstrations and violence outside clinics. For years the antichoice movement has loudly condemned the abortion procedure. Opponents use such words as "baby-killing", "murder", and "blood-dripping abortionists" to describe what goes on in an abortion clinic - highly charged words that are intended to frighten women who are facing one of the most important decisions of their lives. What does - and does not - go on inside an abortion clinic? Why do women seek this procedure? Why would a physician specialize in this service? Why I Am An Abortion Doctor provides a unique, firsthand look at the life and work of a leading abortion provider. With compassion and courage Dr. Suzanne T. Poppema shares the intimate details of her private and professional struggle - including a view from the abortion clinic operating room as well as a recollection of her own fifth-month abortion - to promote better understanding of the reality of abortion and the violent forces that threaten a woman's right to choose. Dr. Poppema's journey has led her from a Catholic upbringing in rural New Hampshire to professional training at Harvard Medical School, where she made a critical career decision to forgo the fame and fortune awaiting those who enter lucrative medical specialties in favor of becoming a family physician. She has traveled to some of the poorest places on earth, where she observed the expendability of human life and thesubjugation of women. Dr. Poppema's work has brought her a world-wide reputation as an authority on abortion. She served as a member of an international panel in Paris to discuss the French abortion pill, RU 486. Her own clinic was chosen as one of the few U.S. test sites for this controversial drug. Why I Am An Abortion Doctor is a compelling, informative book for readers on both sides of the controversy. It is a groud-breaking work that puts a human face on abortion and tells precisely what the procedure involves, who it helps, and why women seek to terminate their pregnancies.
About the Author
In her decades working as a family physician, Suzanne T. Poppema, MD has treated many women’s reproductive issues, from prescribing birth control, to delivering babies, to providing abortions for her patients. As former board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, Dr. Poppema represents hundreds of pro-choice physicians across the United States who believe that all women and men should have access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare. Dr. Poppema serves as Director of International Medical Consulting and is a retired Associate Clinical Professor in Family Medicine at the University of Washington. She served as president of the National Abortion Federation from 1998 to 2000. She is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and Harvard Medical School, and completed her residency at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
