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Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicine - Imber, Jonathan B. - Yale University Press
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January 1986
188 p., 5 x 8
ISBN: 9780300035544
ISBN-10: 0300035543
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Cloth
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Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicine
Out of Print.
Abortion is the most frequently performed surgery in the United States today, yet a relatively small number of physicians—most of them affiliated with clinics—provide the vast majority of the operations. Why are physicians in private practice reluctant to perform this surgery? What factors influence their views on abortion? This book by Jonathan B. Imber is the first to look at abortion from the perspective of physicians in private practice. Imber spent two years observing all twenty-six of the obstetricians-gynecologists in “Daleton,” a city that does not have an abortion clinic and where the decisions as to whether, when, and how to perform abortions are therefore essentially up to the individual doctor. Imber begins by surveying medical views on abortion historically and reviewing the medical profession’s response to the legalization of abortion in the United States. Quoting extensively from his interviews, he then looks at various elements of the doctors’ lives that may affect their choice: their age, gender, religious background, and length of residence in the community; the nature of their training and prior experience; and the setting of the practice (whether group or solo). Imber finds that the physician’s reasons for agreeing or refusing to perform abortions reveal considerable differences of opinion about how they construe their responsibilities. Private practice affords them broad discretion in their approaches to controversial procedures and treatments. Imber contends that many physicians are deeply ambivalent about abortion: approving in general of women’s right to abortion but not wishing to perform them themselves. Until abortion loses its status as a morally and politically controversial matter, it will remain the doctor’s dilemma.
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