By Missouri State Rep. Stacey Newman – August 11, 2017
With Dr. Colleen McNicholas arriving near midnight in Oklahoma City.
Last night near midnight, my friend Dr. Colleen McNicholas and I landed in Oklahoma City where I will be her shadow for several days at the Trust Women Clinic. As a Missouri legislator who champions reproductive rights, I need to experience her real world of abortion care.
The Trust Women Clinic is one of only four abortion clinics in the entire state of Oklahoma and is dependent on 5 out of state physicians who regularly travel here to be the revolving abortion provider.
Colleen, as a physician and educator at Washington University in St. Louis, spends an enormous amount of time in reproductive healthcare advocacy, teaching residents how to speak up and testifies in the Capitol every chance she can. On top of that, she also travels to Oklahoma City and Wichita about every 5-6 weeks to provide abortion care to women who have very little options.
I have never done this before.
Already by Noon today, I have observed 7 patient-doctor consultations, one surgical pre-op for a 2 day procedure and witnessed a surgical abortion for a 16 week pregnancy.
Very wanted pregnancies with fetal abnormalities and birth control methods which failed.
The real world is nothing like anti-abortion legislators say it is.