Dr. Eugene Glick lives on

Dr. Eugene Glick passed away on Sunday. Perhaps you've read the book the size of a collection of poetry called Surgical Abortion or watched him speak about about providing illegal abortion in Voices for Choice (see embedment). You may have cried out loud (col) in solidarity when you heard him say: I felt good about the fact that I could help somebody when I knew they were really hurting. I knew it was against the law, but I also knew the law was wrong. I really felt that this was crazy. That this was a law that was bound to be changed.

I still remember the conundrum that fascinated me first when I entered Abortionland--the graying of abortion providers. And by fascinated, I do mean deeply and existentially fearful of our future. The only thing that gives us this choice? --A tight group of compassionate, bohemian, warrior doctors who witnessed women rot to death due to septic shock...

Dear diary: The graying doctors are dying.

Certainly, not every passionate provider is *gray* and reaching an age where death may be inevitable. I have had the good luck of regularly meeting with expert doctors all over the country. (Note: vagueness of the who, what, when, where, and why that may draw lines of solidarity between us have been omitted due to stalkerish, terrorist activity.) In fact, my docs are young spry things capturing the world of truth, integrity, and wellness like rock stars and serving it to every deserving woman on gleaming, silver platters.

You come in for an abortion at the tryingest time in your life. You're cared for, and you leave precisely satisfied at the very least. Abortioneers do that for you.

Dr. Glick was an Abortioneer.

You may understand: Once you’ve bounced around in Abortionland for a while, you do find faith and hope tucked away in cargo pant pockets. You meet the second generation, post-Roe v Wade, genius providers and realize they don’t necessarily cover every county in the country, but you also meet researchers and entrepreneurs, artists, foundation officers, educators, and politicians who WANT and WILL find reproductive health care for every woman in this world. They have tailored their lives to fight peacefully and methodically for abortion so that you don’t have to if you can’t or don’t want to.

You may be fairly new to Abortionland—a freshman or sophomore, a student in training, still catching your bearings, and finding your niche. You may notice that a good number of young providers and medical students for choice are women who have had, do, or may have abortions, miscarriages, and babies. You’ve noticed that lines of gender, race, and sexuality blur in the reproductive justice movement, and you feel more comfortable as a living, breathing human-being than you’ve ever felt before. Sometimes you are sad and scared due to the violence and harassment we endure. You mourn the first degree murder of one of our wise leaders, Dr. George Tiller, and you whisper gratitude into the air in the likely event that Dr. Glick may still hear you.

You have a wild and lovely imagination, and you envision a world where your truth is not absurd. Every so often, you put the oxy-moronic, current stats behind you because you imagine the day when people know that the voices of choice are sitting beside them, quickening inside them.