Dr. Willie Parker, MD, MPH, MSc
In referring to reproductive rights, military metaphors are often used to describe the dynamics between those who support and those who would constrain women. If abortion access is “war”, then the state of Mississippi is the frontline, with the recent attempt of the state to implement requirements that abortions be performed by board certified/board eligible physicians in obstetrics and gynecology (OB-Gyn), and who hold hospital admitting privileges at a facility nearby. These regulations would shut down the remaining abortion clinic in the state, effectively denying women their constitutionally-protected right to abortion simply because they live in the state of Mississippi. Proponents of such an action argue that they are “protecting” the health of women, but the truth would suggest otherwise.
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts.” Reproductively speaking, the facts of Mississippi are: high teen and unintended pregnancy rates, high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, and astronomical poverty, accompanied by abortion access barriers of mandatory waiting periods, parental notification laws, biased state-mandated counseling, public scorn, and extremely aggressive protesters. These realities confront every woman in the state with an undesired pregnancy, or a wanted-but fatally flawed one. Their need for safe, compassionate, medical care, in this instance abortion, calls compellingly to anyone who would listen. We know world-wide that when abortion is legal and accessible, women remain healthy, and when it is not they die, often in populations with profiles similar to what I describe for Mississippi. Cognizant of this, I recently obtained a medical license and began travel to this great state to provide care. Now, invariably, I field two questions regarding that decision: why are you doing this, and what about your safety? I will address the second question first.
Agreeing with the notion that to ‘know is to become responsible’, my decision to become one of two physicians traveling to Mississippi to provide abortion care, largely due to doctors who live there quitting after being harassed, intimidated and ostracized, was prompted by my sense that women there experience the circumstances that make abortion necessary in the first place. These include limited access to or dysfunctional use of contraception, chaotic life circumstances, and serious health issues for a woman or the pregnancy that she carries. After growing increasingly uncomfortable turning women away who needed abortion due to my feeling religiously-conflicted about providing them during my first 12 years as an ob-gyn, a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King challenged me to a deeper spiritual understanding where compassion moved me to action on behalf of my patients. Similar to the defining quality of the Good Samaritan in Dr. King’s narrative of what made the Samaritan “good”, where the Samaritan reversed the question of concern to care more about the well-being of the person needing help than about what might happen to him for stopping to do so, my concern about women when there are no abortion services became more important to me than what might happen to me for providing the services.
In response to a query of why I choose to help women in Mississippi, the fact is that the women most at risk to be harmed by the loss of abortion services there are Black and poor. Twenty percent of all Mississippians live below the Federal poverty line, but 48% of Blacks there do, making it the poorest state in the country, a fact that exacerbates if not causes the life circumstances that lead to abortion. This observation is not to racialize the impending loss of abortion access for all women in the state, but rather indicates that my personal commitment to address the provider shortage there stems in part from my lived experience of growing up as a poor Black child in the south (Alabama) and knowing first-hand the dire circumstances that converge to create desperation for women with unintended or fatally flawed pregnancies. During my clinic days there recently, I counseled a pregnant woman with 5 kids, the youngest who had just died a year ago from cancer, who indicated that she could not care for another child financially or emotionally. She, along with others had traveled from various distances in the state for their first state-mandated counseling visit ,or were returning for their procedure following a second trip from hours away, often complicated by childcare/work considerations and doubled travel costs. They typify the hardships that Mississippi women endure due to the present laws.
In an oversimplification of the decisions facing the women that I saw, those opposed to abortion often opine that “women can simply place a baby that they don’t want for adoption”. I submit that for Black women that decision is more complex. The foster care system in this country is filled with Black babies that no one adopts, 80% of children in foster care being African American. For black women the decision to continue an unplanned pregnancy becomes one of bearing a child and struggling to meet its basic needs, or to not bring it into the world at all, as opposed to having a baby to be placed in a system where no one wants it, the few high profile trans-racial adoptions by celebrities non-withstanding. Hence, the more complex reproductive dilemmas that the women in Mississippi face compelled me to meet their need, being a son of the South and sharing heritage with the people most vulnerable to policies that when enacted only exacerbate their suffering.
In closing, to the question of why I go to Mississippi, the answer is, I want for women there what I want for myself: a life of dignity, health, self-determination, and the opportunity to excel and contribute. We know that when women have access to abortion, contraception, and medically accurate sex education, they thrive. It should be no different for the women of Mississippi.
Willie J. Parker, MD, MPH, MSc is a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist who provides abortions. He serves on the board of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health (PRCH) and The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC).
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! You are my HERO!!!!
God Bless you, Dr. Parker.
Please be careful in your travels throughout Mississippi! We are going back in time in this country; ignorance abounds! At the same time they’re closing down abortion clinics in Mississippi, they’re preventing schools from providing birth control for high school students; as I’m sure you know, Mississippi has the highest rate of pregnant teenagers in the entire country. Again, please be careful!
Correction: Please be careful in your travels throughout Mississippi! We are going back in time in this country; ignorance abounds! At the same time they’re closing down abortion clinics in Mississippi, they’re preventing schools from providing birth control information for high school students; as I’m sure you know, Mississippi has the highest rate of pregnant teenagers in the entire country. Again, please be careful!
God bless you! I admire you more than words can possibly express. Please be careful… I know you’ve probably gotten a chorus of people telling you that, but even sitting here heaven knows how many years after the Cheney/Goodman/Schwerner murders, in beautiful if arid New Mexico, as the liberal offspring of two freedom marchers (a Russian-Jewish man and a Norwegian farmgirl from Minnesota — their’s was a “mixed marriage” to many in those days) from the 50s and 60s in the oilfield states my Dad worked in, I cannot summon a more terrifying state to mind than Mississippi. It’s a visceral reaction on my part. Mississippi still strikes me as the epitome of intolerance — and so for a black doctor to offer abortion services there… Man, you are a courageous soldier in the fight for justice… Excuse the phrase, but you’ve got some major stones. I hope God watches over you always! The world needs more men of courage, conviction, and compassion.
Is there any way (through a foundation or otherwise) to donate to help support Dr. Parker in this effort? I know I would certainly be interested in doing so.
you could donate to the Jackson Women’s Health Organization they frequently have women who need help accessing procedures because of lack of funds. They are also in the middle of a legal fight with the state to stay open. You can google them to find their contact info.
Thank you for having the courage to do what is right in the face of danger. You provide women with hope for the life they deserve.
Blessings to you for following your compassionate heart and taking the risk in providing a much needed service. Much love and support, and prayers coming your way.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dr. Parker!
Thank you for your amazing work, Dr. P. You are my hero!
Keep up the good work, my brother and colleague. The fight for reproductive rights goes on into the 21st century, and you are indeed on the front lines. Godspeed.
Thank you Dr. Parker, for your bravery, for your service, and for sharing the process of how your faith and Dr. King’s words brought you to it. I found one passage particularly incisive:
I submit that for Black women that decision is more complex. The foster care system in this country is filled with Black babies that no one adopts, 80% of children in foster care being African American. For black women the decision to continue an unplanned pregnancy becomes one of bearing a child and struggling to meet its basic needs, or to not bring it into the world at all, as opposed to having a baby to be placed in a system where no one wants it, the few high profile trans-racial adoptions by celebrities non-withstanding.
It doesn’t take much scratching of the surface to see that the question of how those children came to be in foster care or why they are labeled “unadoptable” is tied up in racist and classist determinations of who is competent to parent and how they should do so, and devaluation of black babies and their right to family life. The women you describe find themselves in the untenable position of being able to “choose” to carry to term, but then stripped by law and by circumstance of any opportunity to parent with dignity. This is no choice at all.
Yes! Thank you for raising this point. And thank you too, to Dr. Parker for being brave enough to help those who need it the most.
Thank you for service you provide, Willie. You are a hero.
I think the problem with those enacting laws is that life is so much more complex than they’ll ever understand.
Agree with the comments above: we’re turning the clock backwards so fast I expect we’ll be living in Medieval times soon. Not looking forward to the medicinal leeches.
Thank you, Dr. Parker. It’s obvious that you and your staff know that you will face many obstacles. It’s takes a lot of love and courage to push through that. Thank you again.
I would like to respectfully disagree with the good doctor’s views. Despite his experience, does no one one the black community teach young girls to avoid sex? Or teach the men and boys to abstain? Despite the good intentions,the end doesn’t justify either the means, or the death of a child. Just saying…
Cathi, you are welcome to your own views, and to disagree with those views that honor women as being capable of making their own life decisions. However, you are NOT entitled to force your religious/moral views on others as far as “abstinence education,” which has been an abject failure everywhere it’s been tried, and particularly in states like Mississippi. You are not entitled by your views to block access to contraception or abortion to people that deserve to be able to control their own fertility.
Also, for the record, a zygote, embryo, or fetus is not a “child” anymore than an egg is a chicken. This stems strictly from your religious belief, and isn’t even supported in the bible.
Very well said Lynn.
Yes. I’d add that being poor is enough of an insult in an affluent nation without the compound insult of being told you don’t deserve sex if you want it, as well.
I think it more or less has to do with the educational system in poverty stricken communities. . . and the lack of parental involvement. The lack of involvement is often not because the parents don’t care, but because they are away from the home, from working two or more jobs. It happens in poor white communities, too.
Which is why the stance of the “religious” right is so intolerable. Indeoendence of body and personal liberty only apply to men in their worldview. Women control their fertility through education and access to birth control and —the economic opportunity that is allowed through family planning ? No, tja would undermine their conception of inequality between men and women.
Better always to be barefoot and pregnant and sexless.
oh Cathi who told you black people are amoral? First of all most women receiving abortions are GROWN WOMEN in their 20′s not teens for you to say they shouldn’t have sex is insulting at best. These decisions need to be left to a women, her doctor and HER GOD not yours or your morality.
Thank you doctor.
Thank you for having the courage to stand up for women’s rights in Mississippi. As a resident of this state I am aware of how difficult it will be for you here. God be with you. And thanks.
You’re a hero! Good luck!
Thank you for your incredible courage and compassion.
Thank you so much for your courage and your service. Honestly, what’s happening to reproductive rights makes me want to flee the country, but your response is by far the worthier one, and an inspiration. All my hopes to you, your patients, and their loved ones who will also be served by your care.
Write on and right on, Will!
God bless you, Dr. Parker! Everything you said is the absolute truth. We need more good men & women physicians like you. You are doing wonderful work. Thank you so, so much!
Thanks you so much Dr. Willie, for your eloquence, your wisdom and your fight!
Thank you! Not only for keeping the needs of others before yourself, but for being committed enough to the cause of women (of all ethnic backgrounds) but for being brave enough to publish your reasoning. Kudos and many prayers to you!
Dr. Parker now resides w/the dedicated and truly humanitarian physicians that understand the consequences on womens’ lives when safe legal services are not avaiable. He also understands, as he says, “as a son of the south”, the particular needs that beset women of the south. Many blessings and safety nets around this remarkably brave and caring individual!
I love you so much for doing this. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If I had any kind of aptitude for medicine, believe me, I’d be right there with you. Please, please take care of yourself.
Thank you for your actions and for your words, Dr Parker. Your compassion, insight and bravery are admirable. You set a fine example for your profession.
Wow. God Bless You and THANK YOU. You are a hero and an inspiration.
thank you thank you thank you!
Right on, Dr. Parker! Thank you for thinking first of the needs of women and taking on this very dangerous work. In addition to all the blessings being wrapped around you, please remember to use all safety precautions necessary so that you can keep doing great work. You are a moral giant in they eyes of many women (and quite a few men). You leave a trail of peace and love behind you wherever you go.
Wow. Just, WOW. I am in awe of you, Dr. Parker. Does the Dr. have a bodyguard when he travels? If not, maybe there should be a fund one can donate to, to hire such a bodyguard? Seriously.
As a young woman, who grew up in poverty, now living and attending graduate school alone in Alabama, I absolutely applaud your contribution to the women of the south! We need brave doctors to help support our reproductive rights. I recently faced an unplanned pregnancy, and due to prescreening complications and insurance restrictions in Alabama, I made the decision to have an abortion in Georgia, at a supportive and caring clinic. I don’t know where I would have been had a clinic been any farther away. I know deeply that the women of the south welcome you with open arms
. THANK YOU!
Thank you doctor. You are my new hero.
Thank you, Dr. Parker, for your compassion. Amazing.
The foster care system in this country is filled with Black babies that no one adopts, 80% of children in foster care being African American. For black women the decision to continue an unplanned pregnancy becomes one of bearing a child and struggling to meet its basic needs, or to not bring it into the world at all, as opposed to having a baby to be placed in a system where no one wants it, the few high profile trans-racial adoptions by celebrities non-withstanding.
My amazing son happens to be an African American child who’s birth mom could not care for him as he needed to be cared for so she graciously allowed me to be his adoptive mom. We have been trying for years to add to our family through adoption again as have many of our friends and acquaintances (none of whom are celebrities). I am surprised and saddened to read this. Why are these children being placed in care instead of allowing the mother to make an adoption plan? Struggling to meet a child’s needs, foster care or abortion are not the only options.
I don’t have the answer but I can tell you when I considered adoption I was told straight up I had limited options because my child was black and I had previously given birth to twins with autism. They sent me a packet with 3 families in it. My friend who was white and having a white baby (a boy when that was known bonus) she couldn’t beat the families off her that wanted to adopt her child. That is reality. So bravo to you and your friends but ya’ll are the exception not the rule.
Bless you, Dr. Parker. I will be praying for your safety. I hope that we can continue to carve out a space in the abortion-debate “dialogue” for faith-based commitments to choice.
Dr. Parker,
We can never thank you enough for your service. You and the clinic staff are giving women and their families the respect and dignity they deserve and to access what would be routine healthcare for many of us. Thank you for your commitment to reproductive healthcare for all. We stand with you!
with admiration,
Phyllis
Northern California
Thank you for doing this important work. You’re a courageous and man.
You are my daughter’s hero (she assists as a nurse in the Jackson clinic) and I applaud your courage. It’s difficult to be on the frontlines in a battle for reproductive rights. What I am amazed at is how positive all the comments have been to your blog post with no vitriol or hate.
We have a large number of families in Canada waiting to adopt. We have amazing, incredible families waiting to adopt black children and do whatever they can to keep their child connected to their culture. Its not perfect, but it works. It would so change the face of fostercare in Mississippi if adoption agencies were outgoing Hague approved and could work with Canadian Families.
Applause to you and admiration. I also am Canadian and am a mom of four, two children were adopted from Africa. My sister in law adopted from the Us. We have been so blessed to have these children in our lives. I wish the medical system and political system would be able to provide healthcare and support for woman who did want to choose adoption. There are so many Canadian families that would love these babies and give them opportunities from being loved and cared for. But it’s complicated but not unworthy of a fight. Wishing for all choices for mothers everywhere.
Thank you so much for giving women the ability to exercise our rights and to receive compassionate care!! You will never know how many of us are SO grateful for your courage and commitment!!
As a daughter of Mississippi who fled the state as soon as I was old enough – thank you, Dr. Parker. I salute your courage and your compassion.
Hmm…
I agree that helping with birth control and changing the system so women have that control is good, but I just, eugh, abortion…
I can agree with adoption, I can agree with pre-coitus birth control, I can agree with education. More than anything I agree with the notion of self-control, so people (both men and women) have less sex to begin with…
But I just can’t agree with abortion, it’s awful. I just think of blood and the baby suffering and this notion of doctor’s suddenly having the duty of *taking* life, which is so very *wrong*, on so many levels…
Everyone is entitled to their opinion…so you don’t like abortion? Don’t have one. Oh there we go…you are a man….lucky you, you will never have to make that difficult choice now will you?
You’d better get out there and start practicing some of that self-control then, Michael. If abortion is so horrid to you I’d recommend not having any sex with women. Practice what you preach.
Dr. Parker, thank you for doing the right thing at a time and in a place when the world makes it so difficult. Thank you.
As a Mississippi woman who likely would not survive a pregnancy for mental health reasons: thank you. Thank you so much. We need you, and we need more people to follow your lead.
Mississippi has so many problems with sexual education, and it makes me angry when I see that the same people who are pushing to make abortion illegal are the same ones who push for abstinence-only education and the reduction of birth control access for the poor. They punish women for not knowing what they refuse to teach, and for not using what they refuse to give. It’s terrible, and very, very un-Christan. I know that the extent of sex ed given in my high school was the infamous STD slideshow, and how a pregnancy progresses — and the administration is baffled at the number of pregnancies and STDs.
We are in dire need of educators and heath providers who are willing to make a change, or conditions in the state will only continue to deteriorate — and so many people are financially tied here; they can’t just move somewhere with a higher standard of living.
Thank you thank you thank you and I do wish you safety and security in your every important work.
Thank you and God bless you, Dr. Parker. I will keep you in my prayers and hope for your continued safety. Thank you for all you do and the countless lives you touch everyday!
Thank you so much Dr. Parker. You are already a hero.