The New York City Doula Project is seeking volunteers to work as doulas “across the spectrum of pregnancy.” Here is the text of their announcement:
What is a Doula?
The word doula is an ancient Greek term that translates to “caregiver.” A doula provides emotional support, pain management and relaxation techniques, and information to her clients as needed.
Birth – A Birth Doula will provide all of the above throughout a client””s labor and delivery, as well as the immediate postpartum period (about two hours after the baby has been born). The doula meets with clients prenatally to talk about birthing preferences, the creation of a birth plan, and to practice different positions and relaxation techniques for labor. Additionally, a birth doula provides a postpartum visit to review the client’s birth experience and refer them to any resources they may need. Birth doulas are on call for their clients for three weeks.
Abortion- An Abortion Doula will provide all of the above to clients who are choosing to terminate the pregnancy. The doula will stay with the client throughout her procedure, as well as part of the recovery period, and will remain in touch with the client as she desires thereafter.
About The Doula Project:
The Doula Project is a pro-choice New York City-based organization that was started in 2007 to provide free services to lower-income individuals across the spectrum of pregnancy. It was founded by pro-choice doulas and reproductive justice activists, two of whom currently serve as the Project Co-Coordinators. The Project is a volunteer led and run organization that trains and manages its own doula base. We currently have 3 programs that serve the greater NYC area:
1) To provide doula care to people facing abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth (in partnership with a Manhattan Public Hospital and Planned Parenthood Brooklyn). You do not have to be a birth doula to serve as an abortion doula. We train our own volunteers on this component of care.
2) To provide doula care to people choosing adoption (in partnership with Spence Chapin Adoption Agency). Please be a trained birth doula to apply. We do not require a lot of experience, only a formal training with an established doula certifying program.
3) To provide doula care on a case by case basis to lower-income individuals who are not affiliated with either of our partner organizations. Please be a trained birth doula to apply. We do not require a lot of experience, only a formal training with an established doula certifying program.
We are recruiting doulas for all components of our mission, though priority is given to those who are interested in being both Birth and Abortion Doulas. While you are not required to serve as a doula for all components, you are expected to support the mission and values of the entire project and the work each individual doula engages in. You are also expected to attend all components of our training. We encourage you to apply for all components of our work!
Abortion Doulas:
We are looking for people interested in training as abortion doulas to work with clients in NYC clinics and hospitals. Doulas will be present and provide emotional support to clients before, during and after abortions. We are looking for people who can work at least 2 weekdays a month as well as complete 40 hours of training, provided by The Doula Project, in the summer of 2011. Trained birth doulas are particularly encouraged to apply, though we are excited to bring on reproductive health and justice activists who have no prior doula training.
Job description:
Report to the assigned hospital/clinic each workday
Meet with clients in the clinic/hospital before abortion and answer any questions/concerns, help fill out paperwork, and provide pre-abortion counseling
Provide client with emotional support during abortion (includes 1st and 2nd trimester and laminaria placements). Please note: This means you will be expected to be in the operating room with the client as needed.
Provide clients with your number to call you anytime to talk after abortion.
Meet with clients anytime if desired after abortion
Commitment:
Commit to two 5- 8-hour weekdays per month (Monday – Friday 9-5PM)
Commit to meeting with the client outside of clinic setting after abortion, if desired
Provide personal number to client as desired
Attend monthly abortion doula meetings
Attend 40 hours of training in the summer of 2011 (includes 25 hours classroom over the course of one week/15hours clinic over the course of three to four weekdays)
At least one-year commitment to project
When working in hospital/clinic settings, become hospital/clinic volunteer and go through volunteer training
Adoption and Birth Doulas:
We are looking for previously trained birth doulas to work with birth moms who may be choosing adoption and with clients who cannot otherwise afford doula care. We partner with Spence-Chapin to provide doula support to their clients and support low-income clients who sign up through our website, free of charge. You do not have to have a lot of experience as a doula and will work as part of a two-person doula team. A back-up doula will always be provided for every birth.
Job description:
Coordinate with your partner doula to ensure that at least one of you will be available at all times during your five-week on-call period.
Meet with clients, for a minimum of two prenatal visits as desired by the client and as time allows
Assist client in the creation of a birth plan
Answer questions and provide resources per client””s request
Remain in constant contact with client before and during the on-call period, and after, as client desires
Provide continuous support at the time of the client””s labor and delivery
Meet with clients for a minimum of one postpartum visit after the birth, as the client desires
Commitments:
Participate in adoption training with Spence-Chapin (part of larger training we provide)
Commit to one (1) birth every 6 weeks
Commit to a minimum of two prenatal visits and two postpartum visits
Commit to the five-week on-call period with your partner doula. At least one of you must be available at all times during the on-call period.
Provide personal cell phone or pager number to clients
At least one-year commitment to the project
Adhere to Doula Project and Spence-Chapin policies and protocols.
Doula training will take place the weekend of June 18th and 19th (9am-5pm). In order to offset some of the cost of the training workshops, we will be asking each applicant accepted to the Doula Project to pay $25 on the first day of training. We recognize that this may be difficult for some of us; if this is the case for you, please just drop us a line. We will waive the workshop fee, no questions asked.
How to apply:
People with experience in doula work, reproductive health, rights and justice work, abortion counseling or health services are encouraged to apply. People under 30, people of color, queer and trans people and Spanish speakers are strongly desired. People with flexible/free weekdays are ideal. While we are willing to negotiate for the right person, priority will be given to those who can commit to at least two weekdays a month.
Abortion doulas and births doulas who take births through our website will serve in an unpaid volunteer capacity. Adoption doulas will receive small stipends through the adoption agency. We realize this is a big time commitment and will do everything possible to take care of our doulas and work within your schedules.*
If you are interested in working with us, we are accepting applications now through April 25th. Please send completed applications at apply@doulaproject.org
Last Tuesday’s Social Medicine Rounds (9/8/2009) was prompted by the brutal murder of family physician George Tiller on Sunday May 31st 2009. While serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Dr. Tiller was shot in the head and killed. We convened this Rounds to consider how we might respond to his death. Two issues dominated the discussion. The first was the failure of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) to condemn the murder. The second was an examination of the ongoing barriers to abortion care that exist even in a relatively progressive state such as New York. These problems were illustrated through 3 case vignettes.
The Death of Dr. Tiller
Dr. Tiller’s career as a family physician took a path he did not anticipate. Like many conscientious physicians, his clinical practice responded to the needs of his patients. Here is the story told in his own words (taken from the Physicians Voices section of the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health website):
In July of 1970, I planned to start a dermatology residency. On August 21, 1970, my father, mother, sister and brother-in-law were killed in an aircraft accident. My sister had a 12-month-old boy, Maurice. They had written out a will in longhand the evening before the airplane crash, that I was to raise Maurice. So we took charge of my sister’s boy and we moved back to Wichita. My game plan was to spend six months here, close out my father’s huge family medicine practice.
After I had been there for a little while, patients in the practice began to ask me if I was going to do abortions like my father did. I was outraged. Why would these nice people say that he was a scumbag kind of a physician?
I began to ask some of these women. And I found out that in 1945, ’46, or ’47, a young woman for whom Dad had already delivered two babies came to him pregnant again right away, and she said something to the effect that, “I can’t take it, can you help me?” That is apparently the way you asked for an abortion from your regular doctor before abortion was legal. Dad said, “No. Big families are in vogue, by the time the baby gets here, everything will be all right.” She had a non-healthcare provider abortion and came back and died.
I can understand how upset my father was. I do not know whether he did 100 abortions or 200 abortions or 300 abortions. I think it may have been something like 200 over a period of about 20 years, but I don’t know for sure. The women in my father’s practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is about women’s hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives. Abortion is a matter of survival for women.
When it became legal and my patients began to ask for it, I’d say, “Sure. It’s a legal process.” I was a service provider. I was a physician. The patients needed abortions, and I did them. It is my fundamental philosophy that patients are emotionally, mentally, morally, spiritually and physically competent to struggle with complex health issues and come to decisions that are appropriate for them.
We’ve been picketed since 1975. My office has been blown up. In 1993, I survived an assassination attempt. My kids were harassed in high school. I had to write letters of complaint to the City Council and the Board of Education. We had people who actually camped across the street from our house. I restrict where I go to eat, where I travel. You see a car following you, you think, “Ah-ha, let’s watch that.” You’re always on alert. You’re always looking around.
I was leaving the office. It was 7:00 in the evening. As I’m driving out, I have to slow down and I have to stop. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and I thought to myself, “That lady is shooting me with rubber bullets. I’m not afraid of rubber bullets.” Then I looked down and all this blood is all over the place. I thought, “She shot me. She can’t do that! I’ll get her.” I saw her running through some front yards. So I zipped down the street, turned in front of her to block her escape. She stops and reaches into this little fanny pack that she’s wearing in the front, and I thought, “She’s going for her gun again. She shot you once, George. She’ll shoot you again. You are in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
So then I drove off. Ended up back at the office, and I don’t remember anything for about 20 minutes. I remember trying to get into my car and drive myself to the hospital. I said, “Let’s not make this a big media event.” Well, I had lost 20 minutes and the TV trucks were there. I thought, “How’d they’d get here so soon?”
There was never any question in my mind that I was going back to work the next day. I belonged there and they were not going to separate me from my job and they were not going to separate me from my community. So I did go to work the next day, and we got everything done. People got taken care of, it took a long time. Arms hurt, bled a little bit, but so what? I am not going to be run over and I’m not going to run out. It’s just that simple.
I am a member of this community. Our DNA has been here since 1880. I belong here. The folks that come in from out of town, they are the intruders. Forty percent of all the people who were arrested here during the Operation Rescue in 1991 came from out of state. I intend to stay here. I am part of the fabric of Kansas and Kansas is part of the fabric of me.
I have more to be grateful for than I have to be resentful about. We have much more support in Wichita than we have rejection and castigation. If Wichita and our community did not want us to be here, I wouldn’t be here. But the vast majority of people in Wichita support, on a quiet level, what we do, which is help women and families.
Extensive coverage of the murder can be seen in this June 1, 2009 broadcast of Democracy Now. This program includes an excerpt from a 2008 speech Dr. Tiller gave to the Feminist Majority Foundation in which he explained his social vision: “We’ve given war, pestilence, hate, greed, judgment, ego, self-sufficiency a good try, and it failed. We need a new paradigm that consists of kindness, courtesy, justice, love and respect in all our relationships.”
Non-Response of the American Academy of Family Physicians
Tiller’s death was clearly not a random act of violence. As noted by Colorado physician Dr. Warren Hern:
I think it’s the inevitable consequence of more than 35 years of constant anti-abortion terrorism, harassment and violence. George is the fifth American doctor to be assassinated. I get messages from these people saying, ‘Don’t bother wearing a bulletproof vest, we’re going for a head shot.’
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) finds the murder of George Tiller, MD, deplorable and tragic. There is no excuse, no explanation, and no justification for this brutal slaying of a courageous and honorable physician who provided safe and legal reproductive health care to women who otherwise might not have received it. It is especially chilling and deeply disturbing that this violence has occurred at a time when the leaders of this country are committed to finding a common ground in the abortion debate.
ACOG extends its sympathy to the family of this dedicated physician who treated his patients with dignity and compassion.
As ACOG expressed in response to the 1998 murder of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian, “With each new incident of anti-abortion violence, the previously unthinkable becomes commonplace—that vandalism could turn to murder, that slayings could move from the clinic to inside the home.” The murder of Dr. George Tiller is even more horrific in that he was killed in a house of worship as he and his family attended church services.
There is no common ground when it comes to violence of this nature. All groups in the abortion debate, whatever their personal opinion on abortion, must condemn such brutality in the strongest possible terms. Failure to make such condemnation is acquiescence to violence and intimidation. Only by standing together can we ensure that acts of brutality end.
In fact, even some anti-abortion groups condemned the killing. Here are the words of Troy Newman of Operation Rescue from a June 3, 2009 editorial in USA Today:
The fundamental tenet of the pro-life movement is that human life has intrinsic value and is deserving of protection from the moment the seed and egg unite, until natural death. To take a life without due process devalues all life.
We at Operation Rescue were shocked to hear of the killing of late-term abortionist George Tiller and were among the first groups to denounce the cowardly act that took Tiller’s life. It was not justice, but vigilantism, which must be abhorred by a society that embraces the rule of law over anarchy.
With even the anti-abortion movement condemning the murder, how odd it seems that the American Academy of Family Physicians (Working for Family Medicine, Working for You), of which Tiller was a member, refused to issue a statement. A strongly critical commentary by Dr. Joshua Freeman (The Murder of George Tiller – Where is Family Medicine’s Response) in this month’s Family Medicine explored the reasons cited by the Academy for this refusal. The AAFP pointed to a policy that it “does not comment publicly on a member’s death (regardless of how it occurred) but expresses condolences privately to the family.” Of course George Tiller did not merely die. He was murdered. He was not simply murdered. He was assassinatedfor carrying out his duties as a physician. One cannot help but remember the comments of ACOG:
All groups in the abortion debate, whatever their personal opinion on abortion, must condemn such brutality in the strongest possible terms. Failure to make such condemnation is acquiescence to violence and intimidation.
Barriers to Abortion Access in New York: 3 case studies
We then considered three case scenarios illustrating the barriers to abortion access in New York State. Each case came with a series of discussion points. One point, considered in each of the cases, was the role of abortion in current health care reform proposals. (All identifying information has been removed or altered in these cases).
Case 1: Teresa is a 22 year old woman, G1P1, who comes to your office for a refill of her Nuva-Ring. She reports that she had actually run out 4 weeks ago, but couldn’t afford the time off from work at the Post Office to get in any sooner. She had unprotected sex 2 weeks ago. Her pregnancy test is now positive. Teresa is sure she cannot afford to have another baby right now. She decides with you to have an abortion. You give her the number to call Planned Parenthood to schedule it, and she calls you back later to tell you her insurance does not cover the procedure because she is a federal employee.
Discussion Points:
The Hyde Amendment bans the use of federal funds for abortions except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest.
In addition, 32 states and the District of Columbia have prohibited the use of their state Medicaid funds for abortions except in limited cases allowed under the Amendment.
What is your role as her primary care doctor in facilitating her timely access to abortion care?
What are the implications for a universal federal health plan?
Case 2: Angela is a 31 year old woman G6P4, who works as a babysitter “off the books,” and comes to your office because she is pregnant and wants an abortion. You know that she has Medicaid so you refer her to the local abortion clinic for care. She calls you the next day to tell you she was denied care because her insurance does not cover abortion. You are confused because in New York Medicaid does cover abortion, so you call the clinic. They tell you that your patient has Fidelis (a Catholic HMO) and Fidelis does not cover abortion care.
Discussion Points:
What is your role as her primary care doctor in facilitating her timely access to abortion care?
What happens with Medicaid HMO’s that are “owned” by the Catholic Church?
What does this mean about how our tax dollars are being spent?
Can Angela use her Medicaid to pay for her abortion?
Would she be covered by a federal health plan?
Case 3: Monica is a 16 year old woman, G0P0, currently attending Roosevelt High School. She was sent to you by her school-based health center because she had a positive pregnancy test. Monica’s parents have insurance, but she does not want them to know that she is pregnant. After talking to you, she decides she would like an abortion. But she stresses the importance of not letting her parents find out. She tells you that last year her 18 year old sister got pregnant and they kicked her out of the house.
Discussion points:
What are the rules in New York State regarding confidentiality for teens around pregnancy care?
Can she get other insurance to pay for her abortion?
What are the systems issues around eligibility for Medicaid?
What is your role as her primary care doctor in facilitating her access to abortion care?
Access to abortion services has been an important concern in the US. One way in which access can be expanded is through the integration of abortion services into Primary Care. A 2003 Medscape Interview with RPSM graduate Linda Prine discusses the role of medical abortion in family practice. Dr. Prine currently works with the Reproductive Health Access Project.
The DFSM currently offers a 2 year Fellowship in Family Planning and Reproductive Health. Fellows receive training in clinical research, both qualitative and quantitative, develop clinical and teaching skills, have opportunities to work internationally, and connect to a rapidly expanding network of family planning experts.
You are currently browsing the The Social Medicine Portal weblog archives for the Abortion Services category.
Doctors for the 99%: Medical Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street
The New York City Doula Project is seeking volunteers to work as doulas “across the spectrum of pregnancy.” Here is the text of their announcement:
