As I sweat and thirst under a Karachi sun...

I know, I am such a romantic -obviously. But the sweat, really is... well, let's just say for those of you who are averse to showering every day, this would teach you to shower at least once a day!

Anyway, so these to your left are just one of the many beautiful gates of the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan.

Today was a scorcher and as my "real" first day of work, I spent not 1 hour like Monday, but 2 whole hours 'working'. Welcome to the developing world. At least once I know a bit more about my particular 'assignments', I can get on with it even when everyone else decides to spend hefty chunks of their day doing aram (which means 'taking it easy'). But for now, I've gotta just go with the flow as it were. This morning I was at the Community Health Sciences (CHS) offices by 9, when I met about 10 Complementary Feeding Program (CF) field-coordinators (who work in 10 different low-income 'towns' of Karachi, enrolling, monitoring / following-up with mothers who agree to have their babies be a part of either the fortified cereal-control or meat-intervention CF program starting 6 months of age, while they continue to breast-feed them -the point is to see whether meat will improve the babies' ability to 'thrive', including weight gain, neurocognitive function, head circumference, as well as their zinc, iron and other micronutrient status).

Anyway, so lo-and-behold, approximately none of those 10 field-coordinators spoke English... and my Urdu is, well... more or less non-existant. So there was lots of smiling and gesturing and fragmented-word-dropping. And then one of them, smiling at me, turns to another and says "Urdu nahin bol sakti... bohot mushkil..." Of course, this, I understood perfectly -basically, it more or less translates to, "wow this one's in deep shit if she's going into the field and doesn't speak Urdu". Having finished reading the thick CF Background and Protocol packet, I was given 2 more packets to read -the field study questionnaire forms and more detailed protocols -and then asked to return after lunch.

Anyway, the photo above is of the Juma (CSH) Building courtyard -pretty much all the courtyards at AKU are like this: fountains, trees, marble benches, tiling near archeways... very serene and beautiful.

So naturally, I read up the packets quickly, came home and checked e-mail, then set out to take some photos of the campus before waking up one day, realizing it's the day before I have to leave and that I haven't taken any!

Above is the stairwell of my building, "Arman Rupani", in the Women's Residences -notice the way the bricks are placed with those 'holes' providing natural ventilation, and on the right of this picture, the outer wall's "weeping" plaster, mentioned in my last post, allowing the building to stay cooler in the hot desert Karachi climate.



Here above is a little collage I made of 4 photos:

the top 2 are of my residences again, the left one being inside the res complex, and the right one, the outside;

the bottom left is mainly to show you the Pakistani crow at the bottom -these are abundant here, like seagulls back home, and they have this interesting black, white, black pattern, which I thought was different for a crow;

the bottom right is a painting of a Qu'ran ayat done by the famous Ismaili artist Gulgee, in one of the administrative building hallways.

This second collage above is mainly just more AKU central campus buildings, courtyards, including the hospital waiting area / courtyard on the top right, and the Aga Khan School of Nursing on the bottom right (this is right around the corner from my res!).

And so basically, when I went back to work, it was about an hour's worth of checking out the field study materials and "there's no work for you right now, so hang tight, and things will pick-up once you start in the field next week -for now, go home". So I did. But after the morning's mortification, I decided to spend the next few hours finding an online phrasebook and writing down common and useful Urdu expressions (which I will try to memorize over the weekend), before heading off to meet new friends and visit with older acquaintances.

Dinner in the cantine this evening was actually pretty good -a spicy, vegetable biryani, that was surprisingly less oily than the other caf food I've had here so far, which was nice. And then, I went to Noorabad Jamatkhana with one of my new friends in res, and that was quite an experience! The khane is essentially right next to the AKU campus, and although there is no AC, there are an impressive 96 ceiling fans in the prayer hall alone, and about 10 open windows. Also, the ceremony is rather different from what we do in North America and in Europe, in terms of the order and mixing of prayers and rituals. It was kind of bewitching I'd say -moving, but the heat and exhaustion (of the heat) made it all almost hypnotizing as well. Needless to say, people probably thought I was a nutcase, wiping away tears during a simple ginan (which is a South Asian Ismaili tradition, very much like singing a 'hymn').

Well, it's nearly midnight, so I'd best get to bed... that jet lag will hopefully be completely worn off soon. Love and miss you.

Welcome to Pakistan!

So, yes, I am in fact alive and well, since I arrived here in Karachi 2.5 days ago. Can I just say I have never spent so much time in airplanes and airports as those 36 hours between Montreal, Heathrow, Dubai and Karachi. 3.5 meals, 3 movies ('The Reader', 'Frost Nixon' and 'Three Coins in the Fountain' -all excellent films, this last being a 1954 classic with the same dashing actor, Louis Jourdan, who plays Gaston in 'Gigi' (1958)), 1 book (Confessions of a Shopaholic... hey, we all need a little light reading every now and then!), 5 hours of sleep, 1 creepy dude sitting next to me on the plane, and 13 hours spent waiting between flights later... I finally got to say 'hey' to the very sweet girl from Human Resources at the Aga Khan University who got me all set up with a luckily air-conditioned dorm room prior to my arrival and met me at the airport with her driver. Yes, this is how it works here, people have drivers (and just like the South Asian colonial 'motherland', they drive on the left side of the road).

I was welcomed with some 40+ degree Celsius heat (with humidity) -apparently, this is too hot for the mosquitos (so at least these are minimal, as are my risks of acquiring malaria, fingers-crossed). I was met at the dorm by 2 other Canadian ex-pat interns / employees of AKU who brought with them a healthy dose of welcoming care, unconditional friendship, wise advice re: locking up your stuff so it doesn't get stolen, where to eat and how to dress, and bearing bottled water, OJ, TP, chips, cookies, tea and sugar. Soon after my dear family friends arrived at the dorm with further supplies, including local currency and cellular telephone. Yes, I was very pampered, taken care of and quite honestly, spoiled (which has continued up until now so far).

Meanwhile, I did notice the rainbow-splashed buses with locals literally jumping out during 'rolling-stops', families of 4 sandwiched onto a scooter weaving its way through traffic, and children selling balloons in the middle of the street over the last few days, with a dusty haze of heat rising up between run-down strip malls, construction sites and apartment buildings, and frequent power outages across the city (some recently dying electrical wire near one of the dams was apparently the culprit, and well, if you thought Hydro-Quebec was bad at fixing stuff like this up in an efficient and timely manner, you ain't seen nothin', which sucks particularly for the less wealthy who do not have generators, and so some literally stay up all night fanning their children to sleep for lack of functioning fans or AC).

I slept strangely that night (hey, there's a 10-hour time difference, so it's gonna take me a few days for the circadian rhythms to entrain to this new light-dark cycle). The following morning, I was given a tour of the AKU campus (which is really gorgeous, lots of marble and red brick, and architecturally-environmentally-adapted 'weeping plaster' walls, trees, fountains, beautiful Islamic architectural motifs, the libraries are beautiful, the medical facilities are quite impressive, as is the athletic complex... the campus landscaping and motifs are breathtaking and so much so that I shouldn't bother describing them, but will try to take some photos in the near future to share with you), watched some orientation DVDs, learned that the Primary Investigator for the project I'm working on is actually out of the country until the end of the month, met instead with her under-supervisor and other research assistant, acquired a thick background and protocol packet to read and was then told to go home, read up and rest up for a couple of days before showing up to work.

So naturally, I called up our good family friends again (I really should just say 'family' from now on), their driver came to pick me up and they having been taking care of me since yesterday evening with such love and hospitality in their lovely home, with the comforts of air-conditioning, a comfy bed to sleep in with no little ants crawling around the floor (I know, for a dorm in Pakistan, this really isn't that bad, but after scorching in the heat and the exhaustion of jet-lag, not having to deal with this is very, very nice), home-cooking (various chicken and ground beef curries, green lentils, fresh chapattis, rice, home-made baked fries, rice, a diversity of pickles -carrot, lime, garlic -and chutnees, homemade lemonade with salt to rehydrate), lots of fresh fruit (different kinds of mangoes, delicious green apricots, lotus fruit, almonds, lychees, etc...), family chatter, and motherly TLC. Today I met more of the family, helped out with some shopping (even in Karachi, a mall is a mall is a mall... except you can get your leather wallets and bookmarks engraved with your name, and buy Indian suits and jewlery, and the DVD store sells pretty much a very wide-range of knock-offs, and you can buy books at the bookstore for literally half the price we pay in North America!), visited a local fabric market, ate some more, tried on a bunch of my adopted-mom's clothes to borrow while I'm here and accessed some internet at last (it will probably be at least another day if not more before I get connected in my dorm room).

Anyway, it's back to AKU tomorrow morning to take care of said Internet concerns, and tie up some loose ends before starting work, most likely nice and fresh Thursday morning. I felt kind of badly at first about 'slacking off' so early, but I guess I was given permission to do so and I haven't even been here 3 days yet, so might as well take a bit of time to get started on the 'right foot'.

That's all for now -will keep you posted on my adventures over the coming 7 weeks! Love and hugs to you all...

Amethysts of Learned Wisdom Before I Die

I'm not going to pretend I've got 'pearls' to share that I have discovered all on my own. I have glimpsed some Truths, learning from others, from Nature, and Perspective / the Universe / God though -transformative (purple) and healing (amethysts). If I were to die tomorrow, here's what you should know about the little I've discovered in life:

• Listen to Jason Mraz' 'Bella Luna', eat sweet, coral slices of watermelon in the summer and be utterly present -it will make you happy.
• Watch an old movie every now and then, preferably the kind with song and dance sequences (think Julie Andrews, Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers, Audrey Hepburn... maybe even some Bollywood) -the nostalgia is lovely.
• Read for pleasure. If you can, read Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth or some other great spiritual work (Tao, Rumi's Mathnawi, essays by Einstein and Kepler, letters by Newton, String Theory, Ramayana, The Alchemist, ancient Celtic lore, etc...) along with some fiction and some non-fiction of your choice.
• Realize that you probably actually love working if your work is fulfilling -idleness gets pretty old pretty fast. So just admit it, enjoy it and enjoy the breaks you take in between.
• Travel to the country where you left behind a piece of your soul in some past life. For me, it's Turkey -that's my bias, everyone oughta' love it, but anyway, go where you will.
• Meditate or pray. Or go running, or train for a Triathlon, or hike up a mountain. Or do as many of these as you can or want to -they are all co-reinforcing.
• Explore your home city or town as though you were a tourist there every now and then. You'll be surprised at the many new things you discover. Like a diamond-repository of cheeses -blue cheese that's actually delicious, smoked Gouda, Guyere, Brie, etc... Or a novel exhibit at your local museum. Or delicious pastries or chocolates in unlikely places (Chinatown anyone?)
  
• Remember that if you were to die tomorrow, you've lived your life perfectly. No regrets, no laments, no complaints, no grudges. This world and this life is about learning and growing -so-called 'bad' relationships, 'bad' experiences, 'poor' judgements -these were all your best teachers. So be thankful for them. Yes, even them.

And when you think you've got it, that Truth you search for, even for a moment, it may feel like it's slipped away soon after. It hasn't though -it's just a challenge to see it all the time. So just laugh it off when you find yourself back in a mad world after a split-second of clarity.

Final Ode to Sophie

Today was the McGill Med/Anatomy Body Donor Memorial Service. It was beautiful -calm and peaceful in Redpath Hall, intimate, with reflection-readings, reading out the donor names, piano music (really loved the Debussy!), and med-dent choir singing that stirred one's soul. Anyway -my favourite line of all the reflections was from one of my peers (I'm keeping him anonymous because I'm not sure he wants the pub!): "As I got to know you, it became a difficult question to answer whether I had taken your heart out or whether you had taken ours... I can't wait to meet you again!" The simple Truth really. My own reflection (the one I read at the service) is below.

Sophie

The first time I fell in love with humanity, I was probably 4 years-old. But on that Tuesday afternoon, this past September, it happened all over again. This is the moment I would like to share with you.

Walking up to the anatomy lab, I am so nervous it’s like springs and acrobats in my gut. And then, we remove the cover, and cut open the clear plastic encasement. I look at her hair and notice the grey roots, and short auburn-dyed locks. Her skin feels different from my own. All I could think is "What is her name?" I know it is early, but I cannot imagine trying to understand the mysterious universe in her body without first recognizing that she was a person, and she has a name.

I am in awe of her. I want to know who she is, what she did, did she love? Did she pick honey-suckle for her mum when she was little? Did she swim in the salty Atlantic or see rainbows on her lashes under a hot, blinding sun? Would she have given anything just for a stick of snow-frosted maple-taffy in the spring? She may not have been a teacher in real life, but she is teaching us now.

So, I am the first one to suggest a name for her. Sophie. From the ancient Greek sophos, meaning ‘wise’, wise like the greatest teachers in history –Plato, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, and now, Sophie. I make the first cut –it is an honour. I thank Sophie for what we're going to learn from her. I am not scared anymore, and I do not feel badly or guilty for cutting: Sophie wanted us to learn from her body, including any mistakes along the way. It would be okay. I quickly learn how much pressure to apply so that I can penetrate the skin, without going too deeply, but also without going too shallow. I am completely focused -this is how I can honour her, to be fully present with her, and do my best by her.

And then I see it, everything inside Sophie. We learn theoretical anatomy and physiology in class –the real thing is strikingly unlike anything else. Is Sophie that same human body? Before I know it, we’re finished for today. We cover Sophie up and I thank her one more time before washing scalpels and forceps. Afterwards though, all I can think of is how strange I feel in my own body. This human body, this human mortal body. I keep running my hands over my skin, pinching it, making it tight. What does my skin feel like? And all I can see is everything inside Sophie.

And Sophie, in her mortal life, and in death, gave us this special, special gift –she did not know me, but she gave it to me anyway, she trusted me anyway. She taught me that we're all going to die one day, and our human muscles will look like the muscles of the wildlife we might see on our hikes up mountains, and through forests. Sophie taught me that I might learn to know all the muscles, and vessels, and nerves in her body, but I could not know her thoughts, feelings and dreams. These will remain a mystery to me, just like her name. When we leave this world the ‘who we are’ is no longer there. But Sophie actually was still here. She was teaching us, with her physical body, in death. Her lesson transcended all things physical –it was deeply philosophical, existential. Until then I could not imagine what it might be like to try to be useful, not only in life, but to serve in death. I was in such a daze. Did I even know what it meant to really make it count? Sophie, sophos. If it was ever possible to feel mortality, I felt it that Tuesday.

Naila Ramji

Medicine 1, 2009

Sacred and Mindful Indeed.

I particularly love this photo that I took when we were in Niagara Falls not too long ago. Yesterday, I attended a 'Mindful Medical Practice' meditation workshop which was really wonderful. That's all I can say really -it was further awakening, very interesting and in case you didn't realize it, we're all so very connected to each other, and so much more than you think (if you really knew how much, it would freak you out). But there's no use trying to explain these things in much detail -some personal, spiritual journeys cannot be put into words... or at least not right away. Let's keep it sacred for a while. Enjoy the love all around. Don't sweat the mist.

Light on the Wards

She's the reason I went into medicine. This young, wise palliative care physician, with enlightenment shining from her eyes, who is compassionate and humble and excellent at her job. She is the reason -so that I could be her. Or at least this side of her that I met today in the Montreal General Hospital Palliative Care Unit.

This was probably my best clinical encounter. Because it is calm and peaceful, and there is a seemingness of 'all the time in the world' for the patients, for the doctors to be with their patients, for them to share in a common human experience, to grieve and be existentially reborn, to walk together into very dark places, and if they're lucky, to enjoy just a moment of blinding clarity. But only a moment, most of the time. She said it well, that doctor: "Because how long can you stare at the sun".

And the patient. What a special woman. She also had that light in her eyes -the light of someone who has suffered, who is still struggling, someone with an abundance of joy and fear and love and frustration and hope and despair, all at the same time. She described the cancer that has made itself comfortable in her physical body like a monster lurking inside that she hoped would stay sleeping, so that she can live just a bit longer, so that she can be there for her teenage daughter, who is everything to her and the only thing to her, even amongst supportive friends. And she had been afraid to enter Palliative Care (who wouldn't right?) -but when she did go, she found she was looked after "like a Princess", her pain was addressed as the primary medical concern, and proper pain management is really complex medicine -doctors do not abandon their patients in end-of-life care. In fact, this patient said this doctor was the best doctor she had ever had -a doctor who she felt she could trust, who understood her, who had time for her, who what would she have done without her. They had a bond, that doctor and that patient -a real deep, existential connection that I have never seen before.

The doctor told us that there is a surprising similarity in experiencing the world of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Palliative Care -they were the only times that physicians were granted the privilege of being a part of the very personal, intimate human existential moments that were birth and death, for the sake of birth and death. I get that. I don't know it at all of course, I'm just a first-year medical student. But there's a beautiful synchrony there that I can understand, esoterically, anyway.

And it is beautiful indeed. Not easy though. Not at all. I didn't cry there -I went with the patient on her emotional 'roller-coaster' (excuse the cliche) as she told the story from her diagnosis, to her prognosis, to her multiple events of suffering, surgery, pain, infection -all of which had been debilitating in some way, whether physically, emotionally, psychologically, etc... I heard her talk about how she turned to God to get through those times in her life, one moment I watched her comment hopefully about getting on with life and going home soon, and the next, I felt the lump in my throat and forced back the wet, quivering scene in front of me, as tears flowed from her light grey-green eyes, down her cheeks and neck. No, it does not look at all easy. And yet.

It seems that in a big hospital frenzy of waits and lines, and crazies (the health care workers, not the patients), the impatience, the egos, rushing, rushing, rushing (time pressure indeed!), the place where patients, before they enter, perceive fearfully as death row, is actually where there is calm, there is time, there is cooperation between professionals which is inter- and intra-disciplinary, where the well-being of patients and medical staff are both taken into consideration (which means better doctoring!), where there is space to embark at last on your spiritual, existential journey -where you can, if you choose to, 'conference with the birds' -through valleys and mountains, hells and heavens until you transcend yourself and return home (as in your physical home, to be with your family and friends in your last days), or return directly Home. It doesn't happen that way for everyone, all the time -this is clear. What is also clear though is that people are not just going to Palliative Care to die. The doctors and patients in Palliative Care seem to me really to be living in the truest sense of being alive -intensely with heart, mind, and body. The end-of-life world seems to be a microcosm of life itself, really -it roughs you up pretty bad and you only get the spiritual reward of healing some of the time. But what an honour for a physician to be a part of all of that. Don't you think?

May's Perfumes that Flood the Air

"You can't say to the spring: 'Come now and last as long as possible.' You can only say: 'Come and bless me with your hope, and stay as long as you can.'"

Words lost on the wind. But I needed to hear them, and he needed to say them. I fell asleep, although I don't know when. I dreamed, not of a situation or of a person, but of a perfume that flooded the air.

~Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

Aren't these words delicious? Love 'em (I do). Just finished the novel by the way and it is quite good -one of those self-discovery, spiritual journey type of stories... easy to read, but also quite profound and revealing. Also there's lots of sex so prepare yourself accordingly if you decide to read it (I mean, it's the spiritual adventure of a prostitute after all). Anyway, I read it this week almost only during my commute between school and home -what a wonderful discovery to be able to escape into a different kind of personal growth and pleasure whilst using one's time so efficiently! Usually reading in moving things gives me headaches and nausea, but not this one. I'm part way through Ayn Rand's Fountainhead though and I probably ought not to take that one up in the BMW (Bus, Metro, Walk). Just like I can't really study my Med World material there neither.

Last week's long weekend in Niagara was really perfect. We did all the touristy things -Maid of the Mist, right beneath the Falls, ate at the revolving restaurant (with a spectacular view and pretty good food), watched the IMAX film about the crazy daredevils who curled up in barrels which were then sealed, pumped up with oxygen and then thrown into the Niagara River to go tumbling down to near-death with the millions-of-bathtubs-full-at-any-given-moment of waterfall. And then pretty little Niagara-on-the-Lake all a-blossom, lush green parks, quaint little shops, vast vineyards (with Icewine that was really something else, I must confess -the Vidal, and the Riesling, especially, although the Cab Franc was not too bad... don't worry, on the official tasting, they probably only serve you half a champagne-flute total ;), and of course, an enchantingly entertaining couple of hours at the Theatre to experience some of this world famous Shaw Festival (it was a play called 'Brief Encounters' from Noel Coward's collection of 10 one-act plays called Tonight at 8:30).

Here's the thing about long weekends though: the following so-called 'short week' always feels long! How is this possible? I don't know really, but somehow the gods seem to like 'making it up' to us. It was hectic, but good. Immunology has been interesting,

Trekking out to St. Mary's Hospital was also interesting (my new Small Group this semester is terrific though! hey, i served my time with the rude crew if you recall ;),

Osler Society stuff -interesting too: Wednesday, we hosted a lecture in the Osler Library on "Art, Anatomy and the Representation of Knowledge", including a viewing of original 16th-19th century manuscripts; Thursday, we hosted a Philosopher's Cafe moderated by the famous conservative McGill Law Professor and bioethicist Margaret Somerville on "Crisis of conscience: should health-care professionals park their values at the door?". The latter became a heated debate on abortion and euthanasia for the first part before being steered back towards the larger concept of freedom of conscience. Parties on both sides get quite emotional about these things. Which is fine, who doesn't (they're called 'hot issues' for a reason), but it is a useful exercise to try to keep that emotional aspect under control so that open, healthy discussion can yield fruit, especially if you really want to discover why you believe what you believe, and even more reasons why you will continue to believe what you believe -no one's asking you to renounce your values... well, that's a lie.

It's a lie because Pro-Life people are in fact asking Pro-Choice people to renounce their values. Now. I am Pro-Choice. But I can recognize that the argument, "I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, let's not impose our values on each other" is intrinsically a Pro-Choice stance. If Pro-Lifers truly believe that abortion is murder, then what I believe and what you believe is besides the point, right, because they're talking murder. Even if you disagree with that position (and I absolutely DO disagree!), you have to admit that it makes no sense for them to accept the Pro-Choice position.

Now a while back, I was asked by some friends when I considered 'life' to begin, and why I'm Pro-Choice (and essentially, how on Earth do you live with yourself, you crazy, heartless psycho). I would like to start by saying this: I consider myself Pro-Choice-on-a-spectrum, which means that there are surely certain rare kinds of situations in which I think most Pro-Choice doctors feel less comfortable performing abortions. And most of the time, we should ask the deeper question of why it is that these particular cases (later in gestation, the rare woman who presents her situation flippantly) get to this point, and what we might do to address these deeper problems (also, just because someone may appear to act 'flippantly' doesn't mean that they don't realize the seriousness of the decision they are making, and are in fact using 'flippancy' merely as a mask for much more complex, deeper concerns, which I do not feel is my place to judge). But I remain Pro-Choice even then because I do believe the woman's life comes first, especially because she is a part of society, and society as a whole suffers when she suffers, and loses an important participant when she loses her ability to function optimally and live within it.

Firstly, I am not God to know or decide when life begins and frankly, neither are you. But before 22 weeks of pregnancy, it is riskier (in terms of life and death here, let me be extremely clear) for a pregnant woman to continue being pregnant than to abort, so I think she is perfectly within her rights to do so, especially in this case. The question of the viability of the fetus later on is often a hot button, yeah. Personally, I have no qualms about the issue at all prior to viability (so while I cannot decide when life begins, I do not think it has begun prior to the fetus being truly viable). Once it is viable though, I think that if a woman is forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy (whether the reason for that is rape by a stranger, rape by her husband, being forbidden to use birth control for socio-cultural and religious reasons, and a variety of other reasons), the trauma of that pregnancy and subsequent birth is a threat to her mental and physical health (including compromised immunity associated with that kind of trauma paired with the physiological and psychological stress of a pregnancy), and a threat to health is a threat to life -her life, the pregnant woman's life. And so even though, most doctors probably don't feel fabulous about aborting a fetus at 30 weeks, compassion for this particular kind of distress and health and life risks for the pregnant woman is about deciding whether the means justify the ends. The fact that rape has been deemed an act of genocide shows to what extent a traumatic, unwanted pregnancy is a form of extermination of the woman's right to self-determination, within the context of a larger society in which they function, and a society that benefits from their optimal ability to function (so don't give me that 'abortion is selfish' argument).

Finally, yes, we can all recognize that it is problematic when a few women use abortion as a form of birth control -but there are deeper problems at the heart of this, including education, access to birth control, understanding various traditional, cultural practices, amongst other concerns (please listen to Barack Obama's response when asked about abortion -he expresses a similar point quite eloquently). Doctors do not blindly perform abortions -they do in fact talk to their patients about all their options, investigate the reasons the patient thinks they want an abortion, etc...

And remember. If someone wants an abortion, they're going to have one, regardless of whether the doctor provides the service. People used to drink all kinds of toxic substances to induce miscarriage, hangers and various other barbaric tools were used resulting in the death of both the mother and the fetus, and pregnant women have also been known to commit suicide because of an unwanted pregnancy. There are dangerous practical implications to trying to impose one's values (especially in law -and Somerville by the way, opposes making abortion illegal within the law even though she is Pro-Life) through law. Anyway, see the Morgentaler case for beautifully articulated arguments (this is the Canadian edition of Roe v. Wade).

There are my thoughts. You don't have to agree with them. We can agree to disagree. But like I said before, for Pro-Lifers that's just not possible. I know. I know why. I do get where you're coming from. On this particular topic, I am okay with having a different view from yours and I'm okay with the fact that you're not going to be okay with my different view. Esoterically. Legally, I'd raise hell to uphold my values in practice.