Confessions of an Ob-Gyn

[Denise]

A JOURNEY FROM DEATH TO LIFE

Beverly McMillan, M.D., is a gynecologist in Jackson, Mississippi (and has recently discontinued practicing obstetrics).

Sometimes being a Catholic and trying to live up to the standards of the Church’s moral teachings can be a bit overwhelming. That was how I felt in 1990 when I came back to the Catholic Church. It had been a long absence for me.

Although I grew up in a traditional Catholic family in the 1950s (six children, parochial school, Mass every Sunday), I left the Church as a 19-year-old premed student, feeling that God was irrelevant to the science I was studying and to the “now” generation I was a part of. For a number of years I seemed to do quite well without Him. I graduated from medical school at the University of Tennessee in 1966, interned in Memphis, and went off to the Mayo Clinic to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. Not only did I feel successful, I also felt I was a good and caring person. Who needed God or that archaic Catholic Church?

In 1969, as a second-year resident, I was sent for six months of training to Cook County Hospital in Chicago. For six weeks of that time I was assigned to a ward called the “Infected Ob” ward. To my surprise and shock, I found that the 15 to 25 women I admitted every night were recent patrons of Chicago’s back-alley abortion mills. They appeared at our emergency room bleeding, running a fever, and were found upon physical exam to have a tender, enlarged uterus. Every morning, my intern and I would have to perform another dilation and curettage (D & C) procedure on them (in which the cervix is dilated and the uterus then vacuumed) to remove whatever infected tissue the abortionist had left inside their uterus so they could get well and go home.

By the end of that six-week rotation, I was outraged. Looking at that experience as a secular humanist, I concluded that legalized abortion was the answer, and I wanted my medical profession to start offering safe “procedures” to women “in need.” So in 1973 when the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the entire U.S. was announced, I was delighted. I celebrated by going out and buying a suction D & C machine and began offering first-trimester abortions in my own office practice.

I moved to Jackson, Miss., in 1975, unaware that God was about to set events in motion that would not only get me out of the abortion business but would also turn my rebellious “feminazi” heart back to Him and to the wonderful unchanging truths about life and love preserved in Catholic teaching. My first year in Jackson didn’t reflect that Providence in any outward signs. I was married with three little boys, operating a solo ob-gyn practice and trying to adjust to a new environment far away from my family and friends. I was also approached that year by a group of concerned citizens and clergy about helping them open the state’s first freestanding abortion clinic. I agreed to work with them, and in the fall of 1975 I became the medical director of Family Health Services, an abortion clinic offering suction D & C abortions through the first trimester of pregnancy.

January of 1976 found me strangely depressed with my “successful” life. My marriage seemed stable, despite a sterilization procedure I had undergone against my husband’s wishes. My sons, ages five, three, and one, were healthy and boisterous. My private practice as well as the abortion clinic were busy and successful. Yet despite this I was struggling with thoughts of suicide. Looking for an intellectual solution, I went to a local bookstore and searched for a good book, finally deciding on The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. The first chapter of the book convinced me that I had chosen well. It described people just like me, people who didn’t want to get up in the morning, who didn’t know the meaning of life. I was pleased to find a list of 10 “to do” activities at the end of the chapter. I excitedly went down the list until I came to number 7, which stated I was to recite 10 times a day, “I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). Angry that I had inadvertently stumbled upon religious “trash,” I put the book down and read no further.

I spent the next week trying to substitute some secular mantra for the Scripture verse, but to no avail. Finally one Monday morning in early February 1976, as I was driving to work with the book on the seat beside me, filled with desperation and despair, I gave up and just did it. I said, “Alright, ‘I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me.'” And when I did, I suddenly felt the presence of Christ in my car, in the back seat, over my right shoulder. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed. I was pulling in to the doctors’ parking lot at a hospital when this occurred. I parked my car and just cried. When I pulled myself back together, I went in to work, repeating that verse a hundred times over. Later that night I finished the book.

The book had two further suggestions: first, find some Christian fellowship, and second, read the Bible every day. Over the course of the next few months, I began spending some time with a young Christian woman, and I began reading the New Testament. Strangely enough, though I had no intellectual arguments against abortion, I found it more and more difficult to perform the abortion procedures at the clinic. What made it difficult was having to identify the body parts after the suction D & C. My training in suction abortions entailed confirming that the procedure was complete. I would take the cotton trap out of the suction machine at the end of the procedure, go to a sink and pick through the tissue with a forceps. I would have to identify four extremities, plus a spine, a skull, and the placenta. If anything was missing, I would again scrape and suction until I found it, lest my patients return in 48 to 72 hours with an infected, incomplete abortion, just like the women I’d cared for at Cook County Hospital. Somehow, my new relationship with the Light of the world allowed me to really see the humanity of the little bodies I was looking at, and my stomach for performing the procedure was gone.

I continued overseeing the work at the abortion clinic for another year and a half, training other physicians to do the actual abortions. In 1978, three years after opening the facility, I had the grace to resign from the abortuary and join the Protestant church I was attending.

At that point I was personally anti-abortion, but was not supportive of the prolife philosophy or movement. Two years later I was invited to an organizational meeting of Jackson Right to Life with a group of other Christian physicians. There I was challenged in three ways: (1) look at the biblical arguments for the sanctity of human life, (2) begin working in the prolife movement, and (3) consider the abortifacient nature of the IUD (intrauterine device). This last challenge came from a family practice physician, and I remember blushing at having to be reminded of how the device worked — me, the specialist! For several weeks my conscience struggled with the nature of the IUD, but in the end I bit the bullet and announced to my office that I would no longer be inserting IUDs. In many ways this was harder to do than announcing I was giving up abortions. I was afraid I would appear to be some religious kook and that my practice would dry up. No such thing happened, but a pattern of God’s dealings with me began to emerge.

First would come a challenge to my worldly mentality, then a struggle in my conscience followed by eventual obedience, and finally reassurance that my practice would continue to prosper.

My next challenge came from a new source. My first marriage had ended in divorce, and four years later I met and married Roy McMillan.

One day he asked me what I did when a minor came to me requesting birth control pills. I answered that I congratulated her for acting responsibly and prescribed the pill. “Isn’t that encouraging her in a lifestyle that will separate her from God?” he asked. I was not at all happy with this challenge, and it weighed on my conscience. After struggling for several months, I realized I would have no inner peace until I walked in this new Light. I announced that I would no longer prescribe oral contraceptives to minors. I was then forced to have heart-to-heart talks about chastity or a return to abstinence with these young ladies, and I believe I was blessed more than they by sharing my faith.

Then Roy asked the next uncomfortable question: What did I do when an adult unmarried woman came to me requesting birth control pills? I answered that I congratulated her for acting responsibly and prescribed the pill. I knew what was coming. “Isn’t that encouraging her in a lifestyle that will separate her from God?” I was angry. “Of course it is, but most of my annual exams are women coming for renewal of their birth control pill prescriptions. I have to make a living!” But my conscience was bothering me. Although I didn’t relish the conversations I would have to have with my colleagues and my patients if I made this change, I announced to the office that I would no longer be prescribing oral contraceptives to any of my single patients. This did not occur without protest from some of my long-standing patients, but grace prevailed. In fact, I was sensing a real longing for more spiritual energy to fight the good fight, and it suddenly dawned on me where I might find more power. The Sacraments! While God had made Himself very real to me through Scripture reading, prayer, and fellowship with other believers, I began to long for that special union with Him that I had experienced in the Eucharist — the real Eucharist. I began exploring what it would take to be received back into the Catholic Church. It was indeed involved, but finally in 1991 I was received back into the “Faith of my Fathers.”

In the excitement and joy of coming back to the Sacraments, I had not been focusing on my professional life. But the first week I was back in the office after coming home, I started seeing my married patients for annual exams and pill requests and realized I had some unfinished conversion to get on with. If I was to enjoy the comforts of Catholicism, I would also need to bear the burdens. I reread Humanae Vitae, with its call to Catholic laity and people of science to promote the moral truth that there is an inseparable bond, designed by the Creator, between the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act. This would involve on my part non-participation in any form of contraceptive prescribing or sterilization, and promotion of Natural Family Planning. Fortunately, I received great support from the NFP center at River Oaks Hospital, as well as from my physician colleagues in my office. (It didn’t hurt that I was the senior member of the group!)

How does this play out in a predominantly Protestant culture? Remarkably well. After thirty years of virtually unlimited access to contraceptive and abortive technology, men and women are sensing the empty promises of “free” sex and beginning to hope that they can form more meaningful relationships — even within marriage. I can honestly promise my patients a better marriage if they practice NFP. It offers efficacy, safety, and economy, and a remarkable single-digit divorce rate. Modern NFP, not to be confused with the old calendar rhythm, has an unplanned pregnancy rate superior to that of the birth control pill. In 1994 the British Medical Journal reported an unplanned pregnancy rate of 30 per 1,000 women for the pill, and 4 per 1,000 for NFP Billings method. Unlike oral contraception, NFP does not produce blood clotting, hypertension, migraine headaches, or liver tumors, and it is virtually free of cost. In addition, the mutual involvement of both husband and wife promotes the virtue of marital chastity, which is the strength of character to place our sexual energy at the service of genuine love. Yes, NFP involves periodic abstinence if children are to be spaced, but we all know that periodic abstinence is a reality in any marriage. Difficulties will come, but so will grace. The peace and wholeness I am experiencing as an NFP-only Catholic ob-gyn is my personal gift of grace.