Do you think that doctors who preform abortions feel any guilt or regret?

Question

I'm sure that many refuse to do it, especially these days of increased awareness.

Answer 1

Yes, they do but sometimes a person has to do what is right despite how they feel. When I worked in a hospital I felt horrible that a child would die or an elderly person came in all alone. I was there to comfort & do what was best for the people. It wasn't my fault they were there. If I was a Dr. performing abortion I would feel bad that this person had to even be going through this. This doesn't mean I would stop abortion if I stopped performing the procedure. Abortion can be stopped & people who go to the butcher shops the back alleys or use coat hangers. So the Dr is actually helping the person by giving her a safe way to have an abortion. I am sure they all stay focused on this & they may be religious & even pray about what they are doing & feel guided to do this work. It isn't right but it isn't right that people can not live a life where they can raise a child safely while we have so much richness. Paris Hilton worries about her tan while the people who wash the sheets that go on the Hilton hotel beds can not afford transformation to get to work.

Answer 2

Of course, and that also has to do with areas of specialization.  There are however doctors who recognize that there are some reasons for abortion and that the skill is necessary often for women who miscarry and don't release everything and thus need a D&C to help their body recover.

Also if abortion weren't preformed in some cases we'd be giving ultimate power to rapists.

Answer 3

Those doctors who have performed abortions will always have the sense of guilt and most of all regret they have performed these abortions.

Answer 4

I'll answer  your question by asking another. Do you think that doctors who perform emergency procedures-knowing full well, in many cases, that the patient will not survive-feel guilt or regret? Or that you, if you were trying to resusitate someone, and failed, and your patient died, would feel regret or guilt at your actions?

Guilt and regret are constructs of the mind, and doctors cannot afford to 'feel' them if they wish to continue to be good doctors.

Your question is loaded with a presumed moral code. As leonard cohen once wrote "Even carrots scream when pulled from the ground, if only you listen for it." Where does sentience begin or end? Your very question is questionable.

Answer 5

I learned recently that doctors are no longer required to take the Hippocratic Oath.

Answer 6

No or they wouldn't do it.

Answer 7

I don't think the doctors who perform them do.

Regardless of what you do for a living, if some aspect of it makes you feel guilty and it's an aspect that you don't have to perform in order to stay employed, would you do it anyway? Of course not.

Answer 8

It is hard to imagine a doctor who takes an oath to do no harm would perform abortions. The fact that they say a fetus is not a form or life, then why do they have to kill the fetus if it is not alive? It is not a clump of cells as they say. By the time a woman discovers she is pregnant and arranges for an abortion, this "clump of cells" has turned into a very small human being with a soul and all the anatomical parts any other human being has. I think doctors who perform abortion may be in a bit of denial, otherwise they would not be killing life.