"This Area of Medicine is Too Complex to Legislate, Too Complex For People Who Are Not Trained in Medicine," Although That's not the Point.

I remember Jim Esserman.  He was either in my class in medical school, or in the class behind me.  I didn't keep up with him, and apparently, he went into OB/GYN.  It sounds like he made a nice success of himself.  He wrote this letter to the Herald.  No, Attorney General Moody, Florida’s doctors and their patients are not confused | Opinion (msn.com)

Maybe it sounds arrogant when Jim Esserman says it.  Maybe it sounds arrogant when I say it.  People who are not doctors simply have no idea what they're talking about.  Even if they looked something up on "Dr Google."  I have told patients many times that I will beg them, and if necessary on my knees, not to look things up online.  If they have questions, they should ask me.  That's what I'm here for.  They have no way to know who put that there, what their credentials are, why they put it there, and certainly not whether or not it's true.  There's a reason people have to attend medical school for four years after college, then several more years of residency, and maybe fellowship, after that.  The vast, vast majority of doctors are clinicians.  They do not do research.  So, part of medical school is learning how to understand research papers published by others, in often important part to look for clues as to whether the paper is legitimate.  Very many of them are not.

So, Jim Esserman focused his attention on whether or not fetuses at one stage or another are viable.  But he also notes that "women in Florida have fewer reproductive rights than they did 40 years ago" (before Roe was overturned).  And whatever Jim Esserman criticizes about Ashley Moody, he has reason to make the same criticism about the entire Florida government.

Esserman's focused complaint is that the state wants to do what it is incapable of doing: determining viability.  But apart from noting the erosion of rights, he doesn't address what is most likely the bigger issue: two people who wanted to have sex, but didn't want a child to result, and who took precautions to prevent one, and experienced a pregnancy anyway.  Has the state of Florida not only gotten into the impossible business of determining viability, but also decided how many children Floridians should have?

It's a slippery slope to banning contraception, and some jurisdictions are trying to do that.  But what's the underlying theory?  We've gone over this before.  The people who demand that other people, who are not they, have children they don't want and aren't prepared to rear, are not "pro-life."  They like to say it, because it's one of their few opportunities not to be anti something.  But they're not pro-life.  And if they think their personal religious beliefs suggest that abortion (not mentioned in any of the bibles, to my knowledge) is not a good thing, and "god" wouldn't like it, they really need to read and re-read the First Amendment to the Constitution, so they will be reminded that they can have any personal religious beliefs they like, but this has nothing to do with anyone else.  (I'm skipping over the massive hypocrisy here.)

But the simplest fact, considering Esserman's letter, is that people should not play at being professionals, which they're not.  Have an opinion.  Have a preference.  Help yourself.  But do not pretend you know what you have no way of knowing.