Sex symposium has a Thai name “The 3rd National Conference on Sexual Well-being: Teenage Pregnancy from Strategy to Sustainable Practice.” How long is that name? It was organized by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation and several major organizations. They invited me to participate in a lecture on the topic “A Doctor’s Perspective on Safe Abortion.”
“The name is so old-fashioned, professor,” I told the respected professor who would be the moderator during my session. He used to be the president of my own Royal College of Obstetricians. He said he was afraid people wouldn’t attend.
“Well, with a name like that,” I continued.
“So what would you name it?” he retorted.
“Doctor, help me, I’m pregnant,” I suggested.
My room is over there, 401, full of kids. Huh, the room is full of students!
Oh no… what I prepared last night wasn’t for kids. The content was more like Mae Nak Phra Khanong, uterine rupture, intestines everywhere. How will the students listen to this? Then I started sweating. I had about an hour to prepare anew since I was the last to speak.
Pencil and paper were picked up. I thought of the pilot brother who taught me the other day. Well, that time I prepared in just 5 minutes.
“Hello, I’m Pee Pae,” the first sentence made people start to wake up. That little kid who had been asleep for the first ten minutes raised his head to look.
“Call me Pee, because calling me uncle might sound a bit sleazy.” This time I started hearing laughter.
“I only need 15 minutes,” that’s all the time I really had.
“Then you’ll understand why Pee Pae is standing here.” This is the intro formula I just learned.
“Alright, who are students?” About 30% raised their hands. “Teachers?” 6 people. “Social workers?” Almost ten people. “The rest must be freelancers,” I concluded.
“Who disagrees with abortion?”
All the students and about 20% of the adults in the room raised their hands, including that group of teachers.
“Who agrees?” The rest, because I assessed that no one didn’t raise their hand.
“I will conduct the discussion with 3 questions. Um… little one, can you time for Pee Pae? At 4:35, let me know, okay? I have to return to Hat Yai by 7.” I told that little girl. She was a 12-year-old elementary student.
“First question, what are the options when pregnant?” “Abortion,” that social worker answered loudly. “Let the social worker raise the child,” the aunt sitting on the other side responded. The students sat still, probably confused.
“Alright, how do women get pregnant?” There were some high school students sitting over there, but they didn’t have an answer.
“Can you get pregnant?” I changed the question format. The 12-year-old girl answered.
“Can you get pregnant at 16?” Yes, haha, the voices started coming. This was going my way. “What about at 40?” “Yes,” with a drawn-out tone. “What about at 48?”
“Yes,” “Um, isn’t that too much? I suspect by then you’d vomit out a baby. People are menopausal by then.” Laughter started, and this time everyone was awake.
“Some people say to go back to school. Earlier, all 5 adults said to study, take a semester off, and then come back, or transfer to another school.” Many people nodded.
“Honestly, if you had to stop studying because of this, how would you feel?” I asked the 16-year-old girl who seemed interested. When talking about studying, it’s like talking to your own child.
“I’d be sad,” she replied. “Doctor, let me ask, do you want to graduate with your friends? Do you want to sign your friends’ shirts and have them sign yours?” She nodded.
She said she’d feel very sad not to graduate together. She wanted to hold hands with her friends and take pictures on graduation day.
I immediately thought of my daughter. She refused to go on an exchange program abroad even though she was very smart.
“Pang wants to graduate with her friends, not with juniors,” she once gave this reason, which I never questioned again.
“And when we used to tell pregnant kids to continue, take a break, and then come back, how many actually returned?” Because in my life as an obstetrician, the pregnant kids around my area, none wanted to go back to school. There were some, but I never talked to them again after they gave birth.
“When we tell kids to do everything, have we ever asked them what they think? Did they have the opportunity to choose their path?” The adults in the room both nodded and shook their heads. I didn’t interpret the meaning because they might be nodding in agreement that they didn’t ask, or shaking their heads because they never really asked.
“We judge them, don’t we?” Laughter echoed.
“Alright, is Dr. Thanapan male or female?” I asked this, and the room fell silent again.
“Male,” came a loud voice.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Flat,” huh, what’s flat? That young man gestured to his chest as an answer.
“Has a penis,” one of the boys answered.
“Have you seen it?” More laughter.
“Am I gay?”
“No, because the doctor said he has kids,” a voice from the back answered.
“Oh, can’t you have kids and be gay? All this time, it’s been a lie.” There was a cheer.
(Um… it’s a theatrical flavor, please don’t take it seriously. I graduated with a major in drama.)
“See, we judged that I’m male even though we’ve never met before. We judge people better than just seeing the truth as it is.” Isn’t it true? We love, like, get angry, and are infatuated because we decide that way.
“And we often judge our kids.” This time I turned to look only at the adults in the room.
“Alright, back to question 2. If they want an abortion and Pee Pae doesn’t do it, what will happen?”
“They’ll get an illegal abortion,” that young boy, probably in middle school, answered loudly. “Hey, I’m asking seriously, do you know how they perform abortions? What is called an abortion? This is a side question.” This time the kids couldn’t answer.
“Has anyone ever seen an abortion?” Hey, a kid raised their hand. “Saw it on the news.” Well, relieved, that’s called watching the news, not seeing an abortion. Of course, how could they answer correctly? But it tells us a lot in this answer, because news these days is like that, brutal and vile, seen every morning. This time I explained to them how “abortion” and “birth” are different, and when I saw the nods and the eyes of the kids showing understanding, I continued the discussion. I talked about injuries and deaths. Initially, I planned to tell it like a horror story, but when I saw the audience as small as kittens sitting there.
I told the story of an 18-year-old who died on the delivery bed and asked, “She died, who cried?” I noticed that little girl wiping her tears. Kids are very sweet, you know. The people who were sad were named one by one, and the adults nodded in agreement.
“Exactly, very sad, let me tell you, in this life, I’ve seen many people die from illegal abortions.” When back to normal mode, Pee Pae came again. “Some were mothers with kids the same age as you guys. Seriously, if a mother wanted an abortion because she wanted to stay and raise her kids, wanted her kids to go to school, wanted her kids to eat well, I’m asking seriously, would you let the mother have an abortion with the doctor? With Dr. Pae, the mother wouldn’t die.”
“No,” the 11-year-old girl answered loudly. “Hey, your mother might die, you know,” her friend next to her nudged.
“Oh really? How could my mother die? My mother isn’t even pregnant,” she was confused about where she answered wrong.
“Yeah, right,” I laughed loudly.
“I don’t have a third question anymore because time’s up. Let’s say everyone probably knows by now what I think about unplanned pregnancies. Injuries and deaths from illegal abortions still exist, but we might not be in tune until one day that person is our daughter.”
Excerpted from
Thanapan Choobun, inhaling PM 2.5, January 28, 2019
Read the full version at https://web.facebook.com/thanapan.choobun/posts/2050197925027392
The 3rd National Conference on Sexual Well-being: Teenage Pregnancy from Strategy to Sustainable Practice, January 28, 2019, Topic “A Doctor’s Perspective on Safe Abortion” Reported by: rsathai.org