Integrating Palliative Care and Abortion
Dr. Nathan Riley calls himself a tattooed heretic of birth and death. He is the host of the Holistic OBGYN Podcast and envisions “a world that honors humans as embodiments of the highest insight and intuition through which they are free to make autonomous, informed choices pertaining to body, spirit, and soul.”
Connect with him here: https://www.belovedholistics.com/
Show Notes:
Holistic OBGYN @nathanrileyobgyn
Improving pregnancy in the United States
Doctors- “mr and ms fix its of the world”
Not your typical doctor who has done a typical training
Fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine
End of life care through the lens of miscarriage
“If we could sit with people in birth the way we sit with them in death, how much different could the birth of a baby look”
“This happens”
“Nature doesn’t want every acorn to turn into a tree”
Die Wise- Stephen Jenkinson
“It’s societal malpractice for us to feel entitled for every acorn to turn into a tree”
“The people experiencing this are going to suffer regardless”
“The book of shoulds” dictate our policy making
“Carry the burden of whatever happens in this pregnancy”
“They’re going to have a baby whether it was terminated or not, and they’re going to have to carry the burden of a life that was lost within their body”
Keep the baby alive and use all of our medical interventions, or we can let the baby pass away - “That isn’t really the full complement of options”
“Scripted ways of addressing this”
“When a baby dies, what is our job there”
“Make sense of this when there is no sense to be made”
“We love to find somebody to blame”
“Every baby can be loved from the moment of conception to the moment the baby dies, regardless of what happens in between”
“Is there something to be said for a baby being loved 100% by the parents of the womb they decided to enter”
Entitled to love vs. entitled to a long life
“How can we do a better job of affording this little soul as much love as possible” for the time they are here
Honoring abortion by choosing love
I chose to love that soul even though I told her no
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should
“I think we’ve been at war with nature for some time”
“We’re lacking the medical philosophy we used to have”
“When you have a baby you are not entitled for that baby to survive childbirth”
“Not every oak tree is entitled for their spawn to come to life”
“We shouldn’t feel bad for reflecting on the fact that we have enough kids”
Cancer cell propagates at the detriment to the whole
“Just because you have the capability, should you? Are you entitled?”
“Every baby is a blessing but at what cost”
“Carrying the burden of mother culture”
Who are we to think we get to decide what’s a disease and what’s a blessing?
Societal pathology- me me me me me (that is the embodiment of cancer)
“We have the option to not behave as a cancer”
“Help them close the book of should and be with the experience”
“You can have the abortion and then to not support them, that is the disease”
38:28 “What if the purpose of your pregnancy is that you were imbued with the energy of a child… feel the spirit of me coming in”
Why are we making the decision- baby over woman?
OBGYNs are there to protect the mother “but we don’t act like it”
“If you really care about people, why don’t you care about people”
“Growth at all cost… doesn’t even matter the quality of the people”
“This is where we get to shine” “practice good humaness” “sit and bear witness to the challenges”
If we don’t talk about it for what it feels like we’re missing the mark
“We don’t need long term studies… she’s right in front of you”
“We try so hard to isolate that one variable that matters most”
“We can’t lean too heavily on the research”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself… just do you”
https://www.belovedholistics.com/
The Holistic OBGYN Podcast
