Special Section: Reproductive Health and Rights
MEET THE CO-PRESIDENTS OF MED STUDENTS FOR CHOICE Sarah Siddiqui Note: Medical Students for Choice was founded at UCSF in the 1990s and has become a lasting national organization. The SFMMS was supportive from the start and twice sent mailings to all 60,000+ American medical students, urging them to learn about the need for safe reproductive health services including abortion and to consider joining MSC. These mailings resulted in thousands of new MSC members and helped launch MSC. This interview with the current MSC leaders appeared recently in the UCSF student newspaper, The Synapse. – The Editors
In our latest podcast episode, pre-med student and Synapse contributor Sarah Siddiqui talks to the co-presidents of the UCSF chapter of Med Students For Choice, second year UCSF medical student Neha Pondicherry and second year UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program student Meredith Klashman, about the fight for reproductive justice at a time when a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, which was constitutionally protected 50 years ago under Roe v. Wade, is poised to be rescinded. Sarah Siddiqui: What is the mission of Med Students for Choice? Meredith Klashman: A lot of people really only end up learning about how abortion works and what it looks like and how family planning works and contraceptive works in a clinical space if they are going into specializing in that. But the way we feel about it is that no matter what, it’s going to be something that shows up in your patient history. It’s going to be something that comes up in every sort of profession within the medical field. So, we really want our classmates to know be educated about that. A lot of the work that we do is the recognition that the reproductive justice movement has been one that — especially in terms of family planning and contraceptives — that has been really inequitable. It’s one that is also rooted in eugenics, especially in the state of California. So, you want to be really mindful of that as we move forward. And just make sure we’re also educating ourselves and our classmates about some of the really, really harmful history of this field and how we can do better as we are looking to forge the future in terms of advocating for access.
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SAN FRANCISCO MARIN MEDICINE APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2022
Neha Pondicherry: My goals with this organization were mostly to bring awareness. I think there’s this inherent taboo of talking about reproductive rights and abortion. And I think the more we talked about it, and really foster the conversations and bring awareness to the issue, the more people are willing to talk about it and willing to give basic access to rights that all women, and not only women, but all people who are capable of being pregnant deserve. And so I think for me, opening those conversations, fostering those conversations, having the elective having the panel, having places where people can really talk about those experiences, and open them up is the reason that I really wanted to do this work. SS: Can you explain how you became interested in Med Students for Choice?
NP: The reason that I was very interested in this is because I think inherently, we have the right to our own body, and that entails the right to any medical decisions that we need to make for our own bodies. And I don’t think that anyone else has the right to really dictate where we stand on that. And so that’s something that I’ve been very firm about my body, my choice. And that’s why I was very passionate about this.
MK: I came into this space with a lot of experience with reproductive and gynecologic illness. And so, from having that experience, I think I learned how important a part of the conversation abortion is even in situations of IVF. The right to one really equates to the right to the other. So, and I think that that plays out in many different ways in healthcare. The right to choose is something that permeates a lot of autonomy in the medical space. So, I really wanted to be a part of Med Students for Choice to really contribute towards that conversation and movement in our healthcare system. SS: What is one thing you learned after being involved with this organization?
MK: One thing that we engage with a lot — and that has really been driven home by a few of the speakers — is just how important California physicians are in the fight for national access to abortion. It’s something that COVID really interferes with, because especially at the beginning of the pandemic, WWW.SFMMS.ORG
