Dr. David Eisenberg Runs the Last Abortion Clinic in MO

DAVID EISENBERG, MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD: I would say to the people of Alabama and same to the people of Missouri, where our state legislature just passed a bill at 3:45 this morning local time, basically outlawing abortion after eight weeks of gestation, is that number one, the bill is not in effect. The law has not gone into effect and that clinics all over the state of Alabama that are providing abortion services will continue to do so until that law is enforceable. And hopefully, it never will be. And here in Missouri is the last free-standing clinic. Our Planned Parenthood is open and we will be taking care of patients who need us. We will be there to care for them no matter what and we will do what we can to fight these laws in the legal ways that we can in terms of challenges in the courts but we know the courts have been stacked against us.

And I’m a health care provider. I’m a public health expert. I am a scientist. I’m an educator at medical schools. And I will tell you that it’s not about the law for me when it comes to the patient that’s in front of me. My patient doesn’t care what the law says. What she knows is she doesn’t want to be pregnant and she’s looking for care. More than one in four women will need that in this country in their lifetime. And I’m here to take care of them.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And as Gloria Steinem just said, that number one in four, is less than it was before Roe V. Wade. So the numbers are going down. What is it like for you to get up every morning as the last practitioner and actually, you know, help these women who need it, particularly women who have been violently made pregnant through rape, incest and the other terrible things that happen to so many women today?

EISENBERG: You know, the women I take care of, whether they’re pregnant and want to be pregnant and are told they have a tragically affected fetus that has something wrong or they’ve developed a medical problem that they cannot continue the pregnancy without potentially losing their own life or the women who find themselves pregnant when they don’t want to be are all crises of their — in their world.

And I say this to the medical students, the residents, and the nurses that I teach and the doctors and other folks that I work with, I do a lot of crisis management. We take care of people when they need us, under the circumstances in which they need us. And sometimes I take care of women who are asking whether they can continue a pregnancy and asking my input on that.

And the truth is, I started in medical school 20 years ago. I’m a board- certified obstetrician-gynecologist. I’m an expert in reproductive and sexual health care. And I’m an abortion provider. But I would never tell a woman what to do with her body or what to do with her pregnancy. The fact is that decision belongs to the person who is pregnant. And people in this country want to make it about some point in pregnancy or some pregnancies where abortion is OK versus they’re not OK.

Whatever the reason is that that person doesn’t want to continue the pregnancy, that’s valid for me. And the fact of the matter is, it’s about privacy, it’s about agency, and self-determination.