ABSTRACT

This chapter offers several explanations for why birth control services, despite their medicalization, exist on the fringes of physician care and responsibility. The absence of abortion services at the family planning clinic in Daleton was due in part to public protests made by Catholic members of United Way's Executive Board. The community of Daleton supports some hospitals, which serve the greater part of the county and to a lesser extent the rural parts of adjacent counties. Of the twenty-six obstetrician/gynecologists who practiced in Daleton during the time that interviews were conducted, only one refused to be interviewed; another was willing to talk only briefly by telephone. For most Catholic doctors, the conflict between professional competence and religious belief was profound. The work that Dr. Gardner and colleagues of his generation did for Planned Parenthood in the early days of their medical careers was hardly controversial.