Abortion and ZDoggMD

For those on Twitter, you may be aware that ZDoggMD — who is not an OB/GYN — released a video about abortion. You may also then be aware that the claims that he made in the video upset me and a number of other people, including numerous respected OB/GYNs and abortion providers.

Despite receiving numerous well-informed arguments as to why his video is misguided, he has decided to keep the video up on his website.

Here are some of the problematic points, as screenshots:

First, let’s start with the fact that he describes his experience from over 20 years ago as a medical student at UCSF, observing abortions performed at San Francisco General Hospital.

This may or may not be true of the women in this urban, inner city hospital — the words he uses to preface this statement; however, I’m not sure what he uses as the basis for his claim. Though this statement is used as a set up for this next claim.

Again, unless he had discussed this with the patients themselves, I not sure what information he is using to make this claim. Otherwise, this seems like quite a judgemental leap.

This is not at all medically accurate. ZDogg is a physician. He should know this.

The judgement of a third year medical student of the providers of abortion care.

Trying to vaguely “both sides” the issue of abortion

I felt that he was using the same misinformation as the forced-birth crowd in order to speak a common language with them as attempt to “both sides” the issue of abortion — something that I find completely inappropriate at a time when abortion rights and abortion providers are under direct attack.

After being called out publicly, he released a response video that was nearly 45 minutes long, which made appropriate contrition for some points, though was absolutely unrepentant and even hostile at other times, doubling down on his. He suggested that the physician colleagues who called him out publicly on Twitter, a platform that he used to spread his video and misinformation broadly, should not have and, as professionals, should have shown him the courtesy of contacting him directly in disagreement instead.

So I did. I sent him an email. And to his credit, he responded initially, with a generally unfriendly and at times rude email in response, doubling down on his points made in the video. So I sent him a lengthy reply with my thoughts on his response and exactly why I believe that he is wrong and why he should take down his initial video. He has yet to respond to that email.

I wrote at length about how and why his initial abortion video was misguided and inappropriate. Given that he has not responded, I’ll just leave my response here:

“Hi Zubin,

Thank you for your response. There’s a lot to unpack here. I don’t know if you have the interest or are willing to engage, but I’d like to respond thoroughly and explain my position here, where I agree with you and where I think your argument is flawed. If you don’t, that’s fine and certainly your prerogative to not want to engage further. Admittedly, not responding sends a bit of a message about what you think of your own opinions versus those that may be more informed or more closely impacted by an issue than you on a topic and disagree with your approach. Either way, I’ll include another “screed” in response to your email below.

First, I think suggesting that I “lectured you” about being a jackass is giving me too much credit. I would spend a lot more time writing a lecture. I didn’t even have slides. I’ll do better next time I’m preparing a lecture. My apologies.

In regards to when the effect of the video started “shifting,” I’m not sure how things typically go for your videos or your responses on Twitter, but I can’t imagine that every single video you have ever posted has had it’s biggest reach on day one that you released it. Look, I don’t follow you. I hadn’t seen the video previously. I first saw the video via Jen Gunter’s post and watched it and was really upset. I hadn’t noticed when you had released it, and my opinion didn’t “shift.” What I posted was my initial frustrated reaction to the first time that I watched the video.

Here’s the thing, you have a platform because you are a doctor and under the assumption that you are educated on the topics of which you speak. The public will perceive that you are providing accurate information, thereby giving the things that you say credibility. You can try to brush off that responsibility; however, that is the reality of your position on your platform as a physician and a responsibility worthy of your consideration. Just think of the damage that can be done under such an umbrella — I’m thinking Dr. Oz here and I know that you know what I mean by that given his penchant towards giving credibility to junk pseudoscience. I’m guessing that you don’t want to fall under the same umbrella as Dr. Oz.

That said, you posted a video in which the things that you said about an actual abortion and actual abortion providers were wrong, judgemental, and unscientific. You even acknowledged such is your follow up video, while simultaneously suggesting that you would not back down from them. The words you used exactly parroted the propaganda arguments of forced-birthers, giving such credibility coming from a public figure who is a physician. You seemed to make the argument in the follow up video that these videos are recorded as “rants” and are your emotional responses to your experiences. Of course, I would not try to invalidate your experiences. Your experiences are your experiences, whether appropriately informed or not. However, you made no such disclaimer of the sort in your initial video, and given that you posted this publicly on your platform - again which you have because you are a physician using science to make your arguments - things that you say can otherwise be assumed to be valid. Whether that is an appropriate assumption or not is for me to decide, but I can assure you that the public will take them that way or will misuse your words against the pro-choice position that you claim to hold.

I’m not sure where you get the idea that while you post things publicly that counter arguments should then not be made publicly. I’m honestly curious on your take here. Because if information is put into the public sphere, I feel strongly compelled to correct such in the same space in which the misinformation is levied. You brought up how Trump got elected. If you want to have that discussion, there is a whole rabbit whole that we can go down in relation to publicly spreading misinformation, though I digress.

I readily acknowledge that many of the other things that you said in the video are absolutely correct and appropriate and I appreciate you bringing up those issues; however, getting something partially or even mostly right does not negate the incorrect statements, and does not subsequently mean that you should not otherwise be corrected for your incorrect statements.

Also, you seem to assume that people that you should take down the video because of their collective outrage. This is incorrect. People want you to take down the video because, as you acknowledged in your response video, you were wrong. Or in place of taking down the original video entirely, I suppose you could redact or correct your incorrect statements, or at a bare minimum place some form of disclaimer about your claims about the abortion providers, about the abortion care that you witnessed, and about your judgement of the patients seeking such care. If otherwise left up as is after acknowledged being medically incorrect, leaving the incorrect content up seems anathema to the entire rationale for your platform as a physician in the first place. But what do I know.

Here’s my biggest issue after reading your email:

I feel like the point you are trying to drive home here is that you feel that we should play to “both sides” and that failing to do so is how we end up with a President Trump. I understand your point. I seriously do, and if you want to make this about talking politics and political strategy or policy, that is actually something that I know well and I’m sure we could have a very interesting discussion on that point alone. I mean, I was born in San Francisco and live in Portland, spent time in the Midwest and work in a rural, critical access ED in a county that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. After the election, I read countless articles and essays and research on the election and calls for liberals to understand rural America. I read books like “Hillbilly Elegy, which I think is a good book, the idea that we have President Trump because liberals did not understand the realities of rural America is a distorted and incomplete picture of how we got to where we are today. Notably, there were no voices calling for rural America to seek to understand liberal America. And this is where the discrepancy lies, and why liberals will continue to lose more and more ground.

Playing “both sides” is dramatically different than reaching out to educate, and standing firm in explaining facts and evidence. Kind of like you do with anti-vaxxers. Does that involve some level of discussion? Yes. Does shutting that discussion down before it could ever happen work? No. Feel free to check my time line though. I engage forced-birthers constantly and try to engage and educate and bring actual facts into the discussion. I do this regularly in real life as well, working in a very conservative area that chased their only family planning clinic out of the county. We are talking about an issue in which one side is unwavering in their paradoxical beliefs because they are not driven by facts or evidence, but by religion. There is no winning when the argument is about the Bible, when people will believe their religion over the evidence. The only evidence that you need to see the truth in this is that if people who want to claim to be pro-life actually cared about reducing abortion rates, they would not be trying to make abortion illegal, but trying to support scientifically informed sex education, free contraception, and make prenatal care and child care universal and easy to access. They don’t because the issue is not truly abortion, but about religion and ingrained misogyny and the stigma of sex and sexuality. This is why you have Justice Thomas coming out with a 20 page memo attacking contraception in 2019. It’s not just about abortion. It’s never been just about abortion.

When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, abortion became a Constitutionally protected right. However, in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision in 1992, in which the Supreme Court decided that restrictions on abortion were acceptable so long as they did not create an “undue burden” on women seeking abortion care. Since then, abortion access has been constantly chipped away. But how? Because we have capitulated too much. Because we allowed arguments about hallways sizes and physicians being on call to be veiled as issues for patient safety despite the evidence to the contrary. We never sounded the alarms. We never raised hell. We let each little bit slide, capitulating more and more to their side under the false premise that at least abortion was still legally protected under Roe.

We have already tried the “both sides” approach, and doing so has failed wildly. Now there are literally bills banning and criminalizing abortion, states now will have no abortion clinics or providers left, and the forced-birthers have already made their plan is to directly attack the decision in Roe v. Wade clear. They may have overplayed their hand here and gotten greedy by going directly after established precedent, when they were already so successful flying under the radar and letting us “both sides” this issue. So no, I don’t find the idea of telling people to wait and reach out to the other side and continuing to play “both sides” acceptable any more.

Claiming that the rights to bodily autonomy and reproductive freedoms are at stake is no longer an overstatement. The stakes are too high to get this conversation wrong. We can have discussions and engage the other side, but we have to be firm and educate with actual facts and evidence. I’ve linked brief handouts here and here and an article which I think are worth looking at in regards to journalistic and media responsibilities in regards to covering abortion. If you’re going to try taking on the issue of abortion and reproductive rights, then at a minimum, these are worth reviewing and considering.

Lastly, I appreciate your recognition that I’m not the asshole that you play people like me out to be on your second video, and that I am “justifiably passionate” about this issue rather than just trying to win Twitter points. I am still curious about your response to Tom’s closing statement about “some of y’all killing babies, shut the fuck up,” because I do still feel that you had the ability to address that and did not. He is on your platform, so that’s is still on you to address.

If you’ve made it this far and haven’t tried to reach through your computer and slap me, thank you. I’m interested to hear any of your thoughts in response.

Regards, Taylor”

Always curious to hear anyone else’s thoughts. Feel free to leave them in the comments, or find me on Twitter at @tnicholsmd and let me know there.