By DR. BILL BLANKE
CATHOLIC HEALTHCARE
When asked how many babies I have delivered in my career, I say “None!” But I have helped about 2,000 women deliver babies. Any delivery is an absolute miracle to witness, but those deliveries in which the parents do not know the sex of the baby has extra excitement. "It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” is followed by tears and laughter.
One of the hot-button issues of today, gender dysphoria, has not come up often in my practice. I had patients who left my care and pursued hormonal or surgical treatments, but I was not part of that decision-making process.
Recently, it came up in a patient encounter. I shared with the young man during the appointment that while I am not well-versed in the details, I am very willing to accompany him; I will not abandon him; but I cannot affirm his choice. I say the same thing to patients who choose contraception or who have had an abortion; or who struggle with substance abuse, or who are repeatedly unfaithful in a marriage.
Prior to our next appointment, I researched respected resources to aid in a compassionate response to a difficult situation. In my previous article about Natural Family Planning, I referenced Christopher West's book, “Good News About Sex & Marriage.” I re-read the chapter on gender dysphoria. I listened to podcasts by Jason Evert and visited his website, Chastity.org. (Jason will be at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Daylight on Sept. 15, an evening during which I look forward to learning more from him in person.) Finally, I visited the website of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. We are blessed to have one of their ethicists, Father Tad Pacholczyk, as a columnist in The Message.
Jason Evert says, "People who experience gender dysphoria deserve our respect, our compassion and our love. But in my opinion, if you love someone, you can’t lie to them. And it is not love to allow someone to believe a delusion.” A delusion is an unshakeable belief in something that is untrue when almost everyone else knows this belief to be false.
If a woman comes to me who struggles with anorexia, she believes she is overweight – when, in reality, she is underweight. In order to address her belief, I would never prescribe weight-loss medication or refer her for weight-loss surgery.
If a child wishes to be a pirate, I would never refer him for amputation of his hand for a hook, or amputation of his leg for a peg leg.
If a schizophrenic patient believes the FBI has inserted some device in his body, I would not refer him to a surgeon to cut open his body to remove something.
If a female expresses that she believes she is a male, or a male expresses that he believes he is a female, the problem is not with the body God gave him or her; the problem is with the mind and the belief. The current medical and social climate is to affirm the person’s belief and change the body, rather than be honest that the body is normal but the mind has struggles. Subjecting individuals who believe they are in the wrong body to puberty-blocking hormones and surgical procedures to change external sexual characteristics is not good medicine.
When speaking or writing about contraception, I have said for years that the goal of medicine is to maintain health, or restore what is broken or dysfunctional. Contraception and sterilization to make dysfunctional what are normally functioning reproductive organs is not good medicine, nor is blocking the normal progression of puberty and changing external sexual characteristics.
Christopher West says "There is an enemy of The Word who is hell-bent on turning the great mystery of human sexuality into a great misery…We must show our sincere compassion for those who endure the gut-wrenching struggle of feeling like they were born in the wrong body. But what does true charity call us to in these painful situations? Our desire must be to offer love truthfully and speak truth lovingly.”