Seeing that the woman whose child was ripped from her in this account is from Honduras has particular resonance for me. The month I graduated from medical school I spent two weeks on a medical mission to Tegucigalpa.
I do not look back on that mission with pride, as I discovered to my dismay when the work began that the organizers were more fixated on making people sit through a sermon than getting medical care to them.
That being said, the desperate poverty of the people in the village we first visited was astounding. Their lack of access to any meaningful medical care was abject, and their needs were plainly going unmet in pretty much every way.
And this is to say nothing of the men with assault rifles I remember driving past to get to our makeshift clinic. I remember there was a state dept warning about travel to the country at the time, but I went regardless.
This is kind of circumstance people like that woman are fleeing, seeking a life where her innate dignity may be respected and the needs of herself and her child have some hope of being met.
And she arrives in the place where her hope has been invested, only to experience her child being torn from her for reasons that nobody can be bothered to explain.
This is despicable. It is vile and abhorrent. I am sickened on every possible level. As a father. As a pediatrician. As a goddamn decent human being. This is a national disgrace, one that makes me want to hang my head in queasy shame.
So once again, I will be calling my elected representatives on Tuesday. I will be donating to every campaign I can afford to that supports a candidate who will block this monstrous administration. I will do everything I can find to make this nightmare end.
