Dr. Susan Bane was in her OB-GYN residency in North Carolina when she got the order to meet the attending physician in the operating room for a D&C, or dilation and curettage, a procedure that removes tissue from a woman’s uterus.

Once there, she assumed the D&C was necessary because the woman had suffered a miscarriage, but as she performed the ultrasound, she was surprised to learn that the problem was fibroids and to discover “there’s a live baby in there.”

Bane, who opposes abortion, told the attending physician that she wasn’t comfortable being involved in the procedure, and she was permitted to leave. But, she says, “It was still hard for me to do” in a hierarchical and competitive environment where residents are evaluated by more senior physicians and there’s often the expectation

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