Tuesday, February 20, 2007

T.O.P.

I am now doing my obs and gynae rotation, and I am so called to reflect upon my session today and share the thought with all of you. I was timetabled to sit in a family planning clinic this afternoon. I thought it was gonna be a light unstressful session discussing and learning about the variety of contraceptive methods available at the moment. I thought I would not learn much except the same facts written in the text books. But my assumption was completely wrong. I think today is the day when I made lot of reflections. The day when I learned that there are so much things to worry about in this life. The day when I could have burst into tears if I did not control myself. The day when the future looks so foggy even though I am beginning to see the interesting and challenging bits of doing obs and gynae later on.

I assume it is alright to write in general about my experience today, without breaching any confidentiality. So I sat in the clinic and I met a few people there. And I never thought there would be so many cases of termination of pregnancy (TOP). Yes, English law allows TOP before 24 wks(?) but culturally before 17 weeks (?). (Well I might not be the right person to comment about this medics stuff – just in my third year – do not want to look that stupid or even worse, to give wrong information or anything.) But anyway, being here and being just a medical student, I have to respect the patients' right to choose their way of life. There are just too many ethical reasons to consider about. I am totally against it of course, only Allah knows what was in my mind at that time.

Back to the case. So I sat in the clinic and one of the patients that came in for TOP was only as young as 15 years old.She is so young and even afraid of having a venepuncture (amik darah) done on her arm. I presume she had no idea what to expect for committing a TOP. It is not her story that I wanted to comment here, coz I have no right to talk about her. But I suppose I have the right to comment about my relatives who have the same religion as mine ie. the muslims – and to be more precise, Malaysian muslims coz its more relevant to us. Coz I care about my society. I care about my religion. And these are important factors in directing my future life and the future of Islam and I care about these.

What stricken me the most was when I imagined her being my sister. When she said she was born in 1991, my first gut reaction was “that is so my sister’s age” – nauzubillah, may Allah prevent this disaster from anybody that I know of – well, at that moment I could not help thinking about the situation in Malaysia where the contraindicated values of the West is becoming a culture. Incorrect way of entertainment is the main component of life nowadays. Normal homo sapiens named as “artists” are being worshipped more than ever. Muslims going to night clubs are becoming more common. In fact I heard some comments saying that it is peculiar to not have gone there among some groups of Malaysian muslim youths and teenagers, mind you. Same goes to virginity. Some can be so proud to tell that they have actually lost their virginities. Surprise surprise, some can even be so ashamed to not have done it by certain age – which is so ridiculous. And if you want to hear something more ridiculous, some even "sell" themselves to achieve wealth in this impermanent, temporary life. And when unwanted pregnancy occurs, this would most of the time results in abortion or infanticide or child abuse which adds up to the sinful acts prior to this. I cannot imagine the battle I would be in to make sure my future children (kalau panjang umur) are safe from all these new culture which is totally against Islam.

I chatted with a friend who befriends a few of these “social” or “huha huha” people once. She claimed that most of them are influenced by peers. Family problems, lack of attention and religious education are mainly the basic reasons to why they tend to be easily influenced by friends. They have no parents to go to, so friends are the only options. That is why relationship within familymembers is an asset for taking down these social problems. I haven’t got any experience myself to mingle closely with these people, so I would not blame anyone. Blame. Human beings always tend to blame other people when bad, unwanted things happen to them.

Anyway. My point is that I would like to remind myself and all, that we all have a purpose in our life. We have our religion as our way of life. Please do not let other culture takes over ours. Never underestimate the effect of discussing religious issues and educating ourselves and the children even at early age coz to know more about our religion and practising it fully are the only things that will make sure that we are on the right path.

Hidup tanpa ilmu umpama orang yg mati.
Ilmu tanpa amal umpama orang yg tidur.
Amal tanpa keikhlasan adalah sia2.

[masa belajar ni je la kalau nak ada masa buat benda2 extra, dah keje nanti apelah nasib....]

~~~~just a piece of thought~~~~
~~~~~betulkan jika salah~~~~~

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