I was raised in a Christian family, where I was given a fair amount of opportunity to decide for myself if I wanted to go to church, and which faith of Christianity I wanted to be in.

In the 1970s a call went out to join the Uniting Church — it was created to unite those of Methodist, Presbyterian and other similar groups.

The Uniting Church doesn't have bishops or a Pope. We support the Basis of Union — the church's statement of foundational spiritual beliefs — and Christian faith. We share together in the responsibility of how we express our faith and how we worship.

I am also an obstetrician. A lot of my work is about counselling people in their pregnancies who may find themselves in difficult circumstances. Over time, that has included working with people in regards to pregnancy terminations.

Women come to me with a wide variety of issues. They may have pre-existing medical problems, or other mental health issues where pregnancy is a significant risk to them.

There are other circumstances where a woman is bound to have a pregnancy that is affected by a significant abnormality. We will talk about what that might mean to the child and to them, what they feel they can cope with and what options they might explore.

Dr Carol Portmann is an obstetrician, gynaecologist and maternal fetal medicine specialist at private practices in Brisbane. ( Supplied: SBS )

The other part of the work is talking to women for whom pregnancy is not something that they planned or wanted. We talk about what's the most appropriate way for them to manage that pregnancy in that setting.

I certainly don't sit down and say, "The only thing you can do is have a termination of pregnancy". We talk about what the options are, what more information they require, and if I can help them get that information.

Free will means the freedom to choose

How do I reconcile my work with my Christian faith?

The way I look at it is: I have a job to do as a doctor, regardless of my personal feelings about something. It's not my decision, because it's not my pregnancy or my body. Ultimately, the one thing God really granted us above anything else is free will.

Early on in medical school, we were not given opportunities to speak with people considering termination of pregnancy. So, as a student, you tend to start off with just your own personal beliefs.

Pro choice and pro life supporters gather outside Queensland's Parliament House in 2016. ( ABC News: Giulio Saggin )

But the more that you interact through your job with these women, the more you recognise it's just as important to provide people with support and openness, information and guidance, and being Christian shouldn't stop me from doing that.

If anything, I am able to provide patients with a loving, non-judgmental support because of my beliefs. God gave me these gifts, and through that I can help these people through difficult times.

How God may judge me is in the back of my mind.

But I believe that I am doing the appropriate and right things, and I am hoping that's how I will be judged. I also believe that only God can judge me.

Anti-abortion protesters have gathered outside of clinics I work at. While no-one has physically approached me, they have approached clients and other staff. Obviously, that is highly distressing to women.

Thankfully, the legislation in Queensland changed late last year — they now have to keep a distance away from clinics, and we haven't had any protesters out the front of our clinic since that change.

If someone wants to stand there and ask, "Can I help you, do you need money, do you need food, what can we do so that you don't need to consider an abortion", those are great people. Fantastic. They are trying to support women by giving them options that may provide alternatives.

But if you are the kind of person who is going to stand there and say, 'Hey, you are a murderer', that's not helpful in any way. The women feel judged and bullied. The people outside protesting don't really understand the circumstances that brought this person to the clinic on that day.

We must recognise women's experiences

I decided to take part in a new SBS series, Christians Like Us, because I wanted to bring abortion into the mainstream.

It's part of women's health care, and it should be talked about so women get the best advice and don't feel they are marginalised or that their actions disgust people.

We need to recognise what women (and their partners and families) are going through, why they might make these choices. If we don't recognise it, we can't help to support people.

I also wanted to make clear that you can be a person of faith — whether that's Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic or anything else — and still find yourself in a circumstance where you might have to make a difficult decision. And I am there to support that decision, whatever it may be.

People who are going through these difficult things don't need to see themselves as outside of their faith because of the choices they make.

Dr Carol Portmann is an obstetrician, gynaecologist and maternal fetal medicine specialist at private practices in Brisbane. She has also been an elder in her Uniting Church congregation and continues to be actively involved in her congregation.

Christians Like Us airs over two nights, April 3 and 10, on SBS.