The Christian Medical and Dental Association has released a statement condemning the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists for ACOG's position statement (earlier coverage, here and here) that would require all doctors who object to abortion to either change their practice or make sure that they work next to a willing abortionist:
Physicians call on The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to stop attacking conscience rights
December 11, 2007--The nation's largest faith-based association of physicians, the 15,000-member Christian Medical Association (www.cmda.org), today joined other leading national organizations in challenging The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) to stop its attack on the conscience rights of pro-life physicians.
A letter, drafted by CMA and signed by other national organizations, blasted ACOG's Committee on Ethics position statement, "The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine." CMA's letter noted that the statement "suggests a profound misunderstanding of the nature and exercise of conscience, an underlying bias against persons of faith and an apparent attempt to disenfranchise physicians who oppose ACOG's political activism on abortion."
CMA CEO David Stevens, MD said, "ACOG is not only out of touch with conscience-driven physicians, but also with our long-standing American tradition to protect the rights of citizens to not participate in conscience-violating actions—especially when those actions would take a human life. That American tradition rests on constitutional principles of religious freedom and speech."
ACOG's position paper targets pro-life physicians, insisting that abortion-objecting physicians refer patients to get abortions and declaring that physicians who will not participate in conscience-violating procedures and prescriptions must actually move close to doctors who will.
Dr. Stevens added, "Many physicians had been realizing that because of their aggressive abortion lobbying, ACOG officials do not represent the values of most physicians and mainstream medicine. This statement goes a step beyond not representing our life-affirming values to actually advocating policies to prevent us from exercising those values. ACOG's attitude seems to be, 'If you don't toe the ACOG line on abortion, the 'morning-after pill,' and the application of reproductive technology, then you shouldn't be practicing obstetrics--and if you do, we're going to do everything in our power to force you to accommodate our abortion agenda."
CMA Executive Vice President Gene Rudd, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist, noted, "I have withdrawn my ACOG membership of over 25 years. My conscience can no longer support their lack of conscience. ACOG's strategy seeks to marginalize dissenting opinions. I as an obstetrician have a moral obligation not only to act in my patient's best interest, but also in the best interest of the developing baby, and of society as a whole."
3 comments:
The letter misses another major point -- Requiring physicians to refer for abortion also requires them to harm their patients, placing them at increased risk for STDs, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, poverty, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, and complications with future pregnancies.
A real doctor would let the woman know that ambivalence and rejection are normal and typically self-limiting and not at all a sign that she's "not ready" or that she'd be a bad mother. A real doctor would care more about his patient than politics.
This is mandating malpractice. It's unconscionable. But since it's coming from the clearly conscienceless, that should come as no surprise.
All abortion is murder and in the Bible, God said thou shall not murder, and he also said all murders shall spend ETERNITY in the lake of fire and brimstone which burns forever and ever! THINK ABOUT THE LENGTH OF ETERNITY!
I don't understand the the logic of giving "choice" to a woman who wants to murder her child in utero, but taking right of choice of a physician to refuse to do the deed or not.
This is quite unjust. It's unconstitutional, if that matters these days.
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