In a tweet last week, the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs announced it was dropped from an annual OB/GYN medical education conference sponsored by the abortion-supporting American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The event was held over three days, Feb. 27 to March 1, at a convention center in Maryland.
In a video posted to Twitter, pro-life physician Christina Francis said the pro-life group has set up a booth at the medical conference every year for 15 years.
“However, just a few days ago, after having already traveled to this area, we were informed that our exhibit booth had been canceled,” said Francis, an Indiana hospitalist and the incoming CEO of American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs.
Dr. Susan Bane, another member of American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs, tells AFN the cancellation was “shocking” considering the purpose of the conference is to educate the next generation of obstetricians and gynecologists.
“This is a gathering of professors that teach medical students and residents,” she explains. “These are students that are in their formation years of trying to really decide what is medicine for and what is part of my practice…”
The theme of the 2023 meeting, ironically enough, was “Building Bridges: Creating Connection in Medical Education.”
Yet it appears the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists allows only one view of abortion: Embrace it and defend it.
“Abortion is a safe, essential part of comprehensive health care,” ACOG’s president, Iffath Abbasi Hoskins, said last summer after Roe v Wade was overturned, “and just like any other safe and effective medical intervention, it must be available equitably to people, no matter their race, socioeconomic status, or where they reside.”
In the same statement, Dr. Hoskins called the landmark Dobbs ruling a “direct blow to bodily autonomy, reproductive health, patient safety, and health equity in the United States.”
The Christian Post, in its own story about the unwanted pro-life exhibit, points out ACOG has published a “Guide to Language and Abortion” that demands “medically appropriate” language and definitions. The same pro-abortion group that uses the phrase "bodily autonomy" is unhappy with terms such as “chemical abortion” and “late-term abortion.”
Even the term “elective abortion” is a no-no among the abortion-support doctors because it can “diminish the value of the abortion care that many patients need.”
The “guide” also urges OB/GYNs to not use the terms “baby” and “unborn child” to describe the fetus in the womb. Why? Because “centering the language on a future state of a pregnancy is medically inaccurate," the guide states.
An ACOG FAQ document, which describes the stages of fetal development, describes the baby as a fetus even through the ninth month of pregnancy.
According to Dr. Bane, a big part of academic medicine is scholarly debate. “And they shut down,” she says, “any debate.”
In the Christian Post story, Dr. Francis challenged ACOG's president to a debate "anytime, any place" to debate abortion.
"So that we can present both sides of this issue," she said, "and allow not only the general public but also the next generation of physicians to decide for themselves what the evidence supports."
