Pregnancy Center Call to Action

ACOG Says Physicians Have Duty to Perform or Refer for Abortions

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) has issued an opinion statement that has far-reaching implications for our medical PRCs. It is very important that you become familiar with this issue and take the action steps outlined below.

ACOG Committee Opinion #385

In November 2007, the ACOG ethics committee released Committee Opinion #385 titled: "Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine", in which physicians and their freedom to conscientiously refuse to participate in practices they consider morally objectionable was seriously challenged and called into question. In this document, ACOG’s pro-abortion political views are clearly evident. It included the suggestion that physicians who do not provide abortion services should re-locate their practices next door to abortion clinics so that their patients’ reproductive choices are not hindered.

ACOG concludes the Committee Opinion with a number of recommendations including the following:

• "Physicians and other healthcare professionals have a duty to refer patients in a timely manner to other providers if they do not feel they can in conscience provide the standard reproductive services that their patients request"
• "In an emergency when referral is not possible or might negatively affect a patient’s physical or mental health, providers have an obligation to provide medically indicated and requested care regardless of the provider’s personal moral objections"

Pro-Life Physicians Express Their Outrage

This is an outrage and numerous pro-life physicians have written letters in response to this document. The following is excerpted from CMDA’s (Christian Medical Dental Association) letter to ACOG (used with permission):

"The ACOG 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. The paper indicates that ACOG views the exercise of conscience and faith not so much as a cornerstone right in a democracy or as a historic hallmark of medicine, but rather as an inconvenient obstacle to abortion access."

Excerpts from ACOG's Paper Illustrate Concerns

A few excerpts from ACOG's paper illustrate these concerns:

1. "An appeal to conscience would express a sentiment such as 'If I were to do 'x,' I could not live with myself / I would hate myself, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night."

By caricaturing conscience as a pitifully self-centered, subjective feeling, ACOG denigrates the objective sources of conviction. Physicians of faith base decisions of conscience not on personal whims and feelings but on the objective teachings of Scripture--the same Scriptures that have provided the foundation for the laws of much of civilization. A physician's conscience may also be informed by time-honored ethical standards such as the Hippocratic Oath, which for centuries provided a foundation for medical ethics until abortion advocacy censored its teachings.

2. "Physicians…have the duty to refer patients in a timely manner to other providers if they do not feel they can in conscience provide the standard reproductive service that patient’s request."

This assertion contradicts a basic corollary of conscience. The same life-honoring, objective principles—"Thou shalt not kill," and "first, do no harm"--that persuade many conscientious physicians not to perform abortions also persuade them not to recommend someone else to do the deed.

ACOG's misguided and uninformed public statement on conscience limits is bound to have the effect, whether unintended or actually intended, of discouraging persons of faith from practicing or choosing obstetrics and gynecology as a profession. At a time when many communities are already suffering the loss of obstetricians and gynecologists forced out of their practices for economic reasons, it seems especially unwise to send such a message of ideological intolerance and religious discrimination.

Care Net's Response

As an organization dedicated to supporting the work of pregnancy resource centers, Care Net strenuously objects to the stipulations in ACOG’s ethics opinion regarding physician’s ability to practice medicine within the boundaries of their own moral and religious convictions. We support physician’s rights to ‘first do no harm’ and decline a patient’s request for a treatment or procedure that he or she deems contrary to his or her moral construct and/or religious views.

How Can This Affect PRCs?

It’s important that you understand how this may affect the future of the practice of OB/GYN which will ultimately affect our medical PRCs.

Q: What difference does a committee opinion make to a pro-life physician who refuses to perform or refer for abortion? How could adherence to this be monitored?

A: On the heels of the release of this opinion, ABOG (The American Board of OB/GYN) issued a new set of guidelines for OB/GYN physicians to maintain board certification. In the new system, physicians may have their certification revoked, or be denied re-certification if they are found guilty of violating the ethics principles (for example, if they do not refer for abortion, or locate near an abortion provider).

Q: What would the potential fall-out be?

A: Pro-life physicians would either withdraw from ACOG, or simply not be re-certified. Many hospitals use board certification as a requisite for issuing admitting privileges. Without hospital privileges, physicians will not be able to practice and lose livelihood. The community loses its doctors.

If ACOG’s opinion goes forward unchecked, we could see some significant changes in the face of the practice of medicine, particularly with regards to 'reproductive health'. If physicians are stifled in their ability to practice according to their conscience, many will drop obstetrics and fewer will choose OB/GYN, therefore finding a medical director will become that much more difficult. Any remaining medical directors would not be board-certified, would hence be open to further attack on themselves and their centers, such as being ‘fake clinics’ run by ‘substandard, unethical physicians’. Further, if physicians are required to refer for abortion, how long will even our non-medical PRCs maintain the freedom to decline this?

Even as you read this, Care Net is strategizing about how best to respond to this situation.

Find out how you can take action.