University of Kansas Must Quit Training Abortion Doctors

State   |   Kathy Ostrowski   |   Mar 12, 2012   |   12:20PM   |   Topeka, KS

There is no reason that Kansas should succumb to the desire of the University of Kansas (KU) to continue decades of facilitating, promoting and paying for abortion trainingin their post-graduate residency program.

Kansans for Life files show that 13 of 24 Kansas abortionists were KU medical center grads, taught at KU, or both.

The policy (see earlier post) of the national accreditation agency, ACGME, is being waved at lawmakers as if it absolutely demands abortion training.  But a careful examination shows it merely requires that accredited ob/gyn residency programs provide training in abortion complications and not impede (or discriminate against) residents who seek abortion training separately ‘on their own time and own dime.’

This is solely a negative requirement— it does not require Kansas to help them do so, much less to pay for it. And thus, Kansas House Bill 2598 poses no threat to accreditation. And even if it were a threat, state sovereignty determines standards for medical training and practice– not ACGME. For 16 years, ACGME has tried to bully medical schools into help recruiting physicians to offset the continuing reduction in numbers of abortionists.

Furthermore, HB 2598 would prohibit state entities (including KU residents that are insured as state employees) to perform abortions EXCEPT those necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant woman (see section 6). HB 2598 is certainly not endangering pregnant women who face life-threatening situations. All ob/gyns are trained to handle all emergencies in educational settings and hospitals without having participating in elective abortion . For example:

  1. Ob/gyns detect and treat ectopic pregnancies, where the human embryo or fetus is developing outside the uterus (generally in the Fallopian tube) and may explode.  Although often resolved with medication, it may require laparoscopic surgery.  This is technically a life-saving abortion that takes place in hospitals, not abortion clinics, and HB 2598 does not bar this kind of training.
  2. Ob/gyns manage maternal complications of serious eclampsia, and renal or cardiac situations can necessitate early delivery or removal of a deceased baby. Monitored hospitalization is the standard of care here and residents obtain experience outside abortion settings. Perinatologists or gyn/oncologists may have to assist in extreme complications–but not abortionists.
  3. Ob/gyns treat hemorrhaging from both naturally-occurring miscarriages and induced abortions, often with a scraping of the uterus (womb) called a D & C. They are trained to handle these situations –and other pregnancy problems and abortion damages that need reparative surgery– outside the abortion setting.

For the above reasons, it is pure nonsense for abortion supporters to frame HB 2598 as producing incompetent ob/gyns and creating a shortage of practitioners who can adequately care for women with pregnancy-related heath issues.

“Abortion is a substandard category of “medical” service to say the least”, says Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman. “Physician shortages have been exacerbated by pro-abortion extremists, who demand the legal right to force the state to cooperate in abortion training, and who intimidate potential trainees who are pro-life by either directly or subtly discriminating against them for their pro-life beliefs. Moreover,

physicians who are most likely to be willing to alleviate shortages in rural areas are far more likely to be pro-life than not, as are the patients they wish to serve.”

Bowman continues, “pro-abortion training programs, directors, and professional organizations dissuade these persons from entering Ob/Gyn in the first place. They even seek to drive existing rural Ob/Gyns out of practice by mandating their cooperation in abortion and abortion referral, as stated by the 2007 “Opinion 385” of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).” (see critique of that document here)

If Kansas wants great doctors, and more of them, KU needs to cut its ties to abortion.

LifeNews.com Note: Kathy Ostrowski is the legislative director for Kansans for Life, a statewide pro-life group.