American Medical Association Sides With Abortion Over Helping Pregnant Women

Opinion   |   Kristan Hawkins   |   Jul 11, 2019   |   3:25PM   |   Washington, DC

When Planned Parenthood handed out their attendance stickers to the Democratic field of candidates who recently joined the abortion vendor in calling for taxpayer funding of abortions without late-term limits, their political power and influence was on full display. But a recent move by the American Medical Association shows that the billion-dollar enterprise has integrated itself into all kinds of institutions believed to be less biased about the politics of abortion.

Recently, the American Medical Association sued the state of North Dakota for attempting to tell women that if they act quickly, they can reverse the impact of the chemical abortion drugs.

The abortion industry despises these kinds of laws that let women know that a choice for chemical abortion can be reversed. The process involves interrupting the deadly effects of two drugs.

This first drug, Mifepristone, acts to block progesterone receptors, essentially starving the baby of needed progesterone. Then a second drug, misoprostol (Cytotec), is taken to force a miscarriage.

But medical science has come a long way in addressing miscarriage, leading to the current legal drama.

In 2009, Dr. George Delgadowas medical director at Culture of Life Family Health Care and the regional medical director of The Elizabeth Hospice, a nonprofit hospice in San Diego, got a call on behalf of a woman who had taken the first of the two chemical abortion drugs and regretted it. She was looking for answers about whether it was too late to help her baby.

“I started thinking about my years of experience with progesterone, and how I’d used progesterone to try to prevent miscarriage,” Delgado told fellow physicians at a pro-life medical conference. He went on to develop a protocol to counteract the drugs with extra progesterone.

Testifying in Colorado in 2017 on the issue, Delgado said that since that time, “(A)bout 250 babies have been born after reversal and approximately 100 women are currently pregnant after reversal. Our success rates with our best protocols are 65-70 percent while our overall success rate is 50-55 percent. These rates are much better than the15 percent survival rate if a mother takes mifepristone and does nothing.”

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Expanding informed consent for abortion to include the fact that taking one pill might not be the end of a baby’s life is critical today as abortion vendors work to sell the drugs online, without medical supervision, and as politicians in California work again to require college and university health centers to become abortion vendors, handing out RU-486 on campuses. Students for Life, with more than 90 groups on college campuses in California alone has been fighting this every step of the way because of the dangers to women, as I testified recently.

Add to that the abortion industry’s coordinated push to reduce FDA-required protections for women taking RU-486, it’s clear even more women will need to know all the facts about how their bodies may be impacted.

Sadly, the AMA will not be the champion of women looking for answers, despite the guidelines for informed consent discussed in the AMA Journal of Ethics. An ethical doctor will include information about their personal or economic interests in giving advice and “a physician must also explain any benefits or risks that may be significant to the particular patient.”

Given how many women regret their abortions, letting them know that taking that first abortion pill isn’t their last choice for the baby is significant information. With more and more Americans expressing pro-life sentiments, it’s natural that pro-life policies will make their way into law and that women’s broader interests such as for health and safety protections and informed consent will be prioritized.

This struggle to inform women about their bodies and the impact of deadly drugs represents today’s engaged, pro-life movement, which does not hide facts from the women who deserve to know.