Pro-life physicians prepare to counter misleading medicalization of induced abortions

(The Daily Signal) – After seven statewide wins in the past two years and not a single loss, pro-abortion activists are advancing constitutional amendments in another 13 states this year to block elected representatives from regulating abortion in any way.

The pro-abortion activists are deploying the same winning strategy as last cycle: highlighting medical professionals who cast abortion as essential health care. But for thousands of doctors like me, the facts say something different.

As a board-certified OB/GYN, I am guided by evidence-based medicine and a commitment never to use death as a therapy for my patients. Given the overwhelming scientific consensus that life begins at fertilization, I am tasked with the care of not one but two patients when I see a pregnant woman at the hospital.

Intentionally ending the life of my fetal patient would violate my ethical responsibility, not just to the child but to my maternal patient by subjecting her to an elective procedure with potentially grave health risks.

Proponents of the constitutional amendments—those approved for ballots in Florida and Maryland and those advancing in at least 10 other states—spread fear that women will die because of not being able to receive lifesaving care, ignoring the fact that even the most restrictive state laws already provide exceptions in such cases.

Pro-abortion activists use this as a pretense to ban abortion regulations of any type, even those supported by a vast majority of the public, such as requiring abortion facilities to maintain the same health and hygiene standards as other medical facilities.

Pro-life physicians are preparing to counter the misleading medicalization of induced abortion. We highlight our own experiences treating patients using safer alternatives, such as the time I sat on a patient’s bed discussing with her the need to induce labor very early in pregnancy, even though we knew the baby would not survive.

As pro-life physicians, we’re also highlighting how often we’ve been able to care for women in difficult situations in ways that respected not only their lives, but the lives of their babies as well. The result: healthy mom and healthy child. 

This is consistent with how more than 90% of OB/GYNs in America practice.

The physicians in our coalition will share the potential harms of induced abortion and the importance of ensuring that patients understand and consent to the risks. The chance of harm increases the later in a pregnancy the abortion occurs.

Importantly, our physicians will attest to the fact that increased restrictions on abortions correlate with improved maternal mortality. The state of South Dakota, for example, has seen death rates for mothers decrease since passing a law to prevent all abortions except to save the mother’s life.

Abortion advocates falsely appeal to the masses by claiming that proposed constitutional amendments would ban restrictions on abortion only up to the point of fetal viability. They conceal the fact that the measures also protect abortions up to the baby’s due date as long as a health care professional attests that it is in the health interests of the patient—which includes, importantly, the patient’s mental health.

This mental health carve-out is a favorite of pro-abortion advocates because it effectively provides a blank check for unlimited abortions. That’s why we’ll inform voters that abortion takes a devastating toll on mental and emotional health, including a greatly increased risk of suicide and alcohol and drug abuse.

Getting these messages out isn’t easy. Doctors who speak out in favor of life do so at great personal and professional risk, as much of the medical establishment is controlled by pro-abortion ideology. Two years ago, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology notified physicians that they could lose board certification if they spread “misinformation” about “essential reproductive health care”—claiming the right for itself to determine what constitutes “misinformation.”

Nonetheless, thousands of physicians are joining our effort. The organization I lead, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or AAPLOG, is launching a new 501(c)4 nonprofit this week to enable us to organize these political fights.

We’re learning our lessons from 2022 and 2023. We saw the so-called Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Health run scaled-up advertisements via Facebook ahead of pro-abortion activists’ victory last November. We’re countering similar efforts this year with our own statewide physician coalitions in Florida, South Dakota, and Arizona, which we’re arming with organizing muscle, central messaging, media training, and support via digital and media campaigns.

For the pro-life movement, the medicalization of these ballot measures has been our Achilles heel. Through fearmongering, our opponents have convinced voters that abortion is a necessary and harmless medical procedure. They have muscled through constitutional amendments that would erase prior state legislative wins and block duly elected representatives from passing sensible abortion protections.

We are prepared to counter fear with facts this year, leveraging the expertise of thousands of physicians who understand the medical perils of unregulated induced abortion.