Medical Groups Confirm Women Don’t Need Abortions. Moms and Babies Need Health Care
A coalition of medical and policy organizations representing thousands of healthcare professionals is calling for higher health care standards for women and unborn children. In part, they are urging hospitals to ensure staff members understand their state’s laws that relate to treating patients facing complicated or life-threatening pregnancy health situations.
The declaration comes after ProPublica published stories on the tragic deaths of Georgia residents Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, who died from complications after taking chemical abortion pills in 2022. As CatholicVote previously reported, pro-life leaders have contended the claim that Georgia’s pro-life laws caused their deaths, arguing instead that the drugs themselves, medical negligence, and pro-abortion misinformation led to their deaths.
“As an Emergency Physician with over 10 years of experience, I have seen the harm to both physicians and patients that results from misinformation and confusion about abortion laws and life-affirming health care,” Dr. Cortney S. Draper stated in a press release about the Women’s Healthcare Declaration, which launched on October 22.
Draper added that the “declaration offers much-needed clarity on what it means to provide excellent care to pregnant women and their preborn children.”
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In the declaration, signers affirmed 11 statements, some of which relate to medical professionals’ conscience rights, treatment of life-threatening situations like ectopic pregnancies, prenatal testing and diagnoses, and informed consent in regards to pregnancy health care and abortion.
They affirmed in one of the statements that they took an oath to never intentionally harm any of their patients. They continued:
Induced abortion kills one of our patients (the preborn child) and carries significant potential harm to the other patient (the mother), including, but not limited to, increased risk of preterm delivery in future pregnancies, increased mental health risks including substance abuse and suicide, and risk of death from complications.
The declaration also lists a number of action items. The declaration calls on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to put safety protocols in place for the use of the high risk chemical abortion drugs. The statement highlights that the FDA loosened its safety standard requirements for pregnant women who take the chemical abortion drug mifepristone.
According to the declaration, health care institutions should hold medical professionals accountable if they “fail to provide life-saving care to women suffering from miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, complications following an induced abortion, or any other life-threatening emergency during pregnancy.”
“The ultimate victims of the lies about abortion that are currently proliferating in the media are our patients,” OBGYN Dr. Christina Francis stated in the press release. “As physicians, we see a dire need to correct the record on induced abortion, abortion laws, and life-affirming care.”
Francis is the CEO of American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (AAPLOG), which also signed the declaration.
The signatories also “call on state legislators to enact legislation that protects women in their state from the risks of induced abortion, including drug-induced abortions which are often unregulated mail-order and self-managed, and to require fully informed consent for women about the significant risks of induced abortion.”
Signatories emphasized that life-affirming health care must take into account the needs of both patients, the unborn children and the mothers who “need to be able to trust that their doctors will recommend what is best for both them and their preborn children, regardless of current political or cultural trends.”
In the press release, Louis Brown, founding board member and vice president of public policy for the Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance (CHCLA), denounced legalized abortion’s devastating effects on the black community.
“Tragically,” Brown stated, “legalized abortion in the United States is a racist policy that has allowed the killing of millions of African-American preborn children[,] done serious harm to millions of African-American mothers, and seriously hurt the African-American community.”
Also, noting abortion’s harmful effects on other minority communities and on the country itself, Brown stated that the aim of pro-life state laws is to better protect expectant mothers and their children.
“The abortion industry and pro-abortion elected officials are engaged in egregious misrepresentation, deception, and lying about pro-life state abortion laws,” he continued. “It is actually chemical abortion drugs and surgical abortion procedures that threaten the life and health of pregnant mothers in America.”
The Catholic Medical Association, Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance (CHCLA), American College of Pediatricians, and the American Academy of Medical Ethics are among the 12 organizations that have signed the declaration. The full list of organizations that have signed can be accessed here.
LifeNews Note: McKenna Snow writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
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