How I Stopped University of Texas From Making Me Do Residency at Planned Parenthood

“Do no harm.”

It’s one of the first principles of ethical medical care, dating back to the ancient Greeks. But political pressure and a false understanding of patient autonomy have instead forced physicians to violate their patients’ dignity and their own conscience.

It’s a troubling paradigm shift in modern medicine, especially in the OB-GYN field.

Physicians are reduced to simple service providers, dispensing whatever the patient requests, rather than practicing thoughtful, evidence-based care.

Consequently, prominent institutions, including the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, now disregard physicians’ fundamental right to act in accordance with their moral principles and true care for their patients.

As a devout Catholic whose conscience rights were violated during residency, I know firsthand the restraints medical institutions impose on physicians and healthcare workers

That’s why I’m urging Congress to pass the Conscience Protections for Medical Residents Act, co-sponsored by Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., to help shift medicine back to its founding principles.

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Throughout my medical training, my goal was to be a pro-life voice in the OB-GYN world and treat both patients: the mom and the preborn child. I specifically avoided programs antagonistic to my beliefs and hospitals that required I train to perform abortions.

The University of Texas at Austin seemed like the perfect match; it assured me I wouldn’t be pressured into anything that violated my conscience.

In reality, the opposite happened.

During my second year of residency, I anticipated my scheduled rotation at the local Planned Parenthood with deep reservations. Other residents with the same objections to abortion were forced to go in the past, so I felt pressured to go as well.

The entire experience violated my conscience and what I knew to be good and true for patients.

I went to my assistant program director, who was the abortionist in charge of the rotation, asking to “opt out.”

Initially, I was told this would not be possible, but if I insisted, I would have to discuss it with the department chair.

I insisted. Eventually, I was allowed to opt out if I could create an alternative, chair-approved curriculum.

For a weekend, I traded my student hat for my teacher’s hat, hoping that by Tuesday, I could opt out of Planned Parenthood. In the end, an alternative curriculum was never approved, and since I refused to go, I was assigned reading material to complete in the residency office.

My story only scratches the surfaces of a systemic problem that has been ongoing for years.

The ACGME’s politically driven “opt-out” abortion training requirement has threatened the conscience rights protections we as physicians need to have to practice medicine effectively and ethically.

This “opt-out” criterion puts medical residents in an intimidating, career-threatening position, leaving them no choice but to challenge mentors who control grades and provide training opportunities that could impact their future in the medical field.

Coercion in the medical field should be highly discouraged.

Yet, in the name of autonomy, medical bodies like ACGME and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists make an exception for abortion.

Never mind that 76 to 93% of OB-GYNs don’t perform induced abortions and are already trained to treat miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.

ACOG aggressively pushes for standard and mandatory abortion training regardless, alienating a significant portion of the medical community.

A 2016 study found that more than half of physicians identify as faith-based, with 65% believing in God, yet ACOG and ACGME show little concern for excluding them.

In fact, another study conducted just before the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 revealed that nearly 25% of medical program directors have a negative view of students who refuse to conduct abortions based on deep moral convictions.

The result? The OB-GYN field ends up shrinking under the weight of politics dictating medical training.

Now is the time for physicians dedicated to medicine’s founding principles to act.

In my letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton about the Coats-Snowe Amendment on elective abortion training, I quoted former Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, one of its co-sponsors: Her goal was to “protect those institutions and those individuals who do not want to get involved in the performance or training of abortion when it is contrary to their beliefs,” while still maintaining strong medical training standards.

That’s the gold standard. Politics should protect scientific truth and ethical principles, not warp them. Now, thanks to Murphy and Lankford, we have the opportunity to revive it.

Murphy, a fellow physician and co-chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus, also saw ACGME and ACOG’s “unchecked authority” and “political opinions in medicine.” His leadership, inspired by the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, has helped turn this bill into a reality.

Instead of the current “opt-out” model, this bill would replace it with an “opt-in” model, respecting the rights of physicians to practice according to their conscience and ethical medical approach. True conscience rights protections are upheld, and medical residents can choose without fear of retaliation.

I will always do the best for my patients: I will “do no harm.” Many other physicians agree.

It’s time for Congress to step up and create safeguards to shield the medical field from political agendas. America’s medical students, physicians, and mothers depend on it.

LifeNews Note: Dr. Ashley Womack is a Dallas native and board-certified OB/GYN, specializing in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery and restorative reproductive care. After training at UT Southwestern, UT Austin and the University of Arizona, she is passionate about guiding patients through infertility, pregnancy and women’s health with compassion and expertise. This column originally appeared at Daily Signal.

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