OBGYN group changes its ‘facts’ when needed to protect abortion

“Were you lying then, or are you lying now?” So asks an outraged defense lawyer in the great courtroom drama Witness for the Prosecution, when his star murder witness reverses her testimony. In light of recent events, some may want to ask the same question of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

ACOG presents itself as a defender of scientific truth about human reproduction. “ACOG firmly believes that science must be at the core of public health policies and medical decision-making that affect the health and life of women,” the organization has declared. It is purportedly in this spirit that ACOG has offered, in friend-of-the-court briefs, to show the Supreme Court how to resolve pending lawsuits that say the Administration’s contraceptive mandate infringes on religious freedom. Yet a look at ACOG’s factual claims before the court, and the claims it is making in other forums about the very same facts, raises troubling questions.

Powerful and once-respected medical organizations are simultaneously insisting that certain birth control methods both do and do not have post-fertilization effects—based solely on which factual claim will thwart pro-lifers on any given day, or in any given context.

First, the court cases. Hobby Lobby and other companies owned and operated by devout Christians have urged the Court to exempt them from covering four specific birth control methods—those that attack the newly conceived unborn child, by preventing his or her implantation in the mother’s womb. The cited methods are the “emergency contraception” drugs Plan B and Ella, as well as two types of IUD (hormonal and copper). The owners do not object to contraception; that is, to drugs that prevent ovulation or fertilization. But they do object to abortion, and believe that any attack on a new human life after fertilization constitutes abortion. Forcing them to facilitate such attacks would gravely burden their freedom to practice their faith.

In an October 2013 brief urging the Court to take up the Hobby Lobby case, ACOG and other “pro-choice” medical groups offered to help Hobby Lobby get its facts straight. They did not challenge “the sincerity of the owner’s belief that the use of such contraceptives would be wrong.” However, they said, Hobby Lobby’s claim about how these drugs and devices work is “a scientific matter” subject to verification. According to ACOG and the other signers:

Once the Supreme Court accepted the Hobby Lobby case, ACOG and other medical groups submitted a brief on the merits of the case, again urging the court to act on the factual claims in their earlier brief.

This seems straightforward. ACOG is saying that Hobby Lobby was simply wrong to think its religious convictions about respect for nascent human life were implicated here. “Scientific research shows” that these methods don’t work after fertilization.

But here’s where the problem arises: ACOG and some of these other medical groups have been publicly declaring, at the same time, that “science” shows exactly the opposite to be true. They argue that, because a variety of commonly used birth control methods do attack embryos after fertilization, legislators and voters should defeat efforts to declare legal personhood for human beings from fertilization onward.

ACOG’s current public position is that these initiatives “would make condoms, natural family planning, and spermicides the only legally allowed forms of birth control.” In other words, ACOG says that a ban on killing embryos after fertilization would ban all the contraceptive methods covered by the HHS Mandate.

One month before ACOG filed its Hobby Lobby brief in October, theWashington Post editorialized that “the practical effect of ‘personhood’ measures . . . would easily include banning the most popular forms of contraception. This is because the pill, as well as other forms of birth control, work partly by preventing the implantation of eggs in the uterus wall [sic] after they have been fertilized. Here the Post cited that objective voice of medical science, ACOG, which holds that “some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception—oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices, and other forms of FDA-approved contraceptives—would be banned” by a law that respects life beginning at fertilization. That is, ACOG holds this to be true except when it is filing briefs saying it is false.

The same doublespeak is found among other medical groups signing the Hobby Lobby brief. For example, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has a current position statement declaring: “Personhood measures would make illegal some commonly used birth control methods.”

In the case of the copper IUD, one birth control method to which Hobby Lobby objects, even ACOG’s brief was unable to claim that it does not prevent implantation of the new embryo because there is a fairly strong medical consensus that it does just that. Here the brief uses a different tactic, claiming that “the medical and scientific community” sees words like “abortion” and “abortifacient” as applying only after implantation. So this method does kill embryos, but should not be called “abortion.”

That is not a scientific finding but a semantic game. Obviously, what raises the moral problem of abortion for Hobby Lobby and so many others is that it can destroy an embryonic member of the human species; even ACOG’s brief admits that is a relevant consideration regarding the copper IUD. But the medical establishment (and its friends in the pharmaceutical industry) began changing the definition of “conception” in the 1960s, to equate it with implantation—precisely because evidence was emerging that the new method known as the IUD might prevent implantation, and they wanted to continue calling the IUD a “contraceptive” even if that evidence was correct. Thus, “abortion” was defined to cover only the disruption of an already implanted pregnancy.

The new definition was useful for obstetricians, who have no reliable way to detect a pregnancy until after implantation anyway. It has been especially handy for pro-abortion doctors, who like to see pregnancy as primarily a condition of the woman (and to see abortion as freeing her from that condition). But to embryologists, human development begins with fertilization; implantation in the womb is a change in location for the embryo, but it’s only one stage in development among others. To them, the terms “conception” and “fertilization” mean the same thing. And the last time I checked, embryology is a science.

But ACOG’s word game over “conception,” masquerading as scientific fact, is an old story in the abortion debate. The new and appalling development here is the fact that powerful and once-respected medical organizations are simultaneously insisting that certain birth control methods both do and do not have post-fertilization effects—based solely on which factual claim will thwart pro-lifers on any given day, or in any given context.

This raises an obvious question: Which of ACOG’s contradictory claims is true?

Let’s set aside, for the moment, the case of the copper IUD, where the medical consensus seems clear—it does interfere with implantation. Regarding the other three methods, what can science tell us?

There are conflicting studies and rival claims, but none of the drugs and devices cited by Hobby Lobby are proved to work only before fertilization. Because there is no reliable and direct test for whether fertilization has occurred in a woman’s body, one must make inferences from indirect evidence. But Ella, for example, is known to be a close analogue to the “abortion pill” RU-486, and in animal tests (including tests on nonhuman primates) it can both prevent implantation and disrupt pregnancy after implantation.

The evidence is less certain about the “emergency contraceptive” Plan B, but recent studies show that an anti-implantation effect cannot be dismissed. Some evidence suggests that even when taken before ovulation, the drug may interfere not with the release of an egg by a woman’s body but with the burst ovarian follicle’s task of preparing the uterus to receive the new embryo. ACOG’s brief claims that Plan B’s apparent lack of effectiveness when givenafter ovulation proves that it has no abortifacient (anti-implantation) effect, but that is not necessarily true.

So, concerns on the part of Hobby Lobby and others about being forced to facilitate the loss of newly conceived human life seem to be well-founded. It is ACOG’s brief that ignores the facts.

Does this mean that ACOG’s opposite claim—that a law recognizing the new human embryo as a person would make birth control illegal—is valid? Not necessarily. Some commonly used birth control drugs, like the ordinary oral contraceptive, are widely thought to act by preventing fertilization all or almost all the time; the non-Catholic family that owns Hobby Lobby did not even raise an objection to them. In the case of a drug or device that sometimes prevents fertilization, but sometimes may interrupt human development after fertilization, the former (legally valid) use would surely be raised in any legal argument—especially in a legal system where contraception is constitutionally protected. And no one claims to be able to prove in an individual instance how such a method has actually functioned.

Unfortunately, government has shown a marked tendency to keep various birth control methods on the market despite the risk they may pose to the lives of women, who are certainly persons. For example, contraceptive drugs containing drospirenone, such as Yaz and Yasmin, have been associated for years with a substantially increased risk of blood clots, which can lead to pulmonary embolism and death. Over ten thousand patients have filed lawsuits against the manufacturer. But so far, all the FDA has done is consider a new warning label.

The government and some self-declared expert organizations have a long record of hyping the health benefits of contraceptives and downplaying their risks. The Obama administration’s own regulation says its contraceptive mandate promotes public health by, among other things, assisting in the “prevention of certain cancers.” The administration failed to mention that while some contraceptive drugs may be associated with a decreased risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer, they seem to pose an increased risk of breast and cervical cancer and some liver tumors. It is valid to ask whether that same casual attitude toward these drugs’ risks to women would also play a role in the law’s assessment of risks to the unborn child.

But that doesn’t mean religious believers should be forced by law to have that same cavalier attitude regarding the lives of either women or their unborn children. It is their moral concern about the sanctity of life, not the government’s, that is relevant to the Hobby Lobby case, and that concern is well grounded.

So ACOG seems to have achieved something rather special. It has declared a medical claim to be both true and false at the same time, depending on the political context; and it may have managed to exaggerate or misstate that claim’s relevance to the issue at hand in both contexts.

This is not the first time that ACOG has politicized medical science, with devastating impact on public policy. In 1996, for example, it issued what purported to be an analysis of the “intact D&X” or partial-birth abortion procedure by a panel of medical experts. Originally, the ACOG statement said that its select panel “could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” But this text was sent to an aide in President Clinton’s domestic policy office, who wrote back that the statement would spell “disaster” for political efforts by ACOG and the White House to defeat a ban on the procedure. So policy staff with no medical background drafted a different punch line for the ACOG statement, saying that this procedure nonetheless “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.”

ACOG inserted that political spin into its supposedly expert statement—and that one sentence was quoted over and over by federal judges to invalidate state bans on partial-birth abortion, by the Supreme Court when it knocked down Nebraska’s ban in 2000, and by dissenting justices when the Court finally upheld a federal ban in 2007.

We all may have moments when we are tempted to ignore inconvenient facts, to be selective in marshalling evidence, or even to say different things at different times to help us prevail in some dispute. What’s disturbing is that a group presenting itself as an authoritative guide to medical science may see these not as temptations but as standard practice.

Richard M. Doerflinger is Associate Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This piece is reprinted with permission from ThePublicDiscourse.com.

But the medical establishment (and its friends in the pharmaceutical industry) began changing the definition of “conception” in the 1960s, to equate it with implantation—precisely because evidence was emerging that the new method known as the IUD might prevent implantation, and they wanted to continue calling the IUD a “contraceptive” even if that evidence was correct. Thus, “abortion” was defined to cover only the disruption of an already implanted pregnancy.

The FACT is that Big Murder considers abortion to be a perfectly acceptable form of birth control.

‘The FACT is that Big Murder considers abortion to be a perfectly acceptable form of birth control.’

The reason why is because the failure rate of birth control, all forms, is between 1-5%. If 1-5 planes out of 100 crashed, who the hell would ever fly?

Yet, Abortion is 100% effective as a form of birth control for the same reason the mafia was so hard to prosecute: Dead men tell no tales.

Abortion is the stop gap birth control for those who use birth control. After all they really didn’t want to get pregnant, the condom broke, the pill failed, the foam didn’t foam, etc...So it is not really a baby or a person or even a life.

God forbid you would have consequences to behavior!

Natural law states that God is the designer of life, the Creator.

Marriage is where that happens.

Anything else takes three or four pages, like this stupid position of the OBGYN community, to attempt to explain.

Wait ‘till the Little Sisters of the Poor’s case comes out.

The Catholic position is that Birth Control is the root of abortion.

And there’s all kind of documentation from Natural Law and theologians.

The sisters don’t make this stuff up, they are too busy taking care of old poor people. THey trust in their 2,000 year old church for guidance.

"ACOG’s current public position is that these initiatives “would make condoms, natural family planning, and spermicides the only legally allowed forms of birth control.” In other words, ACOG says that a ban on killing embryos after fertilization would ban all the contraceptive methods covered by the HHS Mandate."

I want to keep this statement on hand for pro-contraceptive FReepers when they say they are pro-contraception because it doesn't cause abortion.

"So, as I understand it, you're in favor of ONLY condoms & spermicides? Mmm, interesting...."

Especially since the condoms & spermicides are the least "effective" form of contraception.

This is the deal: the human body is really, powerfully oriented toward procreation. A man's BODY wants to beget. A woman's BODY wants to conceive. And the only really effective way to thoroughly thwart your body, is either to maim it (surgically disabling reproductive organs) or shut it down hormonally.

Which is what all the hormonal contraceptives (pill, patch, injection, implant) are all about. And hormonal contraceptives can all kill early embryos.

Abortion is legal because it’s convenient. Liberals justify it by pretending that little people aren’t people.

Pretending about other people is not new: We pretended that the Indians are not people to justify our actions against them; we pretended that blacks aren’t people to justify slavery; the Germans pretended that Jews aren’t people to justify killing them; many people are currently pretending that homosexuality is normal.

And of course, liberals pretend that a fetus is not a person so they don’t have to face the consequences of a previous choice. Suzy makes a mistake and has sex with Sam and gets pregnant with Billy. No problem for liberals: pretend Billy isn’t a person and kill him before anyone sees him.

Governments always get into trouble when they start pretending things to be true that aren’t true.

Once the egg is fertilized, a new and unique human being is formed. A DNA comparison between the mother and the fertilized egg/fetus/baby would prove they are in fact different human beings with different, though related, DNA.

Thus a DNA test would prove that abortion kills a human being.

In the time before the abomination called abortion was legal, doctors performed D & C’s in the first trimester. Legal bortion has been going on a lot longer than most people think, it was just called another name by the medical profession.

If a doctor performed a D&C on a pregnant woman in her first trimester back before abortion was legal, then it most certainly was illegal – no matter what the doctor called it. That is not to say that some doctors didn’t use D&C as an abortion method and probably recorded it the woman’s medical record as being necessary after a spontaneous miscarriage in order to not be arrested for performing an illegal abortion. Or that it still isn’t used in some parts of the world as an abortion method, but it is a method of abortion most responsible for potentially fatal complications and infections and given it requires general anesthesia it is rarely used today for that purpose. Ironically a second D&C was often needed after a “botched” D&C abortion.

But I hope you are not implying that a D&C has no other medical indication other than for performing an abortion or that all women who underwent a D&C before Roe v. Wade were, “wink-wink”, getting an abortion. A D&C procedure is often used after a miscarriage or after a live birth when the placenta tissues remain or for medical conditions like excess uterine lining in women who have conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome. My mother had to have a D&C back in the early 60’s after a miscarriage and another in the late 60’s because of pre-menopausal heavy and unusual bleeding.

I just wanted to clear up any unintentional misconceptions that D&C always = abortion.

Oh, I know it was not legal, it was just written up as a necessary GYN procedure. It is how they got around it.

I’ve had D & C for Endometrosis, very heavy bleeding and fibroids, as has my DIL. I ended up with a complete Hysterectomy as it all came back with in a year. She is in that position now and since she is a Stage 3 both receptors Breast Cancer survivor it makes since to do a Hysterectomy rather than hormone suppression, as she is having the same health issues, of heavy bleeding, endometrosis, and fibroids. Stupid ins rules. My mom had one after a spontaneous miscarriage as a precaution.

By no means was I saying it was strictly a abortion method. It is often a very necessary medical procedure.

Just that it was used as one by some before other methods were invented. And you are correct, it was dangerous back then. Less so with today’s modern methods.

Uncomfortable as all get out. And does not always accomplish what is truly needed, a hysterectomy. But ins co rules no prior history, D & C comes first.

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