Posted on 03/31/2005 7:28:06 PM PST by annalex
How do I start a chapter in my county?
1. Commit to the vision of the Association of Pro-life Physicians. We are very enthusiastic about starting other chapters around the nation, and we are very flexible in our requirements of chapters. At the very least you must agree to the basic pro-life principles and main goals of the APP as delineated under “Who Are We?” It is important to be as focused as possible on these aims so as not to alienate otherwise pro-life physicians with a plethora of diverse opinions and activities with which they may disagree.
2. Write or speak to physicians about whether they will perform abortions or refer for abortions, and invite pro-life physicians to be on a list of like-minded physicians that will be made available to the public. A letter writing campaign to physicians in your community will certainly identify a few physicians who are committed to not kill the pre-born. You can contact us for a form letter that you can send to local physicians. Include a stamped, self-addressed post-card in your envelope that the physician can simply sign and put back in the mail in order to be included in your list of physicians who will not kill babies or refer for abortions.
3. Once you have at least one or two physicians who commit not to perform or refer for abortions, begin to educate the community and the churches about who those physicians are. Through the availability of a local Directory of Pro-life Physicians, through phone calls, letters, ads in newspapers and radio, and word of mouth, the pro-life community will be informed about which physicians share their values.
4. You might wish to raise some money for a strong educational campaign. Contact us and we will work to get your local chapter included under our 501c3 designation. Once donations to your chapter are tax-deductible, it will be much easier to raise money. I believe the pro-life community will wholeheartedly embrace this attempt to restore fundamental Hippocratic principles to a remnant of the medical community.
5. Once the pro-life community begins to prefer Hippocratic physicians who share their values, other physicians will soon feel the stigma and financial strain of not being a Hippocratic physician and they will be forced to adopt our oath to protect all human lives in order to just stay in business. That’s how it happened under the influence of Hippocrates in Greece 400 years B.C., and that’s how it’s going to happen in the United States of America. In time, physicians who are reluctant to join our cause will contact you to be a member of the APP, to avoid the stigma of not being a member, and for the free advertisement to the community!
Today, their database is nearly empty. This is a shame. If you know a pro-life physician, urge him to get listed. If you don't know a pro-life physician, find one, before the blind judge finds you.
There are many reasons that your physician might not be listed in the Directory of the Association of Pro-life Physicians.
The most obvious reason is that they are “pro-choice”; that is, they think that abortion should remain a legal option for women. These physicians, of course, would not want to be listed in the Directory of Pro-life Physicians, and will be the chief opponents to any attempt to distinguish between pro-life and “pro-choice” physicians. Most patients are unaware of whether their physician performs abortions or refers for abortions, so this veil of secrecy shelters the child-killers from scrutiny and stigmatism. Though the APP will only publicize the names of physicians who will not kill babies (we will not publicize the names of physicians who are “pro-choice”), the child-killers will still vigorously oppose our attempt to draw “a line in the sand” over this issue. The Abortion Holocaust continues in part because of the public’s veil of ignorance about the humanity and viability of the pre-born child and a veil of secrecy over precisely who is doing the killing. It is one of the aims of the APP to tear down these veils: to defend the humanity and viability of the pre-born child in its natural environment from the moment of fertilization, and re-stigmatize child-killing in the medical community and in society.
It cannot be over-emphasized, however, that many physicians who consider themselves pro-life will be reluctant to join the Association of Pro-life Physicians. There are many reasons for this.
Some physicians who consider themselves to be pro-life and are personally against abortion believe that others may have different moral value systems and therefore should have abortion available as a legal option consistent with their personal value system. These physicians might never perform an abortion, refer for an abortion, or have an abortion, but they want others to make their own choice consistent with their own personal opinions and judgments. Most pro-lifers consider this the classic “pro-choice” position, but the physician insists that he is personally pro-life.
The folly of this position can be exposed with two questions: Would these physicians wish the killing of African Americans to be legal so that racists may make choices consistent with their personal value system? Would these physicians wish the killing of Jews to be legal so that anti-semites may make choices consistent with their personal value system? I don’t think that they would. Even the moral relativist can easily see the folly of his subjective standard of ethics if he would consider the hypothetical scenario of a society who legalized the killing of moral relativists. Would he insist that this option should remain legal so that those who want to kill moral relativists can make choices consistent with their personal value systems? He would not. If someone tried to assault or kill him without provocation, he would insist that person has no right to do so, regardless of the assailant’s personal value system or the vote of any human court. There is a right and wrong that transcends the personal opinions of men, the moral relativists’ sophistry notwithstanding. Though there are those who profess to be pro-life yet believe that the killing of a certain class of innocent people should be legal, we strongly disagree with them and they are excluded from the APP. To hold that the killing of a certain class of innocent human beings should be legal is bigoted and unethical, and merits the condemnation of decent society.
Some physicians who consider themselves to be pro-life and claim to be against abortion are willing to make exceptions when it comes to babies conceived through rape and incest, and so are excluded from the APP. They can sympathize with a woman who has been traumatized through such a violent crime and may wish abortion to remain a legal alternative in such circumstances. We hope to educate and admonish these physicians that the killing of an innocent human being should never be an acceptable alternative, even the killing of a tiny human being who has been conceived in the extremely unfortunate circumstances of rape or incest. The remedy for a violent act against an innocent human being can never be another violent act against an innocent human being.
Some physicians who consider themselves pro-life and claim to be against abortion make exceptions when it comes to the health of the mother, and so are excluded from the APP. They can sympathize with a woman who is suffering from an illness or a disease and wish abortion to remain a legal alternative in such circumstances. We hope to educate and admonish these physicians that the intentional killing of an innocent human being should never be an acceptable alternative, even of a tiny human being whose mother is suffering from an illness or disease that would resolve or improve with an abortion. It is wrong to kill one of our patients to improve the health of another one of our patients. We should try to help them both. If the preborn child cannot be saved (as in an ectopic pregnancy) and aggressive surgery such as surgical removal of the fallopian tube must be employed to save the mother’s life, this care is not inconsistent with the APP’s position. If through our treatment of the mother’s illness the pre-born baby inadvertently dies or is injured, this is tragic and, if unintentional, is not unethical. But the intentional killing of an innocent pre-born baby is never necessary.
We hope to publicize our distinction between physicians who will not kill any innocent human beings and physicians who will kill babies or refer for abortions. Even the killing of just one innocent human being, whether because they were conceived through rape or incest or to improve the health of the mother, precludes a physician from being a member of the APP. Certainly, if such a physician converts to the APP’s position and commits never to kill anybody again, we would be glad to add him to the Directory of Pro-life Physicians.
Some physicians who are truly pro-life – who will not perform an abortion or refer for an abortion, and who believe that innocent human lives should be protected by society - may still be reluctant to join the APP for many reasons. For the most part, people are settlers, not pioneers. Truly pro-life physicians may be reluctant to enthusiastically join a bold, new venture like this for fear of failure, for fear of ridicule, or for fear of losing friends and business. Perhaps they are unconvinced of the motives or the character of those who are leading the charge. This is understandable. Many physicians who sympathized with the principles in Hippocrates’ original oath refused to publicly embrace it at the onset of his ethical revolution of medicine. They were followers, not leaders. We believe that America’s pro-life physicians, once they see the wisdom of the APP’s goals and once the pro-life community begins to support our efforts, will not only join our cause, but will invest their time, talent, and treasure into ultimately making it a success.
We cannot over-emphasize that we are not to judge those who are initially reluctant to join the APP. We must give them time and let them understand our positions, see the diligence of our efforts, sympathize with our aims, and witness its positive affect upon the community, and they will soon join us in restoring the pro-life Hippocratic principles to the medical community and protecting innocent life.
Another reason that sincere pro-life physicians may not be members of the Association of Pro-life Physicians is because they are misinformed about us. Some of them think that it’s a dues-paying club. This is not true. Others think that it’s a club for physicians who specialize in issues involving childbirth or reproduction, or for pro-life protesters or political activists. Not so. The Association of Pro-life Physicians is a list – that’s it. It’s a list of physicians who won’t kill babies, which will be publicized to the community. It is our goal in the next decade that every pro-lifer in America will have a list of physicians in their community who share their values about caring for, and not killing, innocent human lives in the womb. It is our prayer that in the next twenty years, every American will be aware of two different types of physicians in America, the prolife Hippocratic physician, who will not kill patients or refer patients to be killed, and physicians who will kill people.
Finally, the most common reason that sincere pro-life physicians may not be members of the Association of Pro-life Physicians is because they are uninformed about us. This is where you can help! Click “How do I start a chapter in my community” and help restore the pro-life Hippocratic principles to medicine, help re-stigmatize child-killing in your community, and help stop legal child-killing in America. You can do it! Together, we can save lives, we can start an ethical revolution in defense of innocent life in America!
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I'm going to take this information to our Respect Life group at my church. Hopefully, this will take off really soon! Thanks much!
In my experience, most physicians are pro-life.
Part of it is I suppose that they tend to be Republican (educated, upper middle class, 100% for tort reform and hate trial lawyers). But I think an even bigger component is... they expend so much effort trying to save life, they can't just write it off for the sake of ideological expedience.
The country-club Republican environment is not necessarily pro-life. They also have an institutional interest in not having any segment of their activities under the scrutiny of the law. They might be inctinctively pro-life, or pro-life with exceptions, but the scarcity of pro-life physician lists points to their reluctance to be associated with pro-life orthodoxy.
Thank you. I found some resources like that, but I could not find a database which simply would tell me if my family practitioner internist is pro-life, or who the pro-life doctors are in my town.
There is a database of obstetricians, to be sure. The recent events, however, instruct us that only a complete fool,-- or a moral vegetable,-- would employ the services of a deathist doctor in any medical field and at any age.
Perhaps FR should start a referral service.
I know that a man that often serves as either sub-deacon or master of ceremonies at my indult mass is an MD. I don't really know him but I'd be shocked if he were not a candidate for this list, I'll mention it to him.
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