Posted on 12/07/2001 1:53:55 AM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - The American Medical Association this week voted overwhelmingly against a proposal to inform women about the potential for birth control pills to cause the abortion of a fertilized egg.
"If [pro-life women] are using a method that can operate after fertilization as well as before fertilization, and they don't know it, they are basically being deceived by lack of information into violating their own consciences," said Walter Weber, senior litigation counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Virginia-based public interest law firm.
Weber criticized the AMA for voting against a proposal during its annual meeting that would have urged physicians to inform women about that possibility. He believes some AMA members opposed the measure because they are, to varying degrees, pro-abortion, while others were simply skeptical and perhaps uninformed about the issue.
"The strongest argument against [the proposal] is to say that the evidence is unclear to what extent, if at all, certain methods of birth control can operate as abortifacients," a substance or device used to induce abortion, said Weber.
"That's legitimate medical research, scientific debate," said Weber. "The question comes down to whether we want to let women know about it, so they can decide whether it's important or not."
The AMA has strong policies on informed consent, giving patients information about the risks associated with medical procedures and drugs, Weber noted. "So it would have been very consistent with that to adopt this policy.
"For them to reject this is really for them to say that, 'we're going to make an exception for abortifacients, we think patients have the right to know about procedures in general but not when it comes to abortions, at least in the early stages of pregnancy,'" Weber alleged.
According to some sources, common birth control devices and pills -- like estrogen/ progestin birth control bills, Intra-uterine Devices (IUDs), Norplant, and Depo-Provera - can cause the abortion of fertilized eggs. Some suggest that these methods may not only work by preventing contraception but, sometimes, by preventing the implantation of an egg that's been fertilized, effectively killing it.
Dr. John C. Nelson, a member of the AMA's executive committee and a self-described conservative, said the Alabama doctor who put forward the proposal before the AMA "believes that in the spirit of enhancing the patient/physician relationship, that information ought to be disclosed to patients to help them make choices.
I couldn't agree more," Nelson said. "That's exactly what the AMA is about. It's a cornerstone of American medicine."
However, according to Nelson, the proposal was voted down because "many people from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine... decided that they would testify, and their testimony was that there is not sufficient scientific evidence to suggest" that birth control substances can induce abortions.
"One of the foremost infertility doctors in the country [said] that's not the way it works," Nelson added. "I have no reason to doubt him."
Weber suggested the proposal might be brought up again at the 2002 AMA meeting.
This is chilling. Research indicates a serious situation, and there is a question as to whether they want women to know about it? Where is NOW?
And more than a little arrogant.
Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? -- Adobe Acrobat (PDF) complete text.
Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent (FR)
patent
This is an ongoing deception, remember ..a fetus is just a mass of cells? This is simply an extention of the lie
Except where the information involves abortion.
Anyone who knows about medical research knows that the studies showing a link between saccharin and cancer are flawed. Yet foods that contain saccharin are still required to have a cancer warning.
The studies that show a link between breast cancer and abortion aren't widely accepted yet, yet just try to establish an informed consent requirement to warn women that abortion may cause breast cancer. You'll be shouted down.
There's just too much risk of a financial loss in the baby killing - er, I mean abortion - industry.
And that's whether the subject is pre- or post-implantation abortions.
Shalom.
I haven't taken the pill for 4 years because of this very thing. I found out by simply reading the encyclopedia. It's entry for progesterone (main ingredient in the mini-pill) said that it is a hormone used in contraceptives which can create an inhabitable uterine lining, thereby preventing implantation.
After having my son 9 months ago, I had the obligatory 6 week check-up birth control discussion with my ob/gyn. I informed him why I would not be taking the pill, and he confirmed it to me as well, that the pill can in fact act as an abortifacient. He didn't offer the info, but certainly agreed with my determination when presented with it.
This is so outrageous. So many women don't know, and I think more than a few would want to.
One of my wife's best friends just delivered her baby and was discussing going back on the pill, and my wife mentioned the sometimes-abortifacient nature of the pill. Her friend didn't know anything about it, so I can reasonably infer that her physician simply did not inform her. Well, a little email can cure the lack of information.
AMA jerks.
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