AMA Votes Against Abortion Disclosure

(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.

Re: the dirty little secret of the Pill --

My wife and I didn't know this either (that the Pill is an abortifacient). I discovered it by accident while reading Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), by Pope John Paul II. At the time, we were not Catholics but we were adamantly pro-life. The revelation that we could have been having early-term abortions and never known it, rocked us to our core.

Recently my wife was in the hospital after experiencing problems with an exceptionally heavy flow. The OB/GYN immediately recommended putting her on birth control pills which we rejected. When we told her we wouldn't do it due to the possible abortifacient effect, the doctor got this "deer in the headlights" look on her face like "Uh-oh, THEY KNOW."

(By the way, Chloryphyll supplements cleared up the problem without having to resort to using the Pill. I hear that flax seed oil works as well.)

Do these women not know that emergency contraception (morning after) is just an increased number of birth control pills?

j Are you kidding? Who would've told them -- the AMA? The Media? Planned Parenthood?

Thanks for your contribution. You never know -- you might have saved a life today.

Nearly thirty years ago I was selling IUD's and contraceptive pills for Searle Labs. I became a Christian and realized that I couldn't in good conscience support abortion. I had been trained to sell the above mentioned products as contraceptives. When I learned that they were also on occasion abortifacient (that was nearly thirty years ago, so how up-to-date is the current AMA?) I had to inform my boss that I couldn't sell those any longer. It was then that the company admitted--not before and we were not taught that--the products did on rare occasion cause the miscarrying of a conceptus. The pharmaceutical industry drives too much of the AMA's rationale. These 'doctors' know thr truth, but choose to promote the lies because of profits ... doctors are the largets shareholders in pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

their testimony was that there is not sufficient scientific evidence to suggest" that birth control substances can induce abortions.

There you have it. Another Pro-life myth busted.

What is the world coming to? We have lawyers telling doctors about medical facts. We have doctors telling the world about firearms. We have Pro-lifers telling women they should feel guilty if they have abortions. We have Clean Air Rights people telling others they can not smoke. We have talk show hosts (Dr. Laura) telling librarians how to run their business. We the Ashcroft telling Oregon he will will interfer with their State Laws.

No body seems to be able to mind their own business these days.

Thanks for the pro-life ping.

The sheer arrogance of the AMA collectively deciding what a patient should or should not be informed of is stunning. The real epiphany for cooperative of big medicine/big drug companies will be when breast cancer rates start rising (due to the aging of the first generation of legal abortion recipients) and some legal eagle (ala the big tobacco lawsuits) connects the dots between abortion and breast cancer. The physical damage (infertility) along with the breast cancer risk is the 'third rail' of the pro-choice lobby. No one wants to touch the women's health aspect of all of that 'choice.'

Thanks for the flag. I thought that it was already proven that some birth control pills worked by preventing implantation. I'm a little surprised that this issue is still in doubt, and I think that the pro-life movement should be willing to admit that there is still controversy over the question. I don't believe that the child becomes a person at the moment of conception, so it isn't that big an issue to me anyway.

I'm mostly concerned that these people are voting over what a doctor may tell his/her patient about a controversial issue. If the doctor believes that these contraceptives are causing abortions, he/she has the right to inform patients. He should be honest about the controversy, but he shouldn't keep the information secret.

WFTR
Anti-Abortion Opinions
Bill

I'd bet not one physician in 10,000 ever informs his/her patient that they're about to take a drug which might induce an early term abortion by preventing implantation. Did yours? Ours didn't.

Most of them would rather ignore the issue or pretend that pregnancy begins with implantation.

And, yes you're technically correct -- it is printed on the label. But the vast majority of people don't read the inserts that come with their drugs, and of the tiny percentage who do, most of these people cannot read medicalese well enough to decipher the meaning.

I'd bet not one physician in 10,000 ever informs his/her patient that they're about to take a drug which might induce an early term abortion by preventing implantation. Did yours? Ours didn't.
Most of them would rather ignore the issue or pretend that pregnancy begins with implantation.
And, yes you're technically correct -- it is printed on the label. But the vast majority of people don't read the inserts that come with their drugs, and of the tiny percentage who do, most of these people cannot read medicalese well enough to decipher the meaning.

What the hell kind of physician are you going to? Sounds like some kind of shady back-alley dealings to me. What do you mean "most of them would rather ignore the issue"? You might try to give doctors more credit than that, since most of them don't get too involved with ridiculous abortion arguments. Sounds to me like you went to the 1 in 10,000 doctors that DON'T mention to their patients that one of the applications of birth control is use as a "morning after" pill. A larger quantity of pills can be taken up to 72 hours after intercourse to successfully stop a pregnancy. This is common knowledge among nearly 100 percent of women whom are on the pill and I am shocked that you would imply that a physician would deliberately not tell a patient about this application because of some silly ridiculous abortion argument.

MM

This is common knowledge among nearly 100 percent of women whom are on the pill and I am shocked that you would imply that a physician would deliberately not tell a patient about this application because of some silly ridiculous abortion argument.

Well, let's check it out. I would assume that someone on FR who has further self-selected to be on the Pro life bump list, would have a far greater familiarity with the fact that the Pill is an abortifacient. So let's ask them:

How many of you lady Freepers knew that the Pill was an abortifacient? Please respond to this post.

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