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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Apr
4
Don’t Let ACOG Back Down
Filed Under abortion, action alert, activism, anti-choice extremism, assholes, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, women’s health | Posted by Cara |
Last week, I wrote about a Bush official who had written to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) about their new guidelines, which state that ethical practice requires doctors to refer patients to another doctor for any services (birth control, abortion, etc.) that they themselves will not perform due to conscientious objection. The Bush official, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, wanted this section removed. In other words, the Bush Administration sees no ethical obligation for doctors to refer their patients to medical services that they personally don’t like.
A few days later, I received an email from Steve at Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, and he shared some disturbing news. Extremist conservative doctors within ACOG have used Leavitt’s letter as an opportunity to challenge the organization — and have succeeded in getting ACOG in holding a special meeting to reevaluate the guidelines!
These doctors are fighting for the right to prevent women from receiving medical care due to their own personal beliefs — not just from themselves, but from any doctor. As I think all of us here have agreed, patients have a right to know all of their options and receive prompt, quality medical care. Withholding information from patients is absolutely unacceptable. Also keep in mind that this section of the guidelines is in no way binding; it just really hurts the poor anti-choice doctors’ feelings to be be referred to as unethical. And who can blame them? Getting called out on your own shit isn’t fun.
Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health have been working with ACOG in an attempt to ensure that they don’t back down from their extremely commonsense position. They’ve also started writing letters to the ACOG leadership; we can’t let the wingnuts who are in a definite minority succeed in making their voices louder.
Click here to send a letter and pass the information on. I honestly have not seen this issue discussed elsewhere. Anti-choicers are great at giant publicity stunts, but they’re even better at stealth operations. And their stealth is usually what hands them a victory. This is some publicity they’re not going to want. I think we owe it to ourselves to make sure they get it.
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
This is really frightening.
If a doctor refused to refer you for an abortion and you gave birth, could you sue the doctor for child maintenance?
I somehow doubt it, but you know that would probably work as a solution. A really ridiculous, roundabout solution, but I bet it would fix the problem.
“If a doctor refused to refer you for an abortion and you gave birth, could you sue the doctor for child maintenance?”
Its been tried a few times overseas, but so far all of those cases have been thrown out of court.
Although I agree that doctors should be ethically obligated to provide referrals, sometimes there are no referrals available.
For example, I know that in “bible belt” places like Kansas and Nebraska there are virtually zero abortion providers in the whole state. I’ve spoken to docs in these areas about this issue. They dont want to provide abortions, but they have no problem with referral. The issue is that they dont know anybody to refer them to. So they just tell the women to find the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic (which can be several hours away)
“Wrongful birth” suits have been successful, but I’ve only ever seen it applied in situations where the fetus had a major congenital abnormality, or where there was negligence in contraceptive procedures.
For example, a couple of years ago a German doctor was ordered to pay 18 years of child support after failing to insert a contraceptive implant.
Here is a US case where the costs of raising a healthy child were awarded after a negligently performed sterilisation surgery.
This article outlines a US case, and says that around half of US states recognise “wrongful birth” as a category of medical negligence. It also outlines some of the history. Such cases always seem to be controversial.
I can’t find any cases after refusal to refer for termination of a normal pregnancy, but I can’t see that it is necessarily impossible.