UPDATE: The university has decided not to hire for the position for a year. It may still hire for the position down the road.
Pro-life student protests at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities prompted the school to cancel its plans to hire an abortionist to teach students.
Earlier this month, Campus Reform discovered a job ad for a “Reproductive Rights Advocacy Fellowship” at the university. The one-year medical fellowship would have trained a doctor as an abortionist who would then train medical students in the same life-destroying practice.
According to the ad, the abortionist-in-training would spend at “least 20 days at a high volume abortion site [Planned Parenthood], getting training and becoming a trainer.” The fellowship curriculum also included details about training people in “reproductive advocacy,” or pro-abortion political work, according to the report.
Here’s more from the report:
In fact, the workbook suggests that medical abortion is so safe that it may even be preferable to carrying a child to term, noting that “The mortality associated with childbirth is 14 times that of legal abortion.”
To deal with women conflicted about abortion, the new UM hiree will also learn about counseling techniques, such as creating and reviewing a pro/con chart of having an abortion, and dealing with patients’ “spiritual or moral concerns.”
The workbook downplays the likelihood of encountering such concerns, however, assuring applicants that experts have found little evidence that abortion causes mental anguish.
“Leading experts conclude that abortion does not pose a hazard to patient’s mental health,” the document states, insisting that “The most common emotional response following an abortion is a sense of relief.”
However, a few days after the report and protests from students on campus, the university pulled the ad.
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“We have pulled the position from the web site and are no longer hiring for this role,” Jakub Tolar, dean of the UM Medical School, told Campus Reform on Monday. “We will examine the value of this training in the context of our mission along with the values of the community.”
Nick Johnson, the president of the pro-life club on campus, celebrated the news as a victory for the unborn.
“The University backing down in hiring a doctor to train in the methods of abortion is a great victory for life on campus,” he said. “It shows that pro-life individuals have a strong voice and will not allow our public institutions to promote the unjust act of abortion.”
Matt Lamb of Students for Life of America also was thankful to hear the news.
“It is still disturbing the university would even consider a position in the first place, since abortion violates the basic principles of medical care,” he told Campus Reform. “Being a doctor is supposed to be about helping patients make healthy choices and protecting the dignity of life—abortion advances neither of these goals.”
The abortion industry frequently targets colleges. College-age women are the age group most likely to have an abortion.
