Pro-life doctors may sue the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology after it threatened to decertify physicians who provide alleged “misinformation and disinformation” about abortion to patients.
The medical board, which certifies obstetricians and gynecologists, claims abortions are an “essential” part of “reproductive health.” And doctors who disagree could be punished.
In a statement July 7, the board threatened to revoke the certifications of OB-GYNs who provide “misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19, reproductive health care, abortion and other OBGYN practices that may harm the patients we serve or public health,” the Washington Times reports.
“Eligibility to gain or maintain ABOG certification may be lost if ABOG determines that [physicians] do not meet the standards that they have agreed to meet and that the public deserves and expects,” the statement read.
Dr. Donna Harrison, an OB-GYN and the CEO of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, fears OB-GYNs could lose their board certification just for telling patients the truth.
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“The threat by the pro-abortion American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology to cancel the board certification of tens of thousands of OBGYNs who educate their patients about the peer-reviewed, evidence-based facts concerning abortion is an unprecedented intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship,” Harrison responded in a statement.
Her organization and two others, the Catholic Medical Association and Christian Medical and Dental Association, recently sent a letter to the medical board through an attorney that warns of potential legal action, according to the Times.
“ABOG’s statement plainly seeks to intimidate diplomates who may offer opinions or testimony that state legislatures or courts may rely on in examining abortion regulations,” the letter states. “It is a naked attempt to prevent these diplomates from exercising their constitutionally protected rights.”
Harrison said the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists will take legal action to protect pro-life doctors and patients if necessary. She said physicians must be “free to provide the information that patients need in order to make a decision based on fully informed consent.”
Increasingly, mainstream news outlets, Facebook, Twitter and internet giants like YouTube are labeling information about abortion risks and alternatives as “misinformation” or “false” — not because it actually is, but because abortion activists deny evidence that contradicts their goal.
Now, doctors are worried that medical boards may begin doing the same, forcing them out of their jobs because they share studies showing links between infertility, breast cancer, mental health problems and abortion; or because they help a woman reverse the effects of the abortion pill mifepristone in an attempt to save her baby’s life.
Some doctors already have been suspended and subjected to years-long investigations for sharing information about abortion that pro-abortion groups don’t like.
Concerns about governments ending conscience protections for pro-life medical workers also are growing.
In Australia, lawmakers in the state of Victoria are considering legislation this summer that would force Christian hospitals to kill patients through abortions and assisted suicides in order to continue receiving taxpayer funding, according to Vision Christian Media.
And last week, the Biden administration unveiled a proposed new rule that reinterprets federal law to prohibit discrimination on the basis of “termination of pregnancy”—an action that could force physicians and hospitals to perform abortions and employers to cover abortions in their health insurance plans.
A signal of the growing threat, the U.S. House Pro-Choice Caucus published a new talking points memo in May that told lawmakers to say “refusal of care/denial of care laws” instead of conscience protections.
