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Showing posts with label Planned Parenthood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Planned Parenthood. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Save The 1 Intervenes in Iowa Heartbeat Case -- Our Hearts Beat Too! By Rebecca Kiessling, with Brad and Jesi Smith
On May 4, 2018, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the Heartbeat Bill into law which would protect unborn children who have a detectable heartbeat, except "when the abortion is medically necessary" and defines "medically necessary" as cases of rape, incest and fetal abnormality, making the abortion provider the sole arbiter of these determinations. These exceptions were surprisingly added -- allegedly because certain legislators in the House would not sign the bill without exceptions.
Save The 1 is a global pro-life organization of over 600 of us who were conceived in rape, incest or sex trafficking and mothers who became pregnant by rape, incest or sex trafficking who are either raising their children, birth mothers, miscarried, or post-abortive and mourn the loss of their children. Additionally, we have hundreds who were told by physicians to abort due to a pre-natal diagnosis, along with their children who were targeted by doctors. We specialize in defending all of the so-called “hard cases” in the abortion debate through sharing our personal stories, and we additionally act as a support network. The deadly discrimination contained in the exceptions within the Iowa Heartbeat Law hurts us -- because our hearts beat too!I testified a year earlier on a life-at-conception bill. We are grateful to the Iowa Coalition for Life -- a coalition of the major pro-life organizations in Iowa who brought us in to testify and who vigorously opposed the exceptions.
We discussed what our response as an organization should be. We could cooperate in order that we may have a "seat at the table" and be invited back to Iowa to speak and to testify again on a future bill. But to what end? To have another viral video which ultimately is rendered ineffective in gaining any protection for us and our children? Do we want to be popular, or protected?
Others would like for us to roll over and play dead. Sometimes it feels like the game is fixed -- like this is the Harlem Globetrotters and we are merely the Washington Generals. We aren't supposed to cry foul when our players are thrown to the ground. Politically, many are quite used to us being the sacrificial lamb, and we are supposed to somehow be understanding and cooperative as we are lead to slaughter.
We are told, "It's nothing against you personally," but we are persons, the attack on our very right to life could not possibly be more personal, and of course we will take it personally!
If it were just us who have already been born and merely a matter of our feelings being hurt, perhaps we could somehow "let it go," but there are others who are yet at risk, who are being targeted for killing, who are just as deserving of protection as any of us, and so, we are fighting back.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland recently filed a lawsuit against the state of Iowa, and we are now filing a motion to intervene as necessary third party intervenors "of right" since the current Plaintiff, Planned Parenthood, clearly will not argue on behalf of our interests. The exceptions within the Iowa Fetal Heartbeat law violate our fundamental right to life, depriving us of due process and equal protection under both the Iowa and U.S. constitutions. Thankfully, there is a severability clause in the legislation so that the offending provisions can be severed and the remainder of the law upheld. We have three attorneys representing Save The 1: Erin Mersino -- a pro-life constitutional law attorney from Michigan with the Great Lakes Justice Center, Eric Borseth -- an attorney from Iowa and a board member of Personhood Iowa, and myself.
As a pro-life attorney, this is why I went to law school. While attending Wayne State law school, I wrote what has been for decades the #1-ranked philosophical abortion essay, "The Right of the Unborn Child Not to be Unjustly Killed -- a philosophy of rights approach." If I can't defend my own right to life in court, then what is the point of being a pro-life attorney? What is the point of being alive? Just to be selfish and live my life without caring about others who are yet at risk? I was protected by Michigan law when my birth mother sought to kill me at two illegal abortions. As a rape victim, she was not offered any help or hope -- just abortion. My life was spared for a purpose, and for such a time as this I will use my life, my talents, my expertise and law degree to save others.
The discriminatory language in the Iowa Heartbeat law defines "medically necessary" as cases in which:
a. The pregnancy which is the result of a rape which is reported within forty-five days of the incident to a law enforcement agency or to a public or private health agency which may include a family physician.
b. The pregnancy is the result of incest which is reported within one hundred forty days of the incident to a law enforcement agency or to a public or private health agency which may include a family physician.
c. Any spontaneous abortion, commonly known as a miscarriage, if not all of the products of conception are expelled.
d. The attending physician certifies that the fetus has a fetal abnormality that in the physician’s reasonable medical judgment is incompatible with life.
Interestingly, among the bill’s
definitions, rape, incest, fetal abnormality and incompatible with life are not
included or even cross-referenced with other sections of the Iowa code, as
other definitions are cross-referenced. So the abortion providers get to decide what they deem to qualify as rape, incest and incompatible with life.
The rape, incest and fetal abnormality exceptions are based upon a fabrication that aborting these unborn children is “medically necessary.” Not one witness testified in the Senate hearing as to such a medical necessity. This language was added to appease state representatives in the House who said they would not approve the bill without language that excludes these children from protection. In other words, the legislative intent was that they believed it was politically necessary – not medically necessary, if they were being honest. The language not only excludes innocent children from protection, doing so under a faulty premise, but really was intended merely to protect certain politicians and nothing to do with protecting pregnant mothers.
The rape, incest and fetal abnormality exceptions are based upon a fabrication that aborting these unborn children is “medically necessary.” Not one witness testified in the Senate hearing as to such a medical necessity. This language was added to appease state representatives in the House who said they would not approve the bill without language that excludes these children from protection. In other words, the legislative intent was that they believed it was politically necessary – not medically necessary, if they were being honest. The language not only excludes innocent children from protection, doing so under a faulty premise, but really was intended merely to protect certain politicians and nothing to do with protecting pregnant mothers.
The abortion physician is given the
power to decide whether the unborn child has a fetal abnormality and whether
the living unborn child with a detectable heartbeat is somehow “incompatible
with life.” These preborn children are
actually disabled children, and as such, should be protected under the
Americans With Disabilities Act.
Additionally, and equally as
troubling, the report of the rape and/or incest merely needs to be made to the
“public or private health agency” – in other words, to the abortion clinic. So the abortion clinic becomes the sole
arbiter of whether a woman was raped and whether her child is to suffer the
death penalty for the alleged crimes of his or her biological father, with no
guidelines provided within the legislation.
This clearly lacks due process and fails to provide equal protection.
The third prong of the exceptions doesn't even make sense at all, because the law only applies when there is a fetal heartbeat. So how could this possibly be a spontaneous abortion situation when there's a beating heart? In so many respects, the exception provisions are extremely poorly written law.
The targeting of our people groups for
exclusion of protection, and in fact, for state-approved killing is clearly
discriminatory. The sting of this discrimination
not only affects every unborn child who is deemed to fit into these legislative
categories of rape, incest or fetal abnormality, but is lifelong – affecting
every person born who was conceived in rape or given a challenging pre-natal
diagnosis by a physician. Additionally,
it causes anguish to the mothers who became pregnant by rape or who were told
by doctors to abort. They grieve at how
their children are so quickly devalued by politicians and within the law.
Permitting abortion for rape, incest and fetal
abnormalities sends a message to our people groups that our lives are worth less
than anyone else’s. Imagine having an exception in cases of Asian babies,
Jewish babies, or left-handed babies. The message sent is that these
people are not worthy of living and did not deserve to be protected like
everyone else. There would be an international outcry if such discrimination against these other people groups were even proposed. Yet, it is the same for us, and we feel the sting of
such hatred against or apathy toward our lives.
The rape survivor mothers and those told by doctors to abort grieve how their children are systematically targeted and devalued. The rape victim mothers are not believed they were raped because they didn’t abort and because they actually love their children.
The rape survivor mothers and those told by doctors to abort grieve how their children are systematically targeted and devalued. The rape victim mothers are not believed they were raped because they didn’t abort and because they actually love their children.
We appreciate concern for pregnant rape victims, but
they are four times more likely to die within the next year after an abortion,
as opposed to giving birth. In Dr. David Reardon’s book, Victims andVictors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions and Children ResultingFrom Sexual Assault, he cites the research done on the subject. After an
abortion, rape victims have higher rates of murder, suicide, drug overdose,
etc.. Rapists, child molesters and sex traffickers love abortion, which
destroys the evidence and enables them to continue perpetrating. Sexual
predators depend upon abortion clinics because the abortion protects them – not
the pregnant rape victim.
Tragically, it is at times a girl’s own mother who has
been either trafficking her or leaving her unprotected. It is always the
baby who exposes the rape, who delivers the pregnant mother out of the abusive situation,
protecting her and bringing her healing. If the legislators truly care about rape victims, then they must protect her from the rapist and
from the abortion, and not the baby! Her
baby is not the enemy, despite what the legislated exceptions suggest.
In regards to a diagnosis of “incompatible with life”
– it is impossible to be such when you are still living. Physicians who
peddle abortion are truly the ones with fatal heart defects, often failing to
treat the children of parents who refused to abort. A eugenics mentality
becomes pervasive when you allow abortion. For parents who are told by doctors to abort, the
pressure is tremendous – and not just during the pregnancy, but after the child
is born when doctors often refuse to treat their disabled child.
The purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act is to guaranty
that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as
everyone else. The ADA gives civil rights protections to individuals with
disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race,
color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. Accordingly, as a suspect class, the offending
provisions against disabled children within the Iowa Heartbeat Bill should be
subject to strict scrutiny.
The Iowa Heartbeat bill’s bewildering
exceptions legislate extreme and inexplicable hatred toward disabled children
in the womb, as well as those conceived in rape or incest. Prenatal testing -- instead of being used to
treat and heal -- is used for search and destroy missions for those with medically
identifiable disabilities. Iowa
legislators have now authorized doctors to commit genocide against an entire
people group, decreasing their voices and representation within society.
This deliberate targeting and killing
of our people groups also results in doubt being cast upon rape victims for not
aborting “like a true rape victim would”, and the “blaming” of parents for not
aborting their disabled children who are seen within much of the medical
community as a burden on the health care system – much like the Nazi regime
which employed the medical designation of “lebensunwertes leben” (“life
unworthy of life”), referring to the disabled as “useless eaters.”
Using terminology such as “fetal
abnormality” or “incompatible with life“ as classifications for children with
disability is deceiving and treacherous treatment from a government which claims its citizens have equal protection under the law. Born children and adults are treated by some physicians
as “incompatible with life,” and doctors and hospitals point to “medical futility
policies” in order to justify discrimination against these disabled
individuals. This deadly eugenics is
alive and well today in the United States, and now codified in Iowa by the exceptions within this new
law.
Physicians’ predictions are not
medical certainty and denying the right to life and equal protection to entire
groups of disabled children based on an abortion doctor’s best guess is not
medical science. Bias and arrogance of
those who wish to promote biological superiority through the destruction of
disabled children in the womb brings new meaning to the words biological
warfare.
A child’s God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should never be denied because of his or her disability or circumstances of conception. His or her value is not based on what he or she is able to do or the behavior of his or her parents; rather, it is based on his or her humanity and that the child has been endowed by his or her Creator with these inalienable rights.
A child’s God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should never be denied because of his or her disability or circumstances of conception. His or her value is not based on what he or she is able to do or the behavior of his or her parents; rather, it is based on his or her humanity and that the child has been endowed by his or her Creator with these inalienable rights.
We’ve had parents within our
organization who refused to abort and were told by doctors:
“The only further testing you will receive is
an autopsy,”
“If your child is born not breathing,
we won’t resuscitate,” and
“Your child has already outlived her
life expectancy.”
Some parents have endured others looking
at their disabled child in their arms and asking, “Didn’t you get any pre-natal
testing?”
The clear expectation and even
obligation is to abort. The Iowa
legislature has now codified this deadly discrimination.
Since the government has not done its
duty to protect disabled children in the womb, they are also targeted after
leaving the womb. Many children have
medical treatments withheld and denied leading to their death simply because
they have a disability.
Children conceived in rape are often
called dehumanizing names such as:
“Demon seed,” “evil seed,” “horrible
reminder,” “rapist’s child” (an insult to every rape victim mother who knows
that this is her child,) “monster’s child,” “demon spawn,” “Satan’s child,”
“tainting the gene pool,” and on and on. The exceptions within the Iowa Fetal Heartbeat law suggest there is something inherently different about the child conceived in rape that they would be unworthy of protection. To legislate that aborting us is "medically necessary" further suggests that we are somehow medically harming our mothers -- furthering the notion that we are somehow the ones raping our mothers. But we are entirely innocent and we plead our innocence.
While some states like Michigan,
Georgia and Nebraska do not have a single rape exception within the law, there
are other jurisdictions where the child conceived in rape is singled-out and
systematically targeted for extermination.
This lack of equal protection undeniably feeds into the discrimination
within the culture. It codifies hatred,
fear and prejudice against an innocent child.
A civilized nation must protect the
lives of the innocent and disabled child, not target them for extermination and
codify hatred. It is barbaric to punish
an innocent child for someone else’s crime.
The legislature should focus on punishing rapists, not babies and the
Court must focus on protecting lives of the innocent and not the careers of
politicians or interests of the abortion industry. More violence does not bring healing, but
only more pain, more destruction and a less empathetic society.
Given that there was no testimony
before the Iowa legislature from physicians or expert witnesses to suggest that
denying equal protection and due process for our people groups is somehow a
“medical necessity,” it is impossible for the state to claim even a rational
basis for the violation of the most fundamental right. For the disabled unborn child, the state
cannot claim any sort of governmental interest in codifying eugenics, and
certainly not a compelling governmental interest. Assuming medical necessity based upon faulty
assumptions is deadly, and must not stand as a basis for violating the right to
life and equal protection of the laws.
As far as we know, this is the first time in the U.S. and even globally that a group of people like us has defended our own right to life in court. To every legislator nationwide who wants to target our people group within pro-life legislation: we are united, we have a voice, and we will fight back!
BIO: Rebecca Kiessling, conceived in rape, is a pro-life attorney, international pro-life
speaker, wife and mother of 5. She is the president and founder of Save The 1. Brad and Jesi Smith, Save The 1 pro-life speakers contributed. Their youngest daughter, Faith, was born with Trisomy 18. They were behind the Good Faith Medical Act passed in Michigan -- the first of its kind in the nation.
Monday, March 5, 2018
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing-ACOG’s not so hidden agenda, by Rachel Mary Guy
Obstetrics is an abortion industry disguised as women’s healthcare, safe deliveries of “some” babies and care for “some” babies.
Few in Christendom would disagree with the reality that abortion is the single biggest human rights’ violation of our generation. The dehumanizing and devaluing of an entire people group, the preborn children, merely because of their location has cost millions of lives since the passing of Roe v Wade in 1973. In a world that has rejected God that is not altogether surprising but what is surprising is that this Holocaust is taking place in an area that was once committed to doing no harm and represents themselves as the beacon of care and that is the medical field and more specifically obstetrics.
What a curious thing that an area of medicine and not just any area of medicine but the very field that is entrusted with the care of a mother and her child is the contributing to, promoting and supporting this genocide of an entire people group-the preborn. Victor Frankel, during WWII, had a famous quote where he said, “The ovens of Auschwitz, were prepared in the classrooms of Germany.”(1) This terrifying truth is exactly the reality today that the deaths of millions of preborn children, were prepared in the classrooms of college classes that are supposed to teach on medicine, the helping and healing of others but rather teach on the systematic desensitizing of how medical students would see the child in utero.
The field of obstetrics has dehumanized the preborn child in such a manner that ob/gyns can perform an abortion and actually think they are doing some sort of good for society. How can this field that is supposed to be dedicated to the care of a mother and her child have fallen so far? It goes back to Victor Frankel’s famous quote and there is an organization that has been all too happy to make sure that those very doctors who were educated in the area of gynecology and obstetrics become removed from seeing the preborn child as a distinct individual made uniquely in God’s Image with a purpose and just as much value as the human being outside of the womb.
This organization is called ACOG. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. ACOG is the acronym for The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists. This is a 501(c)(3) organization. It is the nation’s leading group of physicians providing healthcare for women. It has about 58,000 members and they are said to strongly advocate for quality healthcare for women, promote patient education, bring awareness to issues facing women and supposedly maintain the highest standards of clinical practice and continuing education. They have a 501(c)(6) companion organization as well.
Most would hear the name ACOG and the description of all that they do for “women’s healthcare” and applaud this organization for having the backs of women, but this organization has a not so hidden agenda that does not care for the health and rights of all women as the precious females ( and males) in utero are not included in this quality of care but rather are targets of ACOG’s agenda to promote and encourage performing abortions as well as promoting fetal tissue experimentation. How can an educated, developed society offer its youngest members to the fires of Molech and what makes this so sinister is the fact that this education of dehumanizing and desensitizing is taking place in the classrooms that are supposed to be places of learning to do no harm, use medicine to heal and help and champion life but that is not what is happening.
ACOG must be exposed. At its foundation, ACOG is all about promoting abortion. ACOG believes that the harm of a preborn child is more important than protecting them. One of the founding fellows of ACOG, joining in 1952, Dr Jane Hodgson was a longtime abortion rights advocate. Right here we see the very foundation of ACOG was founded in a culture of death cleverly disguised as women’s healthcare. Dr. Hodgson was such a strong supporter of abortion that she received the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award in 1995. Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood was a eugenist and this award is founded in applauding the recipient’s work in abortion advocating which of course is in essence an award applauding the furthering of the culture of death and marginalizing an entire people group's lives.
ACOG is founded in promoting abortion and they are bold in their evil views toward dehumanizing the preborn children as they promote that the sick in utero and those preborn babies seen as “inconvenient” be aborted. ACOG has openly said they believe that “personhood” for the preborn child takes away from abortion rights so like Planned Parenthood they have an abortion agenda but again the terrifying thing is that ACOG is involved with the medical field, the very field that is to be committed to helping and healing, not destroying lives. ACOG recommends integrating first trimester abortion training into family medicine training. How ironic, yet again, that “family” medicine would be an area that ACOG would want to see one of the family members destroyed merely because of the geographical location of the child. It would be criminal to suggest that a child outside of the womb be destroyed due to health status or no longer wanted, yet ACOG has open season on the preborn child’s destruction.
Let’s take the first point “Implement the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirement that all obstetrics and gynecology residency programs provide training in comprehensive women’s reproductive health care, including opt-out abortion training, in which training is routinely integrated into residency but residents with religious or moral objections can opt out of participation.” This is not a mere ‘opt-out’ as stated by ACOG but a “requirement that all obstetrics and gynecology residency programs provide training in comprehensive women’s reproductive health care, including opt-out abortion training, in which training is routinely integrated into residency but residents with religious or moral objections can opt out of participation.”(1) And yet digging deeper, if medicine desires to retrain people’s views or more so sink deep into people’s minds that abortion is a mere “blob of tissue” being removed or “a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body” then is this statement of ‘opt-out’ even considered an option? If ACOG requires medicine to harm a woman by destroying her child then how can ACOG say they truly care for women?
(ACOG. “Abortion Training and Education” PMLA no. 612, November 2014 https://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Abortion-Training-and-Education.) They require OBs to train in abortion.
Another statement which is a contradiction if ACOG is going to ‘opt-out’ on abortion training yet say that they will “Include abortion education in the curricula of all medical schools” then this is not a “your view vs my view” but a forced agenda from ACOG misrepresenting OB/GYN care or frankly choosing to redefine what true woman and child healthcare looks like. If medicine desires to “include abortion education in curricula of all medical schools” then how can an OB/GYN learn proper medical care for a preborn child who is in the womb if one continuously says to abort this child? How then can a medical doctor in training learn that life is to be taken literally if they are being educated through a lens of ‘choice’ rather than being educated through a lens of care.
In an article from ACOG in March of 2016, they state, “However, current attacks on fetal tissue research, part of an effort to oppose and disparage safe, legal abortion in this country, represent a significant setback in our Nation’s approach to science and our patients’ hope for future breakthroughs.”(1) This sounds like something out of a Planned Parenthood newsletter not from an organization that is a group of medical people supposedly dedicated to the care of women and families. Experimenting on fetal tissue also sounds like something out of the experiments done during Nazi Germany another time in our history where an entire people group was dehumanized and a society was brainwashed willingly into marginalizing the lives of millions to the point of sitting by silently as that people group was exterminated.
(DeFrancesco, Mark S., MD, MBA, President of the ACOG American College of OBGYN. “ACOG statement of fetal tissue research.” PMLA no. 1 https://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/News-Room/Statements/2016/ACOG-Statement-In-Support-of-Fetal-Tissue-Research)
ACOG also promotes and advocates for fetal tissue research. In March of 2016, they sent out a letter saying, “As leading academic medical centers and scientific and medical societies who conduct and support life-saving research, we have grave concerns about legislative proposals to restrict the use of fetal tissue for research.”(1) This is directly linked with abortion. They say in one breath they want to do fetal tissue research to help others and yet that very help comes only through the death of an innocent victim - the preborn child.
Associate of American Medical Colleges. “AAMC." PMLA no. 1 March 18, 2016 https://www.aamc.org/download/444248/data/statementinsupportoffetaltissueresearch.pdf.
In November of 2014, in ACOG’s Committee Opinion, they say, “Safe, legal abortion is a necessary component of women’s health care. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports the availability of high- quality reproductive health services for all women and is committed to improving access to abortion. Access to abortion is threatened by state and federal government restrictions, limitations on public funding for abortion services and training, stigma, violence against abortion providers and death of abortion providers.”(1) This organization is not committed to the whole health care of a women when they point blank are advocating for the death of the preborn child. This poses mammoth ethical issues when medical students are being desensitized to the life of the preborn child and educated that abortion is a form of women’s healthcare.
ACOG. “Abortion Training and Education” PMLA no. 612, November 2014 https://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Abortion-Training-and-Education. They believe that abortion is “women’s healthcare.”
Death of a people group should never be viewed as any form of health care, but when an organization like ACOG is endorsing and encouraging education on abortions then young medical students are being slowly lulled into believing that taking a life is actually a form of health care. How can that ever be ethical.
Caring for women’s health will never mean empowering them to choose death and caring for women’s health will never mean educating future doctors that ending an innocent human being’s life is ever the answer. And what a brutal death it is for that preborn child no matter at what gestational age. And ACOG does not even present the accurate information on fetal pain as they wrongly educate and completely dismiss the horrific pain that preborn child feels during the abortion procedure. A preborn child DOES experience pain and ACOG completely denies this truth.
ACOG said, “A human fetus does not have the capacity to experience pain until after viability. Rigorous scientific studies have found that the connections necessary to transmit signals from peripheral sensory nerves to the brain, as well as the brain structures necessary to process those signals, do not develop until at least 24 weeks gestation…”(1) This is simple scientifically not accurate hence medical students are desensitized to the horrific pain the preborn child experiences during an abortion-starved to death in the first trimester and systematically dismembered in the second and third trimesters. Is this the action of a civilized society and furthermore is this medical care? Dismembering human beings? According to ACOG this is in fact medical care of the highest order and a generation of numb, callous ob/gyns is being cultivated to see abortion as medical care. Hitler was famous for saying if you tell a lie long enough, that people will believe it and that is what is happening through the lies of ACOG.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology.“Facts Are Important Fetal Pain” PMLA no. 1 (July 2013) https://www.acog.org/-/m edia/Departments/Government-Re lations-and-Outreach/FactAreIm portFetalPain.pdf. They deny scientific proof that the babies in the womb feel pain.
The medical field along with ACOG is to blame for making murder legal. When an organization like ACOG that is held in high esteem that has the power to influence the medical field uses the vocabulary of medical care to describe the destruction of a people group, we have used semantics yet again to lull people into thinking that that which is outrageous is normal, good and right and that is what ACOG has been doing. Slavery, Jewish genocide, and more were all founded in a dehumanizing a vocabulary used to describe these people groups.
In Brennan’s “Dehumanizing the Vulnerable” he says so powerfully, “The power of language to color one’s view of reality is profound. In many instances, the most significant factor determining how an object will be perceived is not the nature of the object itself, but the words employed to characterize it.”( 1 ) Brennan hits the nail on the head. When an organization like ACOG champions abortion and uses the vocabulary of healthcare, not only does an entire population drink the koolaid but an entire generation of medical doctors embrace and act on that thinking and can with no moral convictions and no conviction of conscience tear a child limb from limb and stop that beating heart all in the name of women’s health care. How far have we fallen.
Doctors know that life begins at fertilization. The issue is not all about when does life begin, but will society continue to reject the evidence it has and counter argue the truth about life for a true undercut of the value of life by making up some seemingly “noble reason” to abort. If doctors advocate for abortion and society looks to doctors to have the answers then it is truly sheep being led to the slaughter.
ACOG is unethical in every manner suggesting abortion as health care and advocating for abortion training. Abortion training is unnecessary for reasons followed. Abortion is not medical care. Abortion is a procedure to take a living child out of his home. Obstetrics is supposed to care for the child and mother regardless of what another may say. This child is as much in a physician's care as the mom. Treating an unborn with such disrespect as killing them deserves such punishment, by being racist towards someone giving or not giving certain care based on sickness. To deny a child the right to continue life because of sickness is racist and discriminatory. Because a each patient is equal they deserve equal rights to care. HIPPA-the first oath states, “first, do not harm” this harm does not specify to whom to or not to not harm, but gives a general protection to all patients. Now if OB considers can unborn their patient, then how can harm be apart of this “care” from a medical standpoint and from HIPPAs requirements. If an unborn is a child/person which has already been established then how can a physician deny care to an unborn under HIPPA as consider reconcilable as ‘healthcare’ when one is breaching the oath of care and scaring a child. No person’s “healthcare” can ever be true care if a physician takes harm as the definition for a situation medically. Take a preborn child who supposedly has Trisomy 13, a physician wants to give “healthcare” advice by suggesting abortion. Now if this child is truly the doctor’s patient how can this medical person have the moral rights to suggest that this child is degraded to the degree of death?
I was one of those children. 19 years ago, my parents were completely shocked when they were in for a rude awakening that the medical field sometimes uses their power to advocate for death.
Three doctors insisted that my parents abort me and the doctors’ rationale for insisting my life be ended was based on that they “assumed” I had Trisomy 18 so these doctors immediately devalued my very life, yes doctors, and relegated my life to being disposable and not worth fighting for and gave me a death sentence all because my only crime was being sick in utero. My parents to this day were and are dumbfounded that some in the medical community deem a child’s life in utero as disposable just because that child is sick. Thank heavens I have parents who allow God and the intrinsic value of all life to guide their decisions, unlike the medical field, and they fought for me and 19 years later here I am advocating for the value of ALL life and praying the medical field realizes they are not God and it is completely unethical, even without factoring in Biblical truth, to devalue ANY human life and to end human life in the name of medical care.
In the book, Dehumanizing the Vulnerable by Brennan, he says, “Today, scores of human lives before birth are proficiently snuffed out in a display of “raw medical power” in radical opposition to the physician-as-healer principle embodied in the doctor’s most basic code of ethics, the Hippocratic Oath, an oath containing explicit condemnations of killing, both inside and outside the womb. The uterus-once a private sanctuary suited for growth and development-has been transformed into a deadly environment polluted by the invasion of destructive instruments and poisonous substances. The bodies of the undesired unborn are torn apart, dismembered, obliterated, poisoned, or subjected to lethal injections. Their remains are exploited for research, harvested as tissue and organ trans-plants, and either incinerated or dumped into the sewage and waste disposal systems.”(page 27)
You can see how biased they are. They have abortion as a foundation goal for all eternity for ACOG but we will change that through exposing their deeds and praying for their hearts. If I could share this with the medical field what they are buying into and what foundation they are being taught I believe that maybe people would choose. I plead with you to hear and take in everything that I am sharing with you about what they say.
ACOG denies personhood to praise child killing. ACOG a systematic plot to take life. “Personhood” Measures: Impact on Contraception So-called “personhood” measures would establish fertilized eggs as separate legal persons under the laws of a state. These measures have qualified for the ballot in only two states—Colorado in 2008 and 2010, and Mississippi in 2011. All three failed by wide margins. These measures erode women’s right to privacy and bodily integrity, deny women access to the full spectrum of preventive health care including contraception, and undermine the doctor-patient relationship. As acknowledged by proponents, these measures would not only outlaw abortion but also embryonic stem cell research, infertility treatments, cancer treatments, and popular methods of birth control.”(2)
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “Talking Points on State Legislation “Personhood” Measures: Impact on Contraception.” PMLA no. 1 (February 10, 2012): https://www.acog.org/-/media/Departments/LARC/TalkingPointsonPersonhoodMeasures.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20171114T0030062242. They deny personhood and share why personhood is a threat.
Abortion, which is what ACOG advocates, takes away being able to focus on true healthcare which is helping the sick by helping these children in utero survive and by fighting for their lives which is what the medical field is called to do, no matter the outcome.
Please listen to this plea as the words written in this paper that are mine speak from a heart of sadness and wanting to emphasize how wrong it is for ACOG to use their power to advocate and educating for the taking of innocent lives. Please take these in as the painful truths about ACOG’s bias and protocol about who they really are. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. My heart is to see the medical field’s foundation transformed to God’s glory. May the unethical practices of ACOG be stopped.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “ACOG today news and information important to you and your practice” PMLA no. 4 January 2007https://www.acog.org/-/media/ACOG-Today/acogToday0107.pd f?mc=1&ts=20171105T2112476304.
ACOG. “Abortion Training and Education” PMLA no. 612, November 2014 https://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Healt h-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Abortion-Training-and-Education.
Bibliography
Brennan, William, Dehumanizing the Vulnerable When Mind Games Take Lives, 1995), 27.
Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers. “The Ovens at Auschwitz.” PML no. 1 http://remember.org/fact-fin -ovens.html.
DeFrancesco, Mark S., MD, MBA, President of the ACOG American College of OBGYN. “ACOG statement of fetal tissue research.” PMLA no. 1 https://www.acog.org/About-A COG/News-Room/Statements/2016/ ACOG-Statement-In-Support-of-Fetal-Tissue-Research.
1. Ensor, John, "Answering The Call”
Dr. Condic Maureen L.. “When Does Human Life Begin?” PMLA no. 1 (October 2008)
https://bdfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wi_whitepaper_ life_print.pdf.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology.“Facts Are Important Fetal Pain” PMLA no. 1 (July 2013) https://www.acog.org/-/m edia/Departments/Government-Re lations-and-Outreach/FactAreIm portFetalPain.pdf.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “Increasing Access to Abortion.” PMLA no. 1,3 November 2014 https://www.acog.org/-/me dia/Committee-Opinions/Committ ee-on-Health-Care-for-Underser ved-Women/co613.pdf?dmc=1&ts=2 0171114T1158133049.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “Talking Points on State Legislation “Personhood” Measures: Impact on Contraception.” PMLA no. 1 February 10, 2012https://www.acog.org/-/med ia/Departments/LARC/TalkingPoi ntsonPersonhoodMeasures.pdf?dm c=1&ts=20171114T0030062242
Associate of American Medical Colleges. “AAMC." PMLA no. 1 March 18, 2016 https://www.aamc.org/down load/444248/data/statementinsu pportoffetaltissueresearch.pdf.
Lawrence, Hal C., MD, and Ness, Debra L., MS. “Planned Parenthood Provides Essential Services for Women’s Health.” PMLA no. 1 https://www.acog.org/-/media /Departments/Government-Relati ons-and-Outreach/2017-CLC/2017 -CLC-Recommended-Readings/Ask- 2-Health-Care-Reform/2017Annal sPP.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20171114T0029 006772.
Abstract:
A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
The Truth about ACOG
During WWII, Victor Frankel said, “The ovens of Auschwitz were prepared in the classrooms of Germany.” Not much has changed except there is a new target-the preborn children. The classrooms are yet again being used to educate on dehumanizing an entire people group and to desensitize an entire generation of doctors to the value and humanity of the preborn child. One of the biggest culprits behind this is an organization called ACOG. The American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology (“ACOG”) has been denying the value of the preborn child and promoting abortion. One would never expect the field of obstetrics and gynecology, who say they care for women and babies, to not care about preborn life and actually advocate for the termination of life inside the womb. ACOG has been advocating for the preborn to not be seen as valuable through education in medical school, articles, denying science and having a founder of ACOG who received the Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger award which further exemplifies their bias and agenda. ACOG is using their power for that which is inherently unethical as they are stripping an entire people group of their humanity and intrinsic value. This is not ethical especially in a field that once stood on the oath to do no harm. ACOG must be held accountable and needs to educate on fighting for the lives of the unborn children rather than teaching a doctrine of extermination. What part of that is ethical?
BIO
Rachel Mary Guy is a freshman at Chattahoochee Technical College. In her mid teens she created and still serves in two ministries, and is on the board of two pro-life organizations. Rachel has written for LiveAction and is a speaker for Save the 1.
Few in Christendom would disagree with the reality that abortion is the single biggest human rights’ violation of our generation. The dehumanizing and devaluing of an entire people group, the preborn children, merely because of their location has cost millions of lives since the passing of Roe v Wade in 1973. In a world that has rejected God that is not altogether surprising but what is surprising is that this Holocaust is taking place in an area that was once committed to doing no harm and represents themselves as the beacon of care and that is the medical field and more specifically obstetrics.
What a curious thing that an area of medicine and not just any area of medicine but the very field that is entrusted with the care of a mother and her child is the contributing to, promoting and supporting this genocide of an entire people group-the preborn. Victor Frankel, during WWII, had a famous quote where he said, “The ovens of Auschwitz, were prepared in the classrooms of Germany.”(1) This terrifying truth is exactly the reality today that the deaths of millions of preborn children, were prepared in the classrooms of college classes that are supposed to teach on medicine, the helping and healing of others but rather teach on the systematic desensitizing of how medical students would see the child in utero.
The field of obstetrics has dehumanized the preborn child in such a manner that ob/gyns can perform an abortion and actually think they are doing some sort of good for society. How can this field that is supposed to be dedicated to the care of a mother and her child have fallen so far? It goes back to Victor Frankel’s famous quote and there is an organization that has been all too happy to make sure that those very doctors who were educated in the area of gynecology and obstetrics become removed from seeing the preborn child as a distinct individual made uniquely in God’s Image with a purpose and just as much value as the human being outside of the womb.
This organization is called ACOG. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. ACOG is the acronym for The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists. This is a 501(c)(3) organization. It is the nation’s leading group of physicians providing healthcare for women. It has about 58,000 members and they are said to strongly advocate for quality healthcare for women, promote patient education, bring awareness to issues facing women and supposedly maintain the highest standards of clinical practice and continuing education. They have a 501(c)(6) companion organization as well.
Most would hear the name ACOG and the description of all that they do for “women’s healthcare” and applaud this organization for having the backs of women, but this organization has a not so hidden agenda that does not care for the health and rights of all women as the precious females ( and males) in utero are not included in this quality of care but rather are targets of ACOG’s agenda to promote and encourage performing abortions as well as promoting fetal tissue experimentation. How can an educated, developed society offer its youngest members to the fires of Molech and what makes this so sinister is the fact that this education of dehumanizing and desensitizing is taking place in the classrooms that are supposed to be places of learning to do no harm, use medicine to heal and help and champion life but that is not what is happening.
ACOG must be exposed. At its foundation, ACOG is all about promoting abortion. ACOG believes that the harm of a preborn child is more important than protecting them. One of the founding fellows of ACOG, joining in 1952, Dr Jane Hodgson was a longtime abortion rights advocate. Right here we see the very foundation of ACOG was founded in a culture of death cleverly disguised as women’s healthcare. Dr. Hodgson was such a strong supporter of abortion that she received the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award in 1995. Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood was a eugenist and this award is founded in applauding the recipient’s work in abortion advocating which of course is in essence an award applauding the furthering of the culture of death and marginalizing an entire people group's lives.
ACOG is founded in promoting abortion and they are bold in their evil views toward dehumanizing the preborn children as they promote that the sick in utero and those preborn babies seen as “inconvenient” be aborted. ACOG has openly said they believe that “personhood” for the preborn child takes away from abortion rights so like Planned Parenthood they have an abortion agenda but again the terrifying thing is that ACOG is involved with the medical field, the very field that is to be committed to helping and healing, not destroying lives. ACOG recommends integrating first trimester abortion training into family medicine training. How ironic, yet again, that “family” medicine would be an area that ACOG would want to see one of the family members destroyed merely because of the geographical location of the child. It would be criminal to suggest that a child outside of the womb be destroyed due to health status or no longer wanted, yet ACOG has open season on the preborn child’s destruction.
Let’s take the first point “Implement the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirement that all obstetrics and gynecology residency programs provide training in comprehensive women’s reproductive health care, including opt-out abortion training, in which training is routinely integrated into residency but residents with religious or moral objections can opt out of participation.” This is not a mere ‘opt-out’ as stated by ACOG but a “requirement that all obstetrics and gynecology residency programs provide training in comprehensive women’s reproductive health care, including opt-out abortion training, in which training is routinely integrated into residency but residents with religious or moral objections can opt out of participation.”(1) And yet digging deeper, if medicine desires to retrain people’s views or more so sink deep into people’s minds that abortion is a mere “blob of tissue” being removed or “a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body” then is this statement of ‘opt-out’ even considered an option? If ACOG requires medicine to harm a woman by destroying her child then how can ACOG say they truly care for women?
(ACOG. “Abortion Training and Education” PMLA no. 612, November 2014 https://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Abortion-Training-and-Education.) They require OBs to train in abortion.
Another statement which is a contradiction if ACOG is going to ‘opt-out’ on abortion training yet say that they will “Include abortion education in the curricula of all medical schools” then this is not a “your view vs my view” but a forced agenda from ACOG misrepresenting OB/GYN care or frankly choosing to redefine what true woman and child healthcare looks like. If medicine desires to “include abortion education in curricula of all medical schools” then how can an OB/GYN learn proper medical care for a preborn child who is in the womb if one continuously says to abort this child? How then can a medical doctor in training learn that life is to be taken literally if they are being educated through a lens of ‘choice’ rather than being educated through a lens of care.
In an article from ACOG in March of 2016, they state, “However, current attacks on fetal tissue research, part of an effort to oppose and disparage safe, legal abortion in this country, represent a significant setback in our Nation’s approach to science and our patients’ hope for future breakthroughs.”(1) This sounds like something out of a Planned Parenthood newsletter not from an organization that is a group of medical people supposedly dedicated to the care of women and families. Experimenting on fetal tissue also sounds like something out of the experiments done during Nazi Germany another time in our history where an entire people group was dehumanized and a society was brainwashed willingly into marginalizing the lives of millions to the point of sitting by silently as that people group was exterminated.
(DeFrancesco, Mark S., MD, MBA, President of the ACOG American College of OBGYN. “ACOG statement of fetal tissue research.” PMLA no. 1 https://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/News-Room/Statements/2016/ACOG-Statement-In-Support-of-Fetal-Tissue-Research)
ACOG also promotes and advocates for fetal tissue research. In March of 2016, they sent out a letter saying, “As leading academic medical centers and scientific and medical societies who conduct and support life-saving research, we have grave concerns about legislative proposals to restrict the use of fetal tissue for research.”(1) This is directly linked with abortion. They say in one breath they want to do fetal tissue research to help others and yet that very help comes only through the death of an innocent victim - the preborn child.
Associate of American Medical Colleges. “AAMC." PMLA no. 1 March 18, 2016 https://www.aamc.org/download/444248/data/statementinsupportoffetaltissueresearch.pdf.
In November of 2014, in ACOG’s Committee Opinion, they say, “Safe, legal abortion is a necessary component of women’s health care. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports the availability of high- quality reproductive health services for all women and is committed to improving access to abortion. Access to abortion is threatened by state and federal government restrictions, limitations on public funding for abortion services and training, stigma, violence against abortion providers and death of abortion providers.”(1) This organization is not committed to the whole health care of a women when they point blank are advocating for the death of the preborn child. This poses mammoth ethical issues when medical students are being desensitized to the life of the preborn child and educated that abortion is a form of women’s healthcare.
ACOG. “Abortion Training and Education” PMLA no. 612, November 2014 https://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Abortion-Training-and-Education. They believe that abortion is “women’s healthcare.”
Death of a people group should never be viewed as any form of health care, but when an organization like ACOG is endorsing and encouraging education on abortions then young medical students are being slowly lulled into believing that taking a life is actually a form of health care. How can that ever be ethical.
Caring for women’s health will never mean empowering them to choose death and caring for women’s health will never mean educating future doctors that ending an innocent human being’s life is ever the answer. And what a brutal death it is for that preborn child no matter at what gestational age. And ACOG does not even present the accurate information on fetal pain as they wrongly educate and completely dismiss the horrific pain that preborn child feels during the abortion procedure. A preborn child DOES experience pain and ACOG completely denies this truth.
ACOG said, “A human fetus does not have the capacity to experience pain until after viability. Rigorous scientific studies have found that the connections necessary to transmit signals from peripheral sensory nerves to the brain, as well as the brain structures necessary to process those signals, do not develop until at least 24 weeks gestation…”(1) This is simple scientifically not accurate hence medical students are desensitized to the horrific pain the preborn child experiences during an abortion-starved to death in the first trimester and systematically dismembered in the second and third trimesters. Is this the action of a civilized society and furthermore is this medical care? Dismembering human beings? According to ACOG this is in fact medical care of the highest order and a generation of numb, callous ob/gyns is being cultivated to see abortion as medical care. Hitler was famous for saying if you tell a lie long enough, that people will believe it and that is what is happening through the lies of ACOG.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology.“Facts Are Important Fetal Pain” PMLA no. 1 (July 2013) https://www.acog.org/-/m edia/Departments/Government-Re lations-and-Outreach/FactAreIm portFetalPain.pdf. They deny scientific proof that the babies in the womb feel pain.
The medical field along with ACOG is to blame for making murder legal. When an organization like ACOG that is held in high esteem that has the power to influence the medical field uses the vocabulary of medical care to describe the destruction of a people group, we have used semantics yet again to lull people into thinking that that which is outrageous is normal, good and right and that is what ACOG has been doing. Slavery, Jewish genocide, and more were all founded in a dehumanizing a vocabulary used to describe these people groups.
In Brennan’s “Dehumanizing the Vulnerable” he says so powerfully, “The power of language to color one’s view of reality is profound. In many instances, the most significant factor determining how an object will be perceived is not the nature of the object itself, but the words employed to characterize it.”( 1 ) Brennan hits the nail on the head. When an organization like ACOG champions abortion and uses the vocabulary of healthcare, not only does an entire population drink the koolaid but an entire generation of medical doctors embrace and act on that thinking and can with no moral convictions and no conviction of conscience tear a child limb from limb and stop that beating heart all in the name of women’s health care. How far have we fallen.
Doctors know that life begins at fertilization. The issue is not all about when does life begin, but will society continue to reject the evidence it has and counter argue the truth about life for a true undercut of the value of life by making up some seemingly “noble reason” to abort. If doctors advocate for abortion and society looks to doctors to have the answers then it is truly sheep being led to the slaughter.
ACOG is unethical in every manner suggesting abortion as health care and advocating for abortion training. Abortion training is unnecessary for reasons followed. Abortion is not medical care. Abortion is a procedure to take a living child out of his home. Obstetrics is supposed to care for the child and mother regardless of what another may say. This child is as much in a physician's care as the mom. Treating an unborn with such disrespect as killing them deserves such punishment, by being racist towards someone giving or not giving certain care based on sickness. To deny a child the right to continue life because of sickness is racist and discriminatory. Because a each patient is equal they deserve equal rights to care. HIPPA-the first oath states, “first, do not harm” this harm does not specify to whom to or not to not harm, but gives a general protection to all patients. Now if OB considers can unborn their patient, then how can harm be apart of this “care” from a medical standpoint and from HIPPAs requirements. If an unborn is a child/person which has already been established then how can a physician deny care to an unborn under HIPPA as consider reconcilable as ‘healthcare’ when one is breaching the oath of care and scaring a child. No person’s “healthcare” can ever be true care if a physician takes harm as the definition for a situation medically. Take a preborn child who supposedly has Trisomy 13, a physician wants to give “healthcare” advice by suggesting abortion. Now if this child is truly the doctor’s patient how can this medical person have the moral rights to suggest that this child is degraded to the degree of death?
I was one of those children. 19 years ago, my parents were completely shocked when they were in for a rude awakening that the medical field sometimes uses their power to advocate for death.
Three doctors insisted that my parents abort me and the doctors’ rationale for insisting my life be ended was based on that they “assumed” I had Trisomy 18 so these doctors immediately devalued my very life, yes doctors, and relegated my life to being disposable and not worth fighting for and gave me a death sentence all because my only crime was being sick in utero. My parents to this day were and are dumbfounded that some in the medical community deem a child’s life in utero as disposable just because that child is sick. Thank heavens I have parents who allow God and the intrinsic value of all life to guide their decisions, unlike the medical field, and they fought for me and 19 years later here I am advocating for the value of ALL life and praying the medical field realizes they are not God and it is completely unethical, even without factoring in Biblical truth, to devalue ANY human life and to end human life in the name of medical care.
In the book, Dehumanizing the Vulnerable by Brennan, he says, “Today, scores of human lives before birth are proficiently snuffed out in a display of “raw medical power” in radical opposition to the physician-as-healer principle embodied in the doctor’s most basic code of ethics, the Hippocratic Oath, an oath containing explicit condemnations of killing, both inside and outside the womb. The uterus-once a private sanctuary suited for growth and development-has been transformed into a deadly environment polluted by the invasion of destructive instruments and poisonous substances. The bodies of the undesired unborn are torn apart, dismembered, obliterated, poisoned, or subjected to lethal injections. Their remains are exploited for research, harvested as tissue and organ trans-plants, and either incinerated or dumped into the sewage and waste disposal systems.”(page 27)
You can see how biased they are. They have abortion as a foundation goal for all eternity for ACOG but we will change that through exposing their deeds and praying for their hearts. If I could share this with the medical field what they are buying into and what foundation they are being taught I believe that maybe people would choose. I plead with you to hear and take in everything that I am sharing with you about what they say.
ACOG denies personhood to praise child killing. ACOG a systematic plot to take life. “Personhood” Measures: Impact on Contraception So-called “personhood” measures would establish fertilized eggs as separate legal persons under the laws of a state. These measures have qualified for the ballot in only two states—Colorado in 2008 and 2010, and Mississippi in 2011. All three failed by wide margins. These measures erode women’s right to privacy and bodily integrity, deny women access to the full spectrum of preventive health care including contraception, and undermine the doctor-patient relationship. As acknowledged by proponents, these measures would not only outlaw abortion but also embryonic stem cell research, infertility treatments, cancer treatments, and popular methods of birth control.”(2)
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “Talking Points on State Legislation “Personhood” Measures: Impact on Contraception.” PMLA no. 1 (February 10, 2012): https://www.acog.org/-/media/Departments/LARC/TalkingPointsonPersonhoodMeasures.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20171114T0030062242. They deny personhood and share why personhood is a threat.
Abortion, which is what ACOG advocates, takes away being able to focus on true healthcare which is helping the sick by helping these children in utero survive and by fighting for their lives which is what the medical field is called to do, no matter the outcome.
Please listen to this plea as the words written in this paper that are mine speak from a heart of sadness and wanting to emphasize how wrong it is for ACOG to use their power to advocate and educating for the taking of innocent lives. Please take these in as the painful truths about ACOG’s bias and protocol about who they really are. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. My heart is to see the medical field’s foundation transformed to God’s glory. May the unethical practices of ACOG be stopped.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “ACOG today news and information important to you and your practice” PMLA no. 4 January 2007https://www.acog.org/-/media/ACOG-Today/acogToday0107.pd f?mc=1&ts=20171105T2112476304.
ACOG. “Abortion Training and Education” PMLA no. 612, November 2014 https://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Healt h-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Abortion-Training-and-Education.
Bibliography
Brennan, William, Dehumanizing the Vulnerable When Mind Games Take Lives, 1995), 27.
Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers. “The Ovens at Auschwitz.” PML no. 1 http://remember.org/fact-fin -ovens.html.
DeFrancesco, Mark S., MD, MBA, President of the ACOG American College of OBGYN. “ACOG statement of fetal tissue research.” PMLA no. 1 https://www.acog.org/About-A COG/News-Room/Statements/2016/ ACOG-Statement-In-Support-of-Fetal-Tissue-Research.
1. Ensor, John, "Answering The Call”
Dr. Condic Maureen L.. “When Does Human Life Begin?” PMLA no. 1 (October 2008)
https://bdfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wi_whitepaper_ life_print.pdf.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology.“Facts Are Important Fetal Pain” PMLA no. 1 (July 2013) https://www.acog.org/-/m edia/Departments/Government-Re lations-and-Outreach/FactAreIm portFetalPain.pdf.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “Increasing Access to Abortion.” PMLA no. 1,3 November 2014 https://www.acog.org/-/me dia/Committee-Opinions/Committ ee-on-Health-Care-for-Underser ved-Women/co613.pdf?dmc=1&ts=2 0171114T1158133049.
American College Obstetricians and Gynecology. “Talking Points on State Legislation “Personhood” Measures: Impact on Contraception.” PMLA no. 1 February 10, 2012https://www.acog.org/-/med ia/Departments/LARC/TalkingPoi ntsonPersonhoodMeasures.pdf?dm c=1&ts=20171114T0030062242
Associate of American Medical Colleges. “AAMC." PMLA no. 1 March 18, 2016 https://www.aamc.org/down load/444248/data/statementinsu pportoffetaltissueresearch.pdf.
Lawrence, Hal C., MD, and Ness, Debra L., MS. “Planned Parenthood Provides Essential Services for Women’s Health.” PMLA no. 1 https://www.acog.org/-/media /Departments/Government-Relati ons-and-Outreach/2017-CLC/2017 -CLC-Recommended-Readings/Ask- 2-Health-Care-Reform/2017Annal sPP.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20171114T0029 006772.
Abstract:
A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
The Truth about ACOG
During WWII, Victor Frankel said, “The ovens of Auschwitz were prepared in the classrooms of Germany.” Not much has changed except there is a new target-the preborn children. The classrooms are yet again being used to educate on dehumanizing an entire people group and to desensitize an entire generation of doctors to the value and humanity of the preborn child. One of the biggest culprits behind this is an organization called ACOG. The American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology (“ACOG”) has been denying the value of the preborn child and promoting abortion. One would never expect the field of obstetrics and gynecology, who say they care for women and babies, to not care about preborn life and actually advocate for the termination of life inside the womb. ACOG has been advocating for the preborn to not be seen as valuable through education in medical school, articles, denying science and having a founder of ACOG who received the Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger award which further exemplifies their bias and agenda. ACOG is using their power for that which is inherently unethical as they are stripping an entire people group of their humanity and intrinsic value. This is not ethical especially in a field that once stood on the oath to do no harm. ACOG must be held accountable and needs to educate on fighting for the lives of the unborn children rather than teaching a doctrine of extermination. What part of that is ethical?
BIO
Rachel Mary Guy is a freshman at Chattahoochee Technical College. In her mid teens she created and still serves in two ministries, and is on the board of two pro-life organizations. Rachel has written for LiveAction and is a speaker for Save the 1.
Friday, November 17, 2017
From Victimhood to Motherhood, I Chose Joy, by Paula K. Peyton
During my pregnancy, I read stories of other women who had become pregnant by rape, sometimes twice daily. Those stories were a source of hope and made me feel like I wasn't alone and reaffirmed that it was normal to love my child. I'm writing my story now in the hope that other woman will know that they are not alone, but I also feel that I owe it to my son to advocate for babies like him.
Six years ago, through some friends who worked there, I took a volunteer position with Planned Parenthood as an outreach HIV tester and counselor, so I was out in the community and really never spent time at the clinic, except for the certification training. Being in the abortion clinic made me uncomfortable to know that in another room down the hallway there is a baby dying. I took the position because I wanted to help people know their status with HIV.
Six years ago, through some friends who worked there, I took a volunteer position with Planned Parenthood as an outreach HIV tester and counselor, so I was out in the community and really never spent time at the clinic, except for the certification training. Being in the abortion clinic made me uncomfortable to know that in another room down the hallway there is a baby dying. I took the position because I wanted to help people know their status with HIV.
At that point in time, I
described myself as “personally pro-life, but politically pro-choice.” I never
would have encouraged someone to have an abortion, but I realize now that my
silence on the issue of life had a real-life impact. One day, when speaking to a rape victim who came to me for
an HIV test and thought she might be pregnant, I was silent. Years later, I knew I had been complicit in whatever
occurred later when she followed up with clinic staff. I used to think of her
occasionally. I knew what it was like to be raped because I had become a victim at the age
of 16. But I didn’t know what it was like -- as I used to think -- to “carry a rapist around inside of you.”
Back then, even as someone
who was “personally pro-life,” I thought it must be awful to be in such a
position: choose yourself and your sanity, or this child created in horror. I would think, "How
could anyone decide what to do there?" In my mind, I certainly could understand someone making
an appointment for an abortion. The memory of that woman grieves me now, as I
can see my own foolishness clearly.
This
mind-clearing began in the summer of 2016 when I, as a single woman,
unexpectedly got pregnant. This reel of unfortunate events began with a guy and
a stupid decision and ended with a miscarriage and heartbreak. Few people in my
life know about the baby I lost. I hid her away in my heart and tried to move
on with my life, knowing that she was never meant to be. After all, I have a
diagnosed infertility problem. Pregnancy was something I was supposed to work for
and earn with years of doctors visits and prayer – in my mind anyway.
Losing
that baby, for a time, felt like payback for my prior involvement with Planned
Parenthood and my ownership of a political position which championed the "right
to choose."
My family helped me have a tiny memorial service for the little girl
I carry in my heart, and things started to click for me in my head. If I believed my
child’s life deserved to be memorialized even though she hadn’t taken a breath,
didn’t all babies lost in the womb deserve the same? And if I considered them
to be living -- which would mean aborting them was a form of murder -- how could I
remain complicit in the murder of babies?
But what about those women who "NEEDED" to have abortions? What about the women who shouldn’t be “forced to carry rapists’ babies,” who "definitely needed the procedure?" I had to table my thoughts and just be okay
with it for their benefit. Who better to speak for them than someone who had no
idea what she was talking about? I laugh at my ignorance-based arrogance now.
January
2017 rolled around, and I began my year with hopes of returning to college to
finish my four-year degree in the fall. I would spend the months in between
trying to figure out if I wanted to prep for law school or try to pursue
seminary education. Yes, I have a faith background. I made the decision to be baptized when I was 10, but I had always separated my religious beliefs from my politics.
I was getting to know a new guy who seemed nice enough. It
was going to be a productive year. Halfway through January, I went out for a
couple of drinks with a female friend on a Saturday. We participated in a fundraiser
to support native water rights activists, which involved making a donation to get
Standing Rock tattoos. With my arm covered in plastic wrap to protect the new
ink as it began to heal, I stopped by this new guy’s apartment for a short
visit. He did what guys sometimes do – made a move. My arm was hurting, and after my miscarriage, I had made a decision for purity and just did not want to go through that again. So I declined his advances making it clear to him I wasn't interested in that and
started toward the door to leave.
I was completely shocked and frozen when his roommate came out from his bedroom with a gun in his hand and got between me and the door. The guy I'd been with told me, "I don't think you're gonna leave right now." I was terrified. I thought, "This is it for me. My life is going to end." The whole time I was praying to God that I would live as the two of them raped me at gunpoint that
night.
When it was all over, the guy told me I could leave, and as I walked out, he said "Thanks for a great time." In that moment, I felt like a huge piece of trash. As I drove home, I got to the point where I didn't really feel much of anything, like I was merely existing and just numb.
I went home and showered and showered and showered. I tried to call friends, but couldn't reach anyone and was not about to leave a message.
At church that morning, I spoke to my priest who was very supportive of me as a rape victim. But she actually took me to Walgreens to buy Plan B, which I never took because it wasn't something I was comfortable with. I don't take birth control because I'm not comfortable with it. I already knew Plan B could have the effect of preventing implantation if an embryo was already created. I was worried about STDs, and of course, I was concerned about pregnancy since I knew the timing and that I could be ovulating. I'd had discussions with friends in the past about Plan B and we had talked about not knowing if you would have lost a baby or not, and I had already concluded that it would be horrible not knowing.
I guess I realized that what happened, happened, and that if I were pregnant, this was MY baby. I don't know who my own biological father is, so to me, what's the difference? Your genetic parents are not who define you and I already knew that.
Two weeks
later, I found myself back in Walgreens, returning the Plan B, in exchange for pregnancy tests. I'm sure the cashier was ready to Facebook that hilarious moment!
“What if I’m
pregnant?” I thought over and over. Twenty minutes later, looking at a positive
test in my bathroom, I was able to answer that question: I was having a baby. . . . And I was overflowing with joy!
In the
days and weeks that followed, I slowly shared my news with my closest friends,
and more often than not, they offered me pity-ridden faces and one question
asked in a way that seemed as if they thought the answer was obvious: “What are
you going to do?” I guess they assumed I’d respond with an appointment time, a
clinic name, or some other portion of a carefully-arranged abortion plan.
“I’m
choosing joy,” I’d say, and it would be instantly clear that my answer was the
furthest thing from the one they were anticipating. It seemed like everyone
thought I was crazy, but nothing about wanting my child seemed strange to
me. They didn’t understand that the moment
I had seen that positive pregnancy test, I realized just how faithful God is to
us.
I felt
so dead inside for the entirety of those two weeks between my victimhood and
the discovery of my pending motherhood. Everything I did in those two weeks seemed like an act of
mourning. Rape is devastating. It’s the killing of one’s spirit in a deep,
physical way. In contrast, pregnancy was such a revolutionary revival! The Lord had taken
one of the worst things in my life -- something so dark and damaging -- and He had
created life. After weeks of that darkness controlling everything I did, there
was suddenly a light.
In a
plot twist that the "old me" never saw coming, the only choice I -- as a pregnant
rape victim -- needed to make was to embrace that light, and I did. It took about
a second and a half for my heart to fill with love for the little one growing
underneath it – so much love that my heart couldn’t contain it all and it began
spilling everywhere. I smiled for the first time in two weeks, and I couldn’t
stop.
Then the
bleeding started. . . .
I was
about 4.5 weeks pregnant and went to the bathroom at a friend’s birthday party
only to discover blood. My heart sank. Was I having another miscarriage? The
bleeding wasn’t heavy. I wasn’t cramping. A quick google search from the
bathroom led me to a hopeful place: sometimes this can happen and it’s not the
end. As the bleeding continued, I did a lot of praying while I waited for the
day of my first ultrasound appointment to arrive. At 6 weeks and 5 days, my
little one had a heartbeat and my smile returned.
My
gynecologist referred me to an obstetrician, and a week later I had another ultrasound
at her office. The bleeding had gotten heavier between the two appointments,
but the baby was still okay. My new OB told me that bleeding happens sometimes
in the first trimester. It’s not normal, but also not uncommon. She said I
shouldn’t worry unless it got heavier. It did, time
and time again.
Each
time followed the same pattern: the discovery of extra heavy bleeding, tears, a
call to the doctor, instructions to come in or (when outside of business hours)
to go to the ER for an ultrasound -- a wait that was always too long, then a strong
heartbeat, and a tearful prayer of thanksgiving.
I prayed
every day for months that my child would survive. All the while, I slowly
informed a selection of people about my pregnancy. One minute, I’d be begging
God to protect my unborn child from death in the womb. The next, I’d receive
that question (“What are you going to do?”), followed soon after by the
unwelcome advice to get an abortion "before it's too late." Sometimes they’d
offer to pay for it, as if finances could be the only reason I wasn’t killing
my child. The comments grew worse as the time passed:
“So
you’re just going to give birth to the spawn of Satan? Abort it.”
“That
thing is evil.”
“You
should get rid of the devil baby.”
There
are so many more, all permanently imprinted on my mind. I cut quite a few
people out of my life completely. I had encountered enough pain during and
immediately after my rape. The pain of hearing their comments, some made even
as late as 26 weeks (long after I was calling my son by his name), was too much
to bear. Having people tell me that my baby should be killed and comparing him
to Satan was easily a thousand times worse than being raped. My son had done
nothing wrong! How could he have? He hadn’t even had the chance to draw a breath of
air into his lungs!
Around
the time I was 16-1/2 weeks, my OB had become more concerned about the constant
bleeding since it could no longer be blamed on first trimester weirdness. She
did more tests and discovered that I had a particular sexually transmitted infection I
contracted during the rape which hadn’t been covered by the preventative
treatments I received in the days following the assault. It had caused my
cervix to become incredibly irritated and inflamed, and left untreated, it could
lead to preterm labor and the death of a baby too small to survive outside the
womb.
The diagnosis took about a week, but the subsequent treatment didn’t quite rid my
body of the infection. It came roaring back, and the bleeding didn’t stop for
good until a couple of days before I was 20 weeks pregnant, after two more
rounds of pills. Peace was short-lived because, at 20 weeks to the day, I got a stomach virus which landed me in the hospital for severe dehydration. Yet, somehow, my son's strong
heartbeat prevailed.
Through
all the terrifying moments, I was almost completely alone because too many
people just didn’t understand how I could let this child continue to live,
grow, and bounce around in my belly. Pregnancy is hard, but it’s definitely
harder when your friends listen to the culture surrounding us and don’t value
life.
My son's movements got stronger, and I began to feel hiccups and turns. Before
long, I was 39 weeks and checking in to be induced at the hospital. I didn’t
accept offers for an epidural. The nurses kept telling me I was “such a
rockstar” for dealing with Pitocin contractions without pain medication.
The
truth is, no contraction is ever as painful as the experience of people telling
me how much they hated my perfect and innocent son before he was born. They
thought I’d see my rapist in my son. I didn't and I don’t. (He actually looks exactly like I
did at his age.) They thought I wouldn’t be able to love him. I absolutely do!
They thought temporary financial hardship was too much to handle. It isn’t. They thought he’d be born evil. No baby has ever given a mama as much joy as he
has brought into my life.
Every
single one of these reasons is one that was used to justify targeting and
killing him because people see him as having originated differently than
others. My son was conceived in rape, but his life -- like that of every other
human being -- began with God. And like any other baby, people fall in love with
him easily -- including some of the people who offered to pay a doctor to kill
him. He shows people how wrong they were every single day.
That list includes
his mama because I once thought the same way.
My son,
Caleb Ehren Matthew, whose name means whole-hearted, honorable gift of God, is
sun-shiny days and magic wands and a deep breath of mountain air. He is joy after and in the midst of mourning. He is light -- so much light.
I
recently read this quote often misattributed to Plato but of unknown
authorship: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real
tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
That’s
the one thing I pray Caleb’s life can teach others: there’s no reason to fear
the blessing of light, even and especially when it comes in the form of a
child.
BIO: Paula K. Peyton is a writer, mother to Caleb and now a pro-life blogger for Save The 1. She resides in Memphis, TN.
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