1. Find A Physician Directory Update Ready to Launch May 1. We are going live with the new member directory as of May 1. If you have not yet logged into the members only website (members.aaplog.org) please take 90 seconds and log in and update your profile. Unless we hear differently from you, we will be posting your name, office address and phone number in the directory. If you have any questions, please email communications@aaplog.org and Josh will take care of any problems.
This member directory is really important, and we get up to 3-4 people each day checking our website to find pro-life physicians in their area. Consider the aaplog directory free advertising for your practice!
3. Member Benefit: Classified Ads. On the members-only website, we now have the classified ads section up and running. This is a great way to find new jobs, or to post your availability. One of the new jobs posted is an opening for a Medical Director position with C.U.R.E. Be sure and log-in, and check out the information under “members” then “classifieds”. (And update your profile while you are there!) Please email any postings for “positions open” or “seeking a position” to communications@aaplog.org. The service is free for aaplog members.
And now to news:
The Myth of “Safe” Abortion. If you query the National Library of Medicine [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/
Main Entry: safe
Pronunciation: ˈsāf
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): saf·er; saf·est
: not causing harm or injury; especially : having a low incidence of adverse reactions and significant side effects when adequate instructions for use are given and having a low potential for harm under conditions of widespread availability. —safe·ty ˈsāf-tē noun, plural safe·ties
Since elective abortion increases a woman’s risk of preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies, increases her risk of suicide, depression and substance abuse, and increases her risk of breast cancer if she is aborts her first pregnancy before 32 weeks, and delays subsequent term pregnancy, it is apparent that elective abortion does not fulfill the definition given: “having a low incidence of adverse reactions and significant side effects when adequate instructions for use are given and having a low potential for harm under conditions of widespread availability.” So, in what sense does the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) use the term “safe” abortion?
The W.H.O. definition of “safe” and “unsafe” abortion is a legal, not a medical definition: (emphasis mine)
“For estimation purposes, safe abortions were defined as those that meet legal requirements in countries in which abortion is legally permitted under a broad range of criteria. Unsafe abortion is defined by WHO as any procedure to terminate an unintended pregnancy done either by people lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both. These include abortions in countries with restrictive abortion laws, as well as abortions that do not meet legal requirements in countries with less restrictive laws”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
By this definition, all abortions performed in countries where abortion is illegal are “unsafe”, and the morbidity and mortality from these abortions are tracked. However, in countries where abortion is legalized, all the abortions are considered “safe”. And WHO does not track morbidity and mortality from “safe” abortions. This deceptive terminology is used to pressure abortion legalization in order to decrease the morbidity and mortality from “unsafe” abortion.
In the Fifth edition of “Unsafe Abortion: Global and Regional Estimates” [fifth edition] WHO goes on to describe the dependency of the term “Unsafe” abortion on legal rather than medical criteria:
“When performed within the legal framework, the safety of the procedure will depend on the requirements of the law, and the resources and medical skills available. In some countries, lack of resources and possibly skills may mean that even abortions that meet the legal and medical requirements of the country would not necessarily be considered sufficiently safe in high-resource settings.”
The audacity of this statement is breathtaking. What W.H.O. considers “safe” for an African woman, would not be “safe” for a rich executive in the West. Even more breathtaking is the methodology W.H.O. used to “estimate” the number of “unsafe” abortions in a country:
“For the purpose of these calculations and to circumvent the problem of induced abortion being misreported as spontaneous, it has been considered more reliable to use the combined incidence of spontaneous and induced abortion, when available , and correct for the incidence of spontaneous abortion.” {http://www.who.int/
Since there is no tested methodology to verify such “correction” of the data, the entire process is subject to investigator bias, as evidenced by the two papers on methodological flaws used to overestimate the number of induced abortions in Latin American nations. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Full text available at http://www.melisainstitute.
Perhaps because of the evident lack of scientific integrity inherent in this process of “unsafe” abortion estimation, the W.H.O. published last month a bulletin http://www.who.int/bulletin/
“ WHO has historically used a pragmatic operational construct that measures safety in terms of only one dimension – legality – in developing its regional and global estimates of rates of unsafe abortion.”
It is commendable that the authors go on to call for a new “multi-dimensional risk continuum to measure abortion safety.” However, that forthcoming new risk continuum does nothing to change the current W.H.O. inflated and inaccurate estimates of “unsafe” abortion. These inflated and inaccurate estimates of “unsafe” abortion are being used currently to pressure nations to legalize abortion worldwide, as we discussed in the member update regarding the Commission on the Status of Women, and which will culminate in discussions to be held in September at the United Nations.
Meanwhile in countries like the United States, where abortion is legal, little is done to safeguard the health of women who undergo abortion. The lip service of “meeting legal requirements” does nothing if the legal requirements are not enforced. Take the recent example of New York City. According to documents obtained by the Chairoscuro Foundation, the New York Health Department simply ignored their responsibility to monitor abortion facilities.
http://nypost.com/2014/04/07/
This failure to enforce regulations is exactly how Dr. Gosnell was able to operate for years in Philadelphia, despite years of complaints to the health department. As pro-life physicians, it is time for us to speak out publicly about what abortion is doing to our patients in our areas of practice. It is AAPLOG’s responsibility to address the myth of “safe” abortion and to show that abortion is not only destroying our unborn patient, but also results in harm and injury to their mothers. By definition, “safe” (ie legal) abortion is only safe for the abortionist.
Thanks for standing with us,
For Life,
Donna
P.S. It is important that AAPLOG have a voice in the debates now ongoing at the international level. We have an opportunity to speak out at the upcoming UN conferences in September. But, to do so, we need some additional funding, in order to be able to send an AAPLOG member for these meetings. Please consider designating a gift for this purpose. https://aaplog.wildapricot.
And, if you are looking for other opportunities to support pro-life initiatives, Dr. Paul Atem, an AAPLOG Physician in Cameroon, has now launched the Cameroon Pro-Life Medical Association, with official recognition by the nation of Cameroon. The CPLMA is planning a Pan African Pro Life Educational Conference in 2015, in Bamenda Cameroon on March 12 – 15 2015. The purpose of the conference is to:
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Educate the general public on the profound adverse effects that elective abortion imposes on women, on the entire involved family and the society at large.
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Educate abortion-vulnerable young girls sne women and pregnancy counsellors in Africa regarding the medical and psychological complications associated with induced abortion. and
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Educate medical professionals to care for the well-being of both pregnant women and her unborn child and thus to preserve the sanctity of human life from conception to the grave.
The Cameroon Pro Life Medical Association is seeking support to bring in international speakers to address the issues of abortion’s effects on women, the family and society as well as other topics vital to the survival of healthy families in Cameroon. We will update you with details as they become available. If you would like to support this initiative, you can either send a gift directly to Dr. Atem, (contact him at dratempaul@gmail.com to make arrangements) or you can make a donation to AAPLOG designated for AAPLOG support of the Cameroon Pro-Life Medical Association Conference. 100% of the donation will be used to support the CPLMA Bamenda Pan African Pro-Life Educational Conference.) More information will be coming in future email updates.