(and Keeping Other States from Becoming Radically Pro-Abortion)
By Catherine Wheeler, MD Co-chair of AAPLOG CO
I moved to Colorado six years ago, the next year joining with the prolife community to attempt to restrict abortion after fetal viability. I thought, “Everyone will understand this! We can’t abort babies when they can survive outside the uterus.” Naively, as an ex-abortionist, I thought, “I’ll just tell them the truth about abortion, they’ll understand, and this reasonable Amendment to restrict abortions after fetal viability will pass.”
Once ideas have taken hold, they grow deep roots, becoming difficult to weed out. Bernard Nathanson, MD, one of the architects of the first abortion-focused clinics in New York, and instrumental in passing Roe v. Wade, learned this tragic lesson. The introduction of ultrasound began to shift his beliefs about abortion. He dedicated the rest of his life to sharing the truth about abortion, including the movie, “The Silent Scream (1984).” It’s hard to weed out bad ideas that have grown deep roots.
Fifty years of advancing the ideas that women “need” abortion, and not only “abortion is healthcare,” but “essential healthcare,” and the newer social justice narrative of “reproductive justice,” the seeds have taken deep root in our country. This is especially true in Colorado, where abortion is completely unrestricted, unregulated, and with no safeguards for women. The recently passed amendment 79 placed a “right” to abortion in the state constitution and removed a ban on public funding of elective abortion. The state’s financial impact note for legislation to allocate the state funding of abortion (SB23-183) literally stated that Colorado would save money by “averting births,” the newest euphemism for abortion, and by not having to provide a safety net for born children.
How did these ideas advance through the populace? PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THE TRUTH. People tend to absorb ideas from the culture without assessing or critically thinking about them. We all “catch” our worldview to a large extent. A poll in Colorado last year revealed that 71% of Coloradans did not know the radical abortion law in our state. Most people don’t know what actually happens in abortion, nor do they consider the one purpose of induced abortion – to intervene to end a pregnancy in a manner to “not result in live birth” (CDC definition). Many believe that the developing fetus really IS just a clump of cells, and not of equivalent value as a born child or adult. Most just haven’t given it much thought.
Add to this the primary public narrative that if there are any abortion restrictions, more women will die. No one wants a woman to die! However, this narrative is a fabrication, even a flat out lie. The abortion industry complex is designed to hide the truth about abortion behind ever-changing words and definitions, veiling the true nature of abortion and the developing baby, as well as the harms (even deaths) to women. They conflate induced abortion with miscarriage and ectopic care, causing confusion. The media has blamed women’s tragic deaths from complications of abortion drugs on abortion restrictions. But lies are always eventually exposed.
This is where AAPLOG and prolife medical professionals may have their greatest impact, being a beacon of truth defending both women and their preborn children. We must commit to NOT LET LIES STAND.
The profession of medicine was intentionally, ideologically coopted in the name of abortion, now extending to euthanasia and assisted suicide, as well as “gender care.” Because science is clear – a new human life begins at conception- the definition of “pregnancy” was changed to beginning at implantation, thus creating a definition that allowed certain “contraceptives” to not be considered abortifacients. The ethics of medicine was intentionally altered, from the centuries-old foundation of the Hippocratic Oath:
“I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and
Similarly, I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.”
Here are two revised oaths many medical schools use at graduation:
- “Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life. This awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God” – Louis Lasagne, MD, 1964 revision
- “I shall always have the highest respect for human life and remember that it is wrong to terminate life in certain circumstance, permissible in some, and an act of supreme love in others….” – “The Oath of the Healer,” Louis Weinstein, MD
States like Colorado, are ripe for exposure of the harms to women and brutality to preborn babies. The light shines brightest in the dark.
As an ex-abortionist, I have some vivid memories of the horrors of abortion. I am committed to doing all I am able to help people to grasp what abortion is and see the pre-born baby. Below are some things we can do as medical professionals. No one can do it all, but we each can, and must, do something.
- Be a community together. Get to know and support each other. Especially in radical abortion states, pressure, silencing, dismissal and even hatred can be wearing. It can be lonely. But you are NOT alone. This is a primary goal of AAPLOG and AAPLOG CO.
- Share the truth about the developing baby and abortion. Don’t let lies stand. Recently I have had two opportunities to correct the false public narrative. One woman mentioned how “awful it is that doctors are leaving states because of abortion bans.” Another woman shared her story of an ectopic pregnancy and expressed, “At least I could get care then.” Both times, as an Ob/Gyn, I was able to share evidence-based truth that exposed the false accounts, and hopefully triggered consideration. Share stories from your life that help people understand these issues. We must not be silent.
- Get to know your local Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC), support them, and offer your service in whatever ways you are able to. Physical and verbal attacks against PRCs are increasing since Dobbs, attempting to remove the greatest resources of help for women in need. Many PRCs are expanding their medical services, often including mental health care.
- Immunize our children and young adults against harmful ideas. What I mean is, tell them the truth before they are captured by the false narratives about sex, the developing baby, contraception, and abortion. Offer to educate in the community, schools, and churches, as well as your own family.
- Legislation and testimony. There is no way around this. Laws shape what culture sees as right and wrong. That is why the abortion industry is working so hard to keep abortion legal. Many people think “How can it be bad? It’s legal.” Now, “safe” is intentionally equivalized with “legal.” We cannot only do the good and educate. We must also protect. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, defending his attempts to expose and end the Nazi regime, said, “If I see a madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders, then I can’t simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”
- The next generation of medical professionals. I have been asked what would have made a difference so that I would not have had abortions. At the top of my list are three things. First, if abortion was not legal, I NEVER would have done them, nor would most medical professionals. Secondly, being grounded in the fact that a new human being’s life begins at the microsecond of fertilization, having equal dignity and value from that moment throughout his/her entire lifespan. And, that it is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Killing our patients has NO PLACE in medicine. Thirdly, mentorship. In training, we learn from staff physicians and senior residents how to be a doctor (for physicians), how to interact with patients, and what treatments and procedures belong (are normal) within medicine and our specific specialty. Among my most important mentors was a wonderful, caring, supportive physician. She taught me so much about the privilege of getting to care for our patients and being part of their lives. She also taught me about “serial monogamy” and “abortion as a back-up.” Others taught me that abortion is just a hard choice some women “have” to make; it’s not up to us to judge, but to “help” them by doing abortions, if we care about women. I didn’t hear any other narrative. Mentors are so important. Today, what medical professional students face is so much more assertive and coercive, as is the potential cost to take a stand for life. But if not us, who will? We must be involved with the young adults entering medicine to mentor them in Hippocratic medicine, which values and defends both of our patients, and never uses death as a therapeutic option.
I believe that for Colorado, the tide is turning. As part of the AAPLOG Colorado chapter, we are committed to moving Colorado into its destiny as a leader for LIFE, step by step, whatever it takes. Won’t you join us?