A majority of Americans, 7 in 10, according to a recent poll, want significant limits on abortion, but the nation’s second-largest physician group is officially embracing Democrats’ abortion-on-demand talking points following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision allowing states more freedom to set abortion law.
In its latest policy brief, the American College of Physicians (ACP) announced its official stance on abortion is that “individuals have the right to make their own decisions, in partnership with their physician or health care professional” without legal consequences.
The ACP also used the brief, which was designed to “expand” on the organization’s 2018 policy, to formally condemn life-saving pro-life laws for banning the barbaric practice of in-utero dismemberment abortion and punishing anyone who illegally ends unborn lives. The ACP declined to immediately respond to The Federalist’s questions about whether the organization believes in any limits on abortion “given the tight turnaround.”
The language in the policy, however, is clear that the ability to continue living outside a mother’s womb is no longer the standard to use when determining limits on abortion because it “means different things to different people and health systems.”
“Each pregnancy is different, and a viability determination can only be made on a case-by-case basis between a physician and their pregnant patient,” the ACP brief states. Even if viability is universally determined by physicians instead of legislators, as the organization demands, the ACP still says it “is a deficient public policy standard for the legal regulation of abortion.”
Instead, the ACP says every woman should be able to get an abortion, travel to get an abortion outside of her pro-life state, and receive fatal abortion drugs in her mail “without undue government interference.” In fact, the ACP wants policymakers to “explore ways to support people who need assistance to be able to travel to obtain reproductive health care services due to a lack of available services in their region.”
Any effort to criminalize the ending of unborn lives the ACP condemns as a “threat to patient access to care and physician practice of medicine” that infringes on the network’s commitment to providing “equitable care.” It’s unclear whether the ACP will force out pro-life physicians who disagree with this extremist policy.
Just last month, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists banned pro-life doctors from sharing science-based information about life in the womb at their annual conference. In response, four Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, formally asked their colleagues in Congress to decline meeting with ACOG unless the organization reverses its decision.
“As Members of Congress, we call on ACOG to end its discrimination against pro-life doctors, and we will press for immediate changes to this unacceptable behavior—whether that means taking ACOG to task in meetings or refusing meetings until they change course—and encourage other Members to do the same,” the legislators wrote.
