Pro-life physicians on mail-order chemical abortion: “reckless”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has okayed the mail-order dispensation of an abortion-inducing drug. The American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) sees no reason to celebrate. The following statement, including the heading, was published in the AAPLOG email newsletter.

Pro-life doctors, ADF call on NH to investigate PPNNE’s use of chemical abortion drugs

Does Planned Parenthood of Northern New England prescribe chemical-abortion drugs in a manner inconsistent with Food and Drug Administration protocol?

The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists thinks an investigation is in order. Joined by the Alliance Defense Fund, AAPLOG sent a letter on September 4 to the New Hampshire Board of Medicine and the New Hampshire Board of Nursing. ADF issued a press release summarizing the letter and the reasons behind it.

If I may be flippant for a moment, here’s my paraphrase of the AAPLOG/ADF letter to the Boards, which I have read (all 20 pages): abortion’s legal, and we all know it. Even so, would PP mind terminating pregnancies in a way that damages women as little as possible? It looks terribly like money is trumping health here.

Who kicked up this fuss, anyway? Michael Tierney, New Hampshire attorney and former Executive Council candidate. He knows that the FDA protocol for the use of chemical abortion is to use it no later in pregnancy than 49 days after a woman’s last menstrual period. He also knows that the Planned Parenthood of Northern New England web site indicates that women shouldn’t use this method after more than 63 days. (I accessed the web page today, 9/6/13, to confirm that PP is still using that language.) Tierney brought this to the attention of the New Hampshire Board of Pharmacy. He then called on AAPLOG and ADF (with which he is an allied attorney) to contact the boards of medicine and nursing to urge an investigation.

Tierney’s concern: “Planned Parenthood’s main concern should be the health and safety of women, not its bottom line.”

Health before profits: what a concept. Unfortunately, with the wall of secrecy around the abortion industry – a wall that too many New Hampshire legislators and the current governor fight to preserve – no one in this state has any proof that women are safe when they go for an abortion. Of course, that means that no one has objective data in this state to prove that women are harmed in this state, either. That’s the way New Hampshire abortion providers like it. I’ve heard their testimony in Concord year after year. Morbidity and mortality following a “medical” procedure is a public health issue, unless that “medical” procedure is abortion. I use quotation marks because a small part of me still wants to think of medicine as a healing art, despite all current evidence that it has been reduced to a technical skill. Abortion has nothing to do with healing.

“Gynotician” is the latest epithet PP has coined to throw at lawmakers who dare to demand that abortionists be forced to account for women’s health. Imagine the nerve of some people, wanting objective information about how abortions are done and what happens to a woman’s health after abortion. PP knows that New Hampshire will never pass a stats collection law while there are legislators who dislike being called names. The abortion industry is not self-policing. Ask Kermit Gosnell.

Thank God that there are people in New Hampshire like Michael Tierney willing to force the question. Doctors at AAPLOG are willing to speak out about how medicine is practiced by abortion providers (an increasing number of whom are not M.D.s). Does PP have a catchy name for boards of pharmacy, medicine, and nursing that choose to investigate how PP prescribes drugs? We might find out yet.

A bit about the American of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists: AAPLOG is a recognized professional interest group within the larger American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. It was founded a few decades ago by a gynecologist who was alarmed by ACOG’s willingness to espouse abortion-on-demand. That gynecologist was Matthew Bulfin, M.D. of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was my mother’s doctor.