By Dave Andrusko
You really can learn a lot trolling for stories written by reporters/activists who extol the wonders of abortion. Let’s talk about two today, one here, and another in a different blog entry.
The first appeared in the Mercury News a few days ago—“Creating tomorrow’s abortion providers at UC and Stanford”—by Lisa M. Krieger. What do we learn?
First, that “only 2 percent of ob-gyns perform half of all abortions. Many are approaching retirement” while others avoid abortion because of the “stigma” (yes, there is a stigma to aborting babies). As a result, “The number of providers has declined by 37 percent since 1982.”
Second, a combination of private dollars, such as the “Ryan Programs [which] gives schools seed money for abortion training,” the work of Medical Students for Choice; and “three new programs, all conceived at UCSF” (University of California at San Francisco) is attempting to fill the void.
“It would be difficult to exaggerate how prominent an abortion proponent UCSF has been over the decades,” writes NRLC Education Director Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon. “Their high-profile abortion advocacy goes back to the 1960s.” (For a fascinating overview of UCSF, see www.nrlc.org/NewsToday/HighPowered.html).
Third, “Stanford followed UCSF’s lead in expanding abortion education and training in 2007,” Kreiger writes. “That’s when the university recruited Dr. Paul Blumenthal, a national leader in family planning research, away from Johns Hopkins. Stanford, ‘like many major university medical centers around the country, increasingly recognizes that family planning services, including abortion care, are an integral mainstream component of women’s health care,’ Blumenthal said.”
Four, we are supposed to believe (according to one bioethicist) that teaching abortion techniques to young doctors does not mean a given school is in favor of abortion, any more than talking about physician-assisted suicide means the school would be promoting “assisting” people to die. I gather this was delivered with a straight face.
Fifth and finally, there is a backdrop. Finding outside sources of money might be more important than ever as the public (a) grows more pro-life and (b) that same public asks why is its tax dollars are paying for anything having to do with abortion.
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