By Dave Andrusko
In a far-reaching statement issued earlier this month, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a coalition more than 30,000 pro-life physicians and other healthcare professionals, said that “abortion is not healthcare” and that this “intentional destruction of human life through barbaric methods” violates the core values of the Hippocratic Oath.
The statement comes less than two weeks before the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Mississippi’s Gestation Age Act, which prohibits abortions after the 15th week with very limited exceptions.
Included is the alliance is the Catholic Medical Association, the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs, the Coptic Medical Association of North America, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and the American College of Pediatricians.
“As physicians and other healthcare professionals, we know that when we care for pregnant women, we are caring for two distinct patients,” the statement says. “Our duty is to protect and preserve the lives of the patients whom we care for. Our patients place their trust in us to recommend what is best for them, regardless of current political or cultural trends.”
The statement makes clear that the science unambiguously backs up that statement: “The science is clear – at the moment of fertilization, a new distinct, living and whole human being comes into existence. Abortion, which is an action whose sole intent is to end this life, clearly violates the basic tenets of medical ethics.”
Abortion is lethal to unborn children but also poses real and long-lasting dangers to their mothers: “The evidence is clear that abortions increase the risk of preterm delivery in future pregnancies, increase a woman’s risk of mental health disorders and suicide and increase her risk of breast cancer if she has not yet had a full-term pregnancy,” according to the Alliance . “These risks, and the risks of her dying from abortion related complications, are even higher if the abortion is done in the second trimester and beyond.”
The statement reminds its readers that it is no accident that more than 90% of OB/GYN’s do not perform abortions.
The statement finished with this powerful statement:
Over the last two years, we have seen the medical community pull together to protect the most vulnerable amongst us. No one is more vulnerable than preborn children, capable of feeling pain and completely dependent on our protection in order to survive. It is time for those of us in the medical profession to boldly defend the lives of all of our patients and demand that our preborn patients be protected and our pregnant patients be empowered instead of lied to. Women and their children deserve our support, not the destruction of abortion.