The country’s leading medical lobbying group rejected a resolution that said abortion survivors should be given proper medical care after a failed abortion.
The American Medical Association (AMA) recently held a meeting in Chicago, where Dr. Thomas Eppes – identified as “pro-choice” – introduced a resolution calling for the “highest standard of newborn care” for an abortion survivor, if they are born alive after an attempted abortion in a viable gestational age, usually around 22 weeks. However the resolution is totally rejected by a vote of 476-106.
“Our policy must be science-based, it must be fact-based, and it must be based on the best available evidence that honors and upholds the value of the patient-physician relationship and the diversity and complexity of medical care,” said Dr. Kavita Arora, a delegate from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) speaking on behalf of the ACOG section council and the Specialty and Service societies, said at the meeting. “This is not a one-size-fits-all approach and should not be based on misinformation or disinformation. I strongly urge you to oppose it.”
Eppes also argued on behalf of his resolution, asserting that the intent was not to punish a woman for having an abortion, or to imply that abortion should not be legal.
“This position is not to dispute a woman’s right to choose,” he said. “The decision to have an abortion is still between the patient and the physician. It does not imply the woman’s responsibility for the life of the fetus, but this resolution places the burden of care on the physician, who now has to care for two patients as soon as the fetus survives.”
Abortion advocates often argue that abortion survivors nothing, but the data suggests otherwise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that, over a period of 12 years, more than one hundred babies were reported to have survived at least briefly after the abortion. A recent Minnesota abortion reportfor example, revealed that five children were born alive during abortions in that state in 2021 alone. Furthermore, none of them received medical care – in other words, they were left to die. Another report found that more than 100 babies were born alive following abortions in just five states in about 10 years.
Abortion, the intentional taking of a preborn child’s life, is never acceptable – but further denying an abortion survivor medical care is not an “evidence-based” practice that honors science. Providing medical care to an abortion survivor should be an unopposed practice without any controversy… and one of the nation’s leading medical organizations should stand behind it.
