Sunday, October 23, 2011

ACOG Conference

I readily talked about CMA. Now I have to drag myself into talking about ACOG. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does not send me into raptures like the CMA does. In fact, ACOG's opinions are influenced by politicians and advocate a very sad agenda for women (abortion, contraception, selective reduction, etc).

I went to an ACOG conference last Saturday. I swept past several contraceptive companies and IVF providers, and dodged the free demos of IUDs that were being given out to the medical students.  Even so, most of the booths were encouraging: a new women's hospital was opening, a cord-blood bank was giving out stuff, and a lab company was showing off their pap-smear swabs right across from a da Vinci robot (which I got to play with!!!). I think this is because my district of ACOG is rather conservative.

Nationally speaking, ACOG seems very misled morally. Take a look at Committee Opinion 385, drafted in 2007 and reaffirmed last year. Other interesting ACOG opinions:
All these links provide access to PDFs that open in this window; these documents belong to ACOG but are available online. I'd like to discuss some of these here in the future (the funnest posts I write are the ones where I dip into my philosophy background—closely seconded by the food posts). However, right now genetics beckons.

2 comments:

  1. Committee Opinion 385 is terrifying.

    My favorite is the idea of "ethically appropriate limits of conscientious refusal." Okay, so I can refuse to do something because of my ethics, but only if.... my ethics don't disagree with theirs. Great.

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  2. "Terrifying" is exactly the word. I read it and shiver. Then I get angry. Then I feel sad for physicians and patients.

    Today, it's mostly the anger that is staying with me. There are so many flaws in basic logic (like the one you outlined), and people (like post-abortive parents, unborn children, and the staff of abortion clinics) are suffering for it.

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