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:

• Understanding and Using the U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use
• Forming a Just Health Care System
• The Obstetric-Gynecologic Hospitalist
• Increasing Use of Contraceptive Implants and Intrauterine Devices to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy 
• Menstrual Manipulation for Adolescents with Disabilities 
• Induced Abortion and Breast Cancer Risk 
• Abortion Access and Training 
• Misoprostol for Postabortion Care 
• Hormone Therapy and Heart Disease 
• End-of-Life Decision Making 
• Surgery and Patient Choice

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.