The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) banned members of a pro-life association of health care providers from attending a medical conference last month.
The nurse-midwives group told the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) that their members’ viewpoints on abortion were no longer welcome.
“We are unable to accommodate as your mission doesn’t align with our position statement on abortion,” a staffer wrote in an email to the pro-life association. “We affirm patient autonomy.”
However, some groups—including the American College of Nurse-Midwives and the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ABOG)—have taken up “pro-abortion activism,” said Harrison.
And that, she said, is “one of the greatest threats to maternal health care.”
Obstetricians and gynecologists usually focus on medicine involving pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum care, and gynecology, said midwife Betsy Morton, spokeswoman for the pro-life group banned from the medical conference.
“I became a midwife because of the beauty and wonder of birth,” Morton told The Epoch Times.
“Now, I’ve heard people stand up and say, ‘I became a midwife so I can do abortions.’”
Many providers see abortion as a way to help women, Morton said. But women can suffer immensely after the procedure to terminate a pregnancy, she said.
“I’ve cared for women after they had an abortion who are weeping in my arms because of the grief and the pain,” she said.
For the past few years, pro-life midwives have sensed opposition from major groups in their profession, Morton said. In the months after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, tension has increased, she said.
When pro-life midwives asked to use a room for worship at an annual conference of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the request was denied, she said. But at the same conference, the organization honored a request for “nonbinary” bathrooms.
Post-Roe statements by the American College of Nurse-Midwives make clear that administrators see abortion as a crucial part of care for women.
“ACNM is committed to individual patient autonomy across the spectrum of reproductive health, including abortion.
“Misinformation and disinformation about contraception and abortion can create false narratives about essential safe practices in the specialty,” the organization’s statement read.
“Eligibility to gain or maintain ABOG certification may be lost if ABOG determines that diplomates do not meet the standards that they have agreed to meet and that the public deserves and expects,” the statement concluded.
“Physicians and other health care providers have the duty to refer patients in a timely manner to other providers, if they do not feel that they can in conscience provide the standard reproductive services that patients request,” its website reads.
But midwives shouldn’t have to promote abortion against their conscience, Morton said. That goes against their rights.
“To say that I have to refer [a patient for an abortion] is going to basically take away my ability to support my patient in the way that I feel like I need to,” she said.
“The threats to decertify OB-GYNs who do not participate in killing their patients will not only worsen the existing maternity care deserts, but also completely ignore the fact that many women do not want to be treated by an abortion provider,” Harrison said in her interview with The Daily Signal.
In a prepared statement, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists told The Epoch Times that the group ended all “special interest” groups nine years ago, not just pro-life groups. That’s why it’s no longer affiliated with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The statement went on to call abortion “an essential component of medical care.”
