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AMA VOTES AGAINST LETTING WOMEN KNOW "THE PILL" IS ABORTIFACIENT

WASHINGTON, December 7, 2001 (LSN.ca) - The American Medical Association this week voted overwhelmingly against a proposal to inform women about the potential for birth control pills to cause the abortion of an embryo by preventing implantation in the uterus. Cybercast News Service reports that Dr. John C. Nelson, a member of the AMA's executive committee and a self-described conservative, said the Alabama doctor who put forward the proposal before the AMA "believes that in the spirit of enhancing the patient/physician relationship, that information ought to be disclosed to patients to help them make choices." Nelson said, "I couldn't agree more. That's exactly what the AMA is about. It's a cornerstone of American medicine."

However, according to Nelson, the proposal was voted down because "many people from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine... decided that they would testify, and their testimony was that there is not sufficient scientific evidence to suggest" that birth control substances can induce abortions. Walter Weber, senior litigation counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Virginia-based public interest law firm, reacted to the vote saying, "If [pro-life women] are using a method that can operate after fertilization as well as before fertilization, and they don't know it, they are basically being deceived by lack of information into violating their own consciences."

The Family Research Council (FRC) condemned the attempt to conceal the truth from women. FRC Advisory Board Member John Diggs, M.D. said Friday. "The AMA is doing a great disservice to women by refusing to fully inform them of their birth control options. Since informed consent is a basic medical ethic, it should be standard operating procedure to tell women that the birth control pill can cause an abortion. Each woman has the right to know what's good for her health and acceptable to her conscience. If the AMA has suppressed its conscience, it shouldn't draw American women into its own ethical lapses."

FRC noted that the prescribing information for Ortho Tri-Cyclen, a popular oral contraceptive, enumerates three pathways by which the pill works: suppressing ovulation, preventing fertilization and precluding the implantation of an already fertilized egg. The third one constitutes an abortion. The third function is conspicuously excluded from information made available to patients. "If manufacturers are telling doctors that oral contraceptives can keep a new member of the human family from being nourished, why isn't that information being passed on to patients?", asked Dr. Diggs.

Nelson noted that lobbying by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine largely contributed to the AMA's decision.

See the coverage by Cybercast News Service:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200112\CUL20011207b...

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