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Dr. Fritz Baumgartner's letter to an OBGYN involved in the abortion industry: October 5, 2000 Dear Dr. X, As physicians, we are called to a vocation that transcends boundaries of race, religion, or national origin. We are called to a vocation that respects the intrinsic dignity of the human person, regardless of what he/she can "do for us" or what we as physicians can "get out of it." To fulfill this faithfully requires a higher moral vision. It was recently made known to me that your office is somehow involved in the abortion industry. How can this be true? Since abortion was legalized in this country, over 40 million preborn American children have undergone a surgical abortive death. That's one of every 4 pregnancies. The chance of being aborted in the District of Columbia is higher than the chance of being born alive. "Legality" is utterly and completely independent of "morality." The lead article in your own journal, Am J Obstet Gynecol, Aug 2000 (1), is entitled "Physicians Should Provide Moral Leadership to their Communities" (article enclosed). In it, Dr. Gambrell, in a startling presidential address, outlines the verbal semantics and gymnastics needed to defend abortion. He also describes the growing link between societal acceptance of abortion and societal acceptance and perpetration of violent crime. As Gambrell's article states, "Tying abortion to growing violence and murder in the streets, she [Mother Teresa] said, 'If we can accept that a woman can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other?…Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want…" Teenagers are not stupid; they sense hypocrisy better than anyone, and it is they more than anyone else who would be least likely to accept that mass murder in the schoolyard should be condemned by the same government morals that permit a mother to take the life of her own child. With that type of "culture of death," was the Columbine massacre that unpredictable? It all starts, as with all atrocities of the last century, by denying the victim of his or her status as a human being. Being weak and defenseless does not mean one is not human and endowed "with certain inalienable rights, among these LIFE, liberty, and pursuit of happiness"(2). What did the great physician Hippocrates think about this, in the words embodied in the Hippocratic Oath? He could not have been more clear: "I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion. With purity and holiness I will pass my life and practice my art." This is the original oath Hippocrates wrote in 400 B.C. This is also the same oath I took as a member of the UCLA School of Medicine graduating class of 1984. An oath is a sacred trust, the violation of which carries grave consequences for one's practice of medicine, one's patients, and one's country. After accepting that a mother can take the life of her unborn child, we now sink deeper and deeper into the abyss. And, once again, we are at a new crossroads. Last month, the FDA approved RU 486 for medical abortions (i.e. without surgery, which can be done in the "privacy of one's own home"). But what is to be done with the evacuated baby after a medical abortion at home? Another article of the same August 2000 issue of the Am J Obstet Gynecol recommends that, legally, physicians should feel "free to advise patients to flush the products of conception down the toilet" after medical abortion (3). Is that the manifestation of the dignity of the human person in a civilized nation? Violence, blood, and intolerance ooze from our very cultural pores. Do we have the courage and insight to halt what is happening in our own backyard on Warner and Euclid? Medicine and motherhood, in and of themselves, are sacred and beautiful professions, the profound dignity of which must not be adulterated by anything less than their true worth. For the sake of mankind, please be a beacon that illuminates the vision of our beloved profession. Sincerely, Fritz Baumgartner,MD 1.Gambrell Jr, RD. Physicians should provide moral leadership to their communities. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 183:261-70,2000. 2.Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, 1776. 3.Borgmann CE, Jones BS. Legal issues in the provision of medical abortion. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 183:S84-94,2000. |
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''I used to
be pro-choice.''
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