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Fritz Baumgartner, MD, of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at theUniversity of Southern California wrote the following letter regarding USC Medical and Dental students Hippocratic Oath. October 5, 2000 Letter to the Editor of the USC news service Dear Editor: In a recent article in the USC "Chronicle," an article appeared on the "White Coat Ceremony" taken by the USC Medical and Dental Students. Specifically, it said, "Keck School of Medicine students recite the Hippocratic Oath during a Sept. 1 ceremony in Mayer Auditorium" and "…the Keck students took the Hippocratic Oath and pledged to practice their soon-to-be-honed healing arts 'solely for the cure' of their future patients." But do the Keck students take the true Hippocratic Oath? No, they do not. It is, in fact, a modified version of the oath that the Keck students take. What are the actual words of the true Hippocratic Oath? Significantly, they include the following: "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. 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. Since abortion was legalized in this country, over 40 million 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. And that doesn't even include those lives taken by abortifacient drugs. "Legality" is utterly and completely independent of "morality." The lead article in the August 2000 issue of American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology(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 and 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 hippocrysy 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 humanity. Being weak and defenseless does not mean one is not human and endowed with "certain inalienable rights, among these LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 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 week, the FDA approved RU 486 for medical abortion (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? In another article of the same August 2000 issue of the American Journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, it is recommended that, legally, physicians should feel "free to advise patients to flush the products of conception down the toilet" after medical abortion (2). Is that the manifestation of the dignity of the human person in a civilized nation? Or the mentality of Auschwitz, circa 1942? 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? 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. 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.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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