The pro-abortion American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) has announced that it will nationally support abortion up to birth “without limits.”
In an op-ed written by leaders of ACOG and the Society of Family Planning for The Washington Post, the groups stated that abortion “must be available without restrictions, without limitations and without barriers.”
The op-ed was in response to a pro-life op-ed penned by Kellyanne Conway and SBA Pro-Life president Marjorie Dannenfelser, in which the two wrote, “Republicans need to go on offense on abortion.”
ACOG claims abortion ‘saves lives’ and should be done ‘without limitations’
In their response op-ed, Christopher Zahn, interim chief executive at ACOG, and Jenni (also referred to as “Jen”) Villavicencio, interim director of advocacy and public affairs for the Society of Family Planning and formerly of ACOG, accused Conway and Dannenfelser of misleading Americans. The pro-abortion pair made the false claim that abortion is safe and went as far as to claim that abortion “improves and saves lives.” Villavicencio has previously claimed that the abortion pill, which studies have shown is four times more dangerous than a surgical abortion, is “just as safe as ibuprofen, the Advil that you get out of your cabinet or off the shelf in the local pharmacy.”
Abortion “must be available without restrictions, without limitations and without barriers — just as any other critical part of health care,” Zahn and Villavicencio claimed.
Villavicencio has alo previously falsely asserted that later abortions are only done if things have gone “terribly wrong” with a pregnancy — a claim not supported by research which has instead shown that women abort later in pregnancy for largely the same reasons they abort early in pregnancy. As Live Action News noted:
One study from the pro-abortion group ANSIRH states, “The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester… [T]he circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”
While the study doesn’t detail the reasons women give, it did note that women have abortions in the third trimester for multiple reasons, including the fact they didn’t know they were pregnant, that they had difficulty arranging abortions, and that the baby had a health problem or disability. None of the abortions were committed due to the mother’s health being at risk.
The announcement that the groups want abortion on demand for any reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy is an admittance of a dark truth that has existed in the shadows of the pro-abortion movement for years.
Just days before the announcement, former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was still perpetuating the lie that “[n]o one is routing for late-term abortions. No one is running on the platform of aborting viable babies.” She claimed, “This is not politics.”
That lie is now officially exposed.
Abortion is not health care. Intentionally and directly killing a preborn, living, human being does not cure cancer or heal wounds. If the mother is financially struggling or deemed ‘too young’ to parent, this does not justify actively killing an innocent person.
If a pregnant woman is facing a medical crisis and her pregnancy must end in order to save her life or preserve her health, caring, compassionate, knowledgable doctors would not force her to choose her own life over her child’s, but would perform an induced preterm delivery or emergency C-section and attempt to save her child’s life as well.
In a later induced abortion, however, the abortionist takes the time to kill the preborn child (up to as long as three days) before forcing the mother to deliver a dead child. At times, actual dismemberment is used to tear the limbs from the child’s body while he or she is still alive in the womb and is capable of feeling pain. Intentional killing is not compassionate and it is not health care.
An unscientific ‘political takeover’
“As an obstetrician for the last 30 years, I have advocated and cared for both of my patients — mothers and their unborn children,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., a board-certified OB/GYN and vice president and director of medical affairs at Charlotte Lozier Institute. “This brazen proclamation from ACOG, while sad to see, is reflective of a discouraging new reality: In ACOG’s leadership and the broader medical community, there’s no place for dissent on the issue of unlimited abortion for any reason, at any time during pregnancy.”
She added, “We are witnessing, in real time, a vocal, political takeover of a scientific community that represents the most honorable and beautiful profession, responsible for safely bringing new life into the world.”
Polling has consistently shown that the majority of Americans believe there should be pro-life protections placed on abortion. Sixty-one percent (61%) of those surveyed in a 2023 Knights of Columbus-Marist Poll said they consider themselves to be pro-choice, yet 69% want abortion to be significantly restricted.
According to the poll, 79% of Americans do not want abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy, as was allowed under Roe v. Wade and as abortion advocates and pro-abortion politicians are seeking. In addition, the poll indicates that 69% of Americans want abortion restricted even earlier than six months, the so-called assumed point of ‘viability’.
“In an informed debate, the truth is what matters and now we finally hear the truth from the abortion lobby,” said Dannenfelser. “So now we take this question of abortion limits to voters and those running for public office. Americans are compassionate people and overwhelmingly reject all-trimester abortions on demand. The more they learn of the extremist positions of organizations in power, the more they reject them.”
