~ Edmund Pellegrino
I recently read an article titled “Fewer medical students trained for abortion procedures” (By Sarah Varney, KFF Health News/March 22, 2022, Kaiser Health News). I can’t even recall how I came across it but it was written just after the overturning of Roe in 2022. The basic premise was that because of the new (in 2022) abortion restrictions in several states the medical discipline and residency programs who previously offered standardized teaching on abortion “care” were not necessarily continuing to require training of said procedure.
I decided to dig a little more on this especially in relation to our state, Washington, because well, we are not a state that restricts abortion. I was disappointed, though not wholly surprised, to find that the University of Washington, “Due to the narrowing access to abortion training in other states”, has made the decision to “only admit residents who are committed to providing abortion care”. That way, this ensures all available spots contribute to training physicians who want to learn and perform abortions in Washington state. And there is no longer an ‘opt out’ box to check.
“If we live in a state where abortion care is legal, we need to recruit medical students into our program that want to provide abortion care,” said Dr. Alyssa Stephenson-Famy, an associate professor of maternal-fetal medicine at UW. “We should not waste our spots on people not willing to provide abortion.”
“Medicine is a moral enterprise. All are called to lead a moral life and to achieve the holiness of the saints. This obviously means that ethics is important in all professions and walks of life. Yet, we rightly hold physicians and other health care workers to higher standards of professional ethics.” (The Moral Mind, Joseph Meaney,https://www.ncbcenter.org/messages-from-presidents/moralententerprize-3y2rn)
We correctly think of our medical caregivers as engaged in the healing professions. That is why it is a sick perversion of medicine when pressure groups or governments seek to force doctors to become killers. Requiring them (medical students) to become executioners by performing abortions as part of their training or professional duties is something beyond the pale. Saving “spots” for those willing to engage in murder and refusing those seeking to train in the profession of healing from their calling because they, gasp!stubbornly refuse to learn how to “murder their patients” is appalling.
Well Next Step is here and here we will remain – our medical staff and volunteers
– stubbornly and wholeheartedly practicing medicine that first, does no harm.
Pax Tibi Heather Vasquez
P.S. Check out our support site nssupport.org for all things Next Step!