Positions and Papers

The Mifeprex Files

This collection of articles, letters, and news releases will define AAPLOG's positons and actions as the Mifeprex issue has evolved.

• Politicized Science: The Manipulated Approval of RU-486 and Its Dangers to Women's Health
  January 2009
• Mifeprex: The Degradation of a Standard of Care
  December 2008
• "Dangerous Medicine", New York Times OP-ED Article by Donna Harrison, M.D.
  November 19, 2004
• Congressmen Introduce "RU-486 Suspension and Review Act"
  November 6, 2003
• CA Senator Boxer opposed FDA Restrictions on Abortion Drug Suspected in Woman's Death
  November 1, 2003
• Response Filed With FDA to Opposition Comments of the Population Council and Danco Laboratories Regarding the Mifeprex Citizen Petition
  October 10, 2003
• AAPLOG Files Citizen Petition on Mifepristone (Mifeprex) with FDA
  August 20, 2002
• Letter to ACOG Regarding Mifepristone (Mifeprex) Advocacy
  May 23, 2002
• AAPLOG Statement on FDA Approval of Mifeprex (RU 486)
  January 25, 2001

Emergency Contraception

This collection of articles, letters, and news releases will define AAPLOG’s position and actions as the Emergency Contraception issue has evolved.

• The Latest Word on Emergency Contraception: How Effective is It?
  February 2007
• News Release Regarding the FDA and Plan B
  August 28, 2006
• Letter to the FDA Regarding Over-The-Counter Status For Plan B
  August 15, 2006
• News Release: Statement on The FDA's Decision to Delay Action on Over-the-Counter Approval Request for Emergency Contraception
  August 26, 2005
• News Release: Statement on JAMA Emergency Contraception Study
  January 12, 2005

Mandatory Abortion Training for Residents

In 1994, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) declared a mandate that all Ob-Gyn Residency training programs must provide training in induced abortion. Failure to comply meant withdrawal of the accreditation of that training program—a devastating blow to any program. Individuals could opt out if they insisted. Hospital programs could not opt out: If hospitals (e.g., religious institutions) did not have the abortion training program on site, they must have arrangements for abortion training off site. This proabortion training mandate was to go into effect on January 1, l996. Since the ACGME was, and is, an independent authority answerable to no one, there was no way for AAPLOG to effectively object to this mandate. Unfair and unnecessary tho it may have been, it was the "law of the Medes and Persians" for medical training facilities.

AAPLOG appealed to the US Government for help (one government role is to protect the people's rights). The House Committee on Educational Oversight called a hearing for testimony from both sides. The result of these hearings was the Hoekstra-Coats Medical Training Nondiscrimination Act of 1995, which declared that, an entity that forced individuals or programs to participate in abortions would be discriminatory, and on that basis that entity would lose federal funding. Money talks. The ACGME Mandate was never enforced, although it is still on the books.

That was then. Now is now. With the new thinking in Washington, D.C., AAPLOG expects this issue to become prominent again. Witness the January 2009 ACOG Committee on Healthcare for Underserved Women Opinion #424: "ACOG supports the availability of comprehensive reproductive health services for all women, and specifically supports…education about family planning and abortion as an integrated component of the obgyn residency training." Same message as the 1994 ACGME Mandate. If (when) the new government nullifies the Medical Training Nondiscrimination Act of 1994, we will once again face a crisis.

The following links provide the historical documentation of AAPLOG’s 1994-95 encounter with the ACGME Mandate, and the Federal law that neutralized the Mandate.

• Residency Review Committee notifies Program Directors of the proposed revisions requiring abortion training
  October 1993
• AAPLOG position paper to RRC on proposed required abortion training
  May 1994
• ACGME Press Release announcing the abortion training mandate
  February 15, 1995
• ACGME Press Release clarification
  February 16, 1995
• AAPLOG to its members: Write your objections to ACGME!!
  February 22, 1995
• ACGME explanation to US House Committee on Educational Oversight, regarding slightly changed wording
  August 2, 1995
• AAPLOG comments; Hoekstra letter to House of Representatives
  Summer 1995
• Press Release: Legislation approved by US Congress. Individuals, residency programs protected
  April 1996

Oral Contraceptive Controversy

• The Oral Contraceptive Controversy

Partial Birth Abortion

• AAPLOG Statement on Partial Birth Abortion
  February 1997
• How ACOG arrived at its D & X Policy Statement
  1997
• AAPLOG letter to ACOG, detailing our objections to the ACOG policy
  February 1997
• Summary information on the AAPLOG position for our Amicus Brief for the US Supreme Court Case. The Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban in their April 2007 decision.
  September 2006

Breast Cancer

The association of induced abortion and the subsequent development of breast cancer.

• Letter to incoming ACOG President Hammond in 2001, urging academically balanced examination of the evidence for an association between induced abortion and subsequent development of breast cancer.
• AAPLOG Statement on the Association of Induced Abortion and the Subsequent Development of Breast Cancer updated 2008

Miscellaneous Positions

This collection of articles, letters, and news releases will define AAPLOG's positions and actions on other pro-life issues not addressed elsewhere.

• AAPLOG 1995 Survey The ACOG has never polled its membership on their opinions about induced abortion. In 1994, AAPLOG commissioned an independent agent to poll the entire membership of ACOG. The response rate was 25%. In particular, question #5 indicates that over 52% opposed abortion as a solution for unplanned pregnancy.
  1995
• AAPLOG Statement on Human Cloning If it is possible, does that make it right?
  March 4, 2002
• AAPLOG Statement Against Violence
  June 1, 2009
• New Book Reviewed The Physicians' Crusade Against Abortion
  January 17, 2006