Michael F Schundler
3 min readOct 19, 2022

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You won't be able to force religious affiliated hospitals to do abortions unless they are medically necessary. Nor should you.

Federal law requires the accommodation of religious beliefs (this law was surprisingly the result of ruling in favor of Native Americans who were banned from practicing during rituals that violated the controlled substance laws, so it is not part of some "Christian" conspiracy."

By definition an elective abortion is not an emergency and so one would have to prove there is no other reasonable option available on a case-by-case basis.

As an aside, asking people opposed to abortion to do them compounds the risk of bad outcomes due to the associated emotional stress on the physician and surgical staff.

I ran an OB group with 60 OBs and only two would do elective abortions. The two specialized in abortions and many of their patients were referrals from those physicians that would not do them. Nationally, only 14% of OB/GYNs do elective abortions (my group was much higher than that being located in South Florida and comprised disproportionately of Hispanic Catholic physicians and staff.

So, not supporting an abortion bill because it does not have everything the Democrats wanted is a deflection. Reagan once said about legislation, that half a loaf is better than no loaf.

If Democrats wanted to go back for a second bite of the apple and get abortion funded covered by the government, there is no stopping them. But I doubt it would pass.

Forcing people opposed to abortions to fund them is equivalent to forcing atheists to fund churches. If pro-abortion supporters want to set up a foundation to fund abortions, they can likely get that approved the government as a tax-deductible charitable contribution. Why do people feel compelled to force others to agree with them.

Finally, it is easy to "talk" about abortions, but as one OB/GYN told me, "Until you have ripped a baby out of a womb piece by piece and then reassembled the pieces to be sure you got them all, you don't understand abortion. We went into medicine to save lives not to take them".

I think women are more in touch with the brutality of abortion than men, which is why they oppose abortions after 15 weeks more than men do about a considerable margin. Feeling that baby move changes everything.

If abortion ever becomes thought of as just an ordinary medical procedure... we are in trouble as a society. It should always be a gut-wrenching issue, that requires difficult decisions and considers the humanity of the baby along with the desires of the mother.

My hope is that in the not to distant future, rather than abortions we migrate to "transplants". A woman that does not want her child would simply elect to put her baby up for adoption and the baby would be transplanted to the prospective mother's womb or a surrogate.

This way, the baby's life is saved and a couple unable to have their own baby naturally could have a baby and experience the unique experience of "having a baby".

The medicine is well on its way to being practical, but transplants come with a separate set of ethical issues to be worked out.

https://cbhd.org/content/womb-transplant-babies

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