New York City Requires Abortion Training in Public Hospitals

By Liz Townsend

Following a plan suggested by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation will require all obstetrics and gynecology residents in public hospitals to be trained in abortion techniques beginning in July.

Abortion training has previously been offered as an elective in the training program. Under the new plan, a resident would have to cite moral or religious grounds to opt out of the abortion training. About 150 residents are trained annually in obstetrics and gynecology.

"In the past, the residents would have to choose to do it," Dr. Van Dunn, senior vice president for medical and professional affairs of Health and Hospitals Corp., told the Associated Press (AP). "This way they know that it's part of their rotation, so they would then have to say they don't want to do it."

Pro-lifers expressed their outrage at the new requirement. "New York State medical students already have the right to choose to take elective course work in abortion but the majority, understandably, choose not to," Lori Hougens, acting executive director for New York State Right to Life, told NRL News. "This bill is a pathetic attempt by desperate pro-abortionists to mainstream an act of violence against the youngest members of the human family. Doctors have been shunning this dirty little specialty more and more as technology makes it unavoidably clear that abortion kills babies."

Mandatory abortion training became part of Michael Bloomberg's mayoral campaign platform after NARAL-New York staff members met with him in June 2001, according to the Village Voice. Bloomberg quickly added abortion training to his "Blueprint for Public Health" proposal.

"He took it word-for-word directly from our materials," NARAL-NY Executive Director Kelli Conlin told the Village Voice.

Bloomberg, who won the election and became mayor in January, quickly put the plan into action. He spoke out in support of the Health and Hospital Corp. requirements during his weekly program on WABC radio, framing it as a way to make sure city doctors are thoroughly trained in all procedures.

However, statements made by pro-abortionists made it clear that they see the New York City plan as a way to train more doctors in other cities and states to perform abortions. If the program is a success "we'll have changed the face of abortion provision in this country," NARAL-NY's Cristina Page told the AP. "It's going to make other programs question how they're delivering this care."

However, doctors in other states have said they will continue to support keeping abortion training as an option, not a requirement. Dr. Robert Nerhood, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University in West Virginia, told the Daily Mail that while students should be aware of the techniques if they have to treat abortion complications or miscarriages, training in elective abortions should remain optional.

"It's not a particularly aesthetically pleasing procedure," Nerhood said. "There are all sorts of convoluted social and religious connotations. There is also a real fear of being identified as a person who does this because of society's response. It's not something anyone should be forced to do."

Hougens pointed out the rampant hypocrisy of pro-abortionists. "The 'pro-choice' movement does not want anyone else to have a choice," she said.

"Abortion, as an elective, wasn't chosen often enough for the 'pro-choice' movement, so they want to force it on those who otherwise would not seek to learn, or even be complicit in, such a heinous act."