The American Medical Association is suing the state of North Dakota to block two abortion-related laws. One law set to take effect August 1, 2019, requires physicians to tell patients that medical abortions can be reversed, which the AMA claims is “a patently false and unproven claim unsupported by scientific evidence,” and it forces physicians to “lie” to their patients, thus putting “physicians in a place where we are required by law to commit ethical violation.”
While I cannot speak to the validity of any abortion reversal procedure, since tests are ongoing even now, and nothing definitive has been determined, what I do feel compelled to underscore from this lawsuit is the irony—tragic irony—even hypocrisy of the AMA.
Perhaps you caught it too if you read the article or heard the news. I’ll spell it out for you: The American Medical Association rightly labels lying as unethical, but, in so doing, wrongly implies that abortion is ethical. The AMA’s statement’s intention to champion ethical values in medical practice is clearly exposed as nothing more than “virtue signaling,” and raises further suspicions regarding the “ethics” promoted by the AMA.
This is a classic illustration of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel (cf. Matt. 23:24) – an absurd depiction of ethical confusion and muddled moral ideals. Thankfully, not all doctors affiliate with the AMA because of actions and stances like this, which demonstrate a significantly different system of values which more principled physicians cannot, in good conscience, support, so they don’t.
As Texas Pastor Bart Barber stated in a Tweet, “Hippocrates hangs his head in shame and weeps.”