Doctor William Lile, the ProLife Doc, appeared on Fox and Friends on Wednesday, March 1, to talk about how pro-life doctors were banned – yes, banned – from attending an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) conference held in National Harbor, Maryland.
This ACOG meeting was a conference for the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology (CREOG). The purpose of this conference was to discuss the further training of medical residents in obstetrics and gynecology – in other words, a conference that discussed what the next generation of OB-GYNs should be learning and how they should be trained.
Dr. Lile belongs to the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), a group that has had a booth exhibit at this conference for the last 15 years. But this year, ACOG notified AAPLOG that it was not welcome. To add insult to injury, AAPLOG was informed only a few days before the conference that their booth was canceled, even though the booth space was reserved a year ago, and some AAPLOG members had already traveled to attend the conference. Ironically, this year’s conference theme is “Building Bridges: Creating Connection in Medical Education.”
What Sort of Education Will Your Obstetrician Get?
Being someone who believes that God creates new life at the moment of conception, Dr. Lile is adamantly pro-life. But even more, Dr. Lile argues that, as an obstetrician sworn to “do no harm,” his job is to care not just for the mother but also for the baby. This means doing whatever is medically necessary to care for both of his patients.
Sometimes, this care requires treating the preborn as separate patients. And if babies in the womb are patients, then these preborn babies are persons entitled to care and every other human right – including the right to life. As he points out: babies have entirely different DNA from their mothers. They may have a different blood type; half the time, they are a different sex than the mother.
Tremendous strides are being made in the medical field in caring for preborn babies with conditions that, before now, were either fatal or might cause serious debilities. For example, spina bifida is a birth defect in the spinal column in which the spinal tissue does not fuse properly. It affects not only the spinal structure but the neural network. Individuals born with spina bifida suffer lifelong debilities that can affect their bowels, cognitive abilities, ability to walk, and other issues. Right now, doctors in California are in the midst of trials to test an innovative surgery that is intended to cure – yes, cure – spina bifida in babies while they are still in the womb.
This is just one example of the many ways in which medical breakthroughs are helping preborn babies. Babies in the womb can now receive numerous surgical procedures that either cure or improve the outcome of medical problems that, at one time, would have been fatal or led to severe disabilities. And the list of breakthroughs grows longer every year.
Why Do Medical Students Choose Obstetrics?
If obstetricians are trained to treat preborn babies as just “clumps of cells” and not persons entitled to appropriate medical care, how confident will you be that your obstetrician is keeping up-to-date on medical breakthroughs that your baby may need? Instead of offering you a life-saving procedure for your baby, will your obstetrician recommend you get an abortion?
How will you know you and your baby will get the best medical care available? As an expectant mother excited about being pregnant and looking forward to having a baby, would you rather be seen by an obstetrician who is pro-life or pro-abortion?
The banning of AAPLOG from this conference is no small matter. There are about 23,000 obstetricians practicing in the United States. AAPLOG has about 7,000 members – about 30% of the practicing Ob-Gyns. By banning AAPLOG obstetricians from participating in this conference, ACOG is preventing a new generation of medical students from hearing the pro-life perspective from people who work in their chosen field. Does ACOG believe that medical residents are choosing to practice obstetrics because they don’t like babies?
Be Pro-Life. Support ProLife Doc
As a board-certified physician practicing obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Lile does his best to stay current on medical developments in this field, especially developments that can be used to save or improve the lives of babies and their mothers. In his practice, he has delivered over 4,000 babies and considers it a blessing to be part of their life stories.
In a few cases, he has had the privilege of delivering babies whose mothers had taken the abortion pill. These courageous mothers immediately regretted their decision and came to Dr. Lile to seek abortion pill reversal. Today, they have healthy, happy babies.
So don’t be fooled. When it comes to pregnancy, life is not a choice. Life is a fact. It is death that is the choice. Will future obstetricians understand this?