Philadelphia, PA—The Catholic Medical Association is voicing opposition to a recent abortion-defending position issued by the American Medical Association.

In its statement, “Ban on standard D&E abortion procedure is unsafe, unwarranted,” which is in response to Kentucky legislation—the AMA affirms second and third trimester D&E abortions.

A dilation and evacuation uses both vacuum aspiration and surgical instrumentation to abort a living human being in a manner that assures the death of the unborn child. Such a procedure is used after the first trimester.

The people of Kentucky passed a law banning such a mutilating procedure, but the courts have prevented its implementation. 

“Life is a gift in all of its stages—from conception to natural death and the Catholic Medical Association is discouraged to learn of the AMA’s support of these life-ending procedures,” said Dr. John Schirger, CMA President.

Evidence based medicine is conscientious, explicit, judicious and reasonable in making decisions about the care of individual patients. 

“In the case of a pregnant woman, that includes both patients, mother and child,” said Dr. Lester Ruppersberger, OBGYN and Past President of the CMA.

“To ignore this evidence in the name of an ideology is a clear violation of the original Hippocratic oath, medical ethics and the dignity of the human person,” added Dr. Ruppersberger.

“No professional association, responsible for advancing scientifically based and ethical practice should advocate for procedures that directly attack either of the patients whose lives are entrusted to the physician’s care,” said Dr. Marie Hilliard, Co-Chair of CMA’s Ethics Committee. 

Furthermore, CMA has stated previously that direct abortion is never medical care—and that both patients deserve the full extent of healing treatments made available by modern therapeutic medicine.  

“An authentic and patient-centered practice of medicine has always and should always recognize the intrinsic value of human life in the mother’s womb,” said Dr. Greg Burke, Co-Chair of CMA’s Ethics Committee.

“As a medical organization that claims to represent the physicians of this country, how far away from the Hippocratic oath has the AMA deviated to say that dismembering a baby in the second trimester of pregnancy is healthcare? Only in the case of a fetal demise by natural causes should this procedure be done, and then it still increases the mother’s risk of uterine perforation, hemorrhage, and subsequent incompetent cervix. In pregnancy there are two patients – the mother and the baby. By making delivery of a live baby just a choice rather than a given, we physicians have destroyed motherhood and hurt women,” added Dr. Kathleen Raviele, OBGYN and Past President of the CMA.

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The Catholic Medical Association is a national, physician-led community of over 2,300 healthcare professionals consisting of 109 local guilds. CMA mission is to inform, organize, and inspire its members, in steadfast fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church, to uphold the principles of the Catholic faith in the science and practice of medicine.