Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Chip Roy (R-TX), Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) and Dr. Andy Harris (R-MD) today issued the following statement in response to reports that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) banned an organization of pro-life doctors from presenting at its annual medical education conference taking place this week in National Harbor, MD:

            “The reported decision by ACOG—an organization purporting to represent all obstetrician–gynecologists—to exclude qualified health care professionals of maternal and child care from presenting at an annual conference because of their pro-life positions is hypocritical and outrageous.

            Health care professionals should be welcomed to present at a conference that is designed to educate the next generation of OB-GYNs. The medical educators and doctors in training could have learned about treating both patients in a pregnancy—mother and unborn child—from the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs if ACOG had not been fearful of the truth about abortion being told.

            ACOG makes no secret of its extreme abortion agenda. Its detailed pro-abortion lobbying instructions to ACOG members, its ‘language guide’ touting euphemisms that hide the realities of abortion, and its stated intent to ‘increase the availability of trained abortion providers’ are just a few examples of its active and deliberate work to promote abortion on demand and spread misinformation about the pro-life movement.

            ACOG’s push to promote abortion is wildly out of step with basic medical facts and the views of most American health care professionals—including 93 percent of OBGYNs in private practice who do not provide abortion.

            Deliberately killing one of the two patients in a pregnancy through elective abortion is not health care.

            As Members of Congress, we call on ACOG to end its discrimination against pro-life doctors, and we will press for immediate changes to this unacceptable behavior—whether that means taking ACOG to task in meetings or refusing meetings until they change course—and encourage other Members to do the same.”

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