New York City Seeks to be Font of Abortionists for Nation

by JOHN BURGER, National Catholic Register,July 7, 2002

NEW YORK - For years, if a medical resident in one of the public hospitals here wanted training in abortion procedures he would have to request it. Now, however, following a directive of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, it is the residents who wish to avoid the training that must do the asking.

As of July 1, obstetrics and gynecology residents at New York Health and Hospitals Corp. hospitals are required to train in abortion methods and procedures. The training involves performing abortions.

The requirement is the brainchild of the National Abortion Rights Action League, which fears a contracting number of doctors able and willing to perform abortions around the country. One out of seven physicians in the United States does a residency in New York. NARAL wants to duplicate the model in other cities.

About 150 residents rotate through the eight public hospitals that offer ob-gyn residency programs each year. Residents with religious or moral objections can opt out of abortion training, but medical professionals say that would be difficult to do.

Dr. Kevin Reilly, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center in the Bronx, said that those who opt out of such training become "pariahs" in the residency programs and are considered not to be team players. If 20 abortions must be done in a week, and one of five residents opts out, the other four have to make up the work.

Cristina Page, director of NARAL-New York's Institute for Reproductive Health Access, maintained that it is residents who "go out of their way" to get abortion training, not those who opt out of it, who are looked down upon by their peers.

But Jeanne Head, a former delivery room nurse who heads Manhattan Right to Life and lobbies at the United Nations, agreed that invoking a conscience clause is an "impossible situation." In addition, those who become chief residents might not be performing abortions but would be supervising them. New York state law, however, permits health care professionals to opt out of participation in abortion by filing a letter with the hospital.

Matthew Suh, national student trustee in the Christian Medical Association and a fourth-year student at the medical school of the State University of New York (downstate campus), said the ruling will affect all medical students doing any ob-gyn functions, not just residents.

"Any student doing a clerkship (a third-year clinical practice) in an HHC hospital … do what the residents do," he said.

Reilly said there is no shortage of skill to do abortions but a lack of physicians who want to do them. Residents learn procedures that can also be used in abortions, such as those for incomplete abortions, premature fetal deaths and laparoscopic hysterectomies. "This is not the rocket science of gynecological services," he said.

"The difference is in later-term abortions, such as dilation and evacuation, where you're actually breaking up a fetus," he said. "But that's used in only about 10% of abortions."

Many doctors choose not to perform abortions not only on moral grounds but also on how they might be perceived if they include the procedure in their practice, he said.

Page, who said that the earlier an abortion is done the better for the patient, said there is no training for residents in the earliest methods available, including chemical abortions.

But even nurse practitioners are allowed to dispense abortifacient drugs, Reilly said.

A Pro-Life Option

Meanwhile, an organization that for years has been providing pro-life alternatives to women contemplating abortion is now doing the same for the ob-gyn residents.

"If they choose to opt out of this program, we'll provide them with the opportunity to train in using a new advanced four-dimensional ultrasound machine that is being produced by General Electric," said Chris Slattery, founder of Expectant Mother Care. His organization runs five crisis pregnancy centers in the Big Apple, including the Bronx, where abortions outnumber live births.

Slattery said he also would provide education on post-abortion syndrome, the side effects and risk factors of abortion and in utero surgery for fetal defects.

The ultrasound equipment, Slattery hoped, will help the young physicians "fulfill the authentic Hippocratic Oath."

He added: "This should inspire doctors not to be abortionists but to be healers."