Pro-Life Groups Lost Moral Authority When They Criticized Trump's Statement about Punishment for Illegal Abortion, States the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

TUCSON, Ariz., April 4, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pro-life organizations such as March for Life criticized the pro-life statement by Donald Trump that there should be "some kind of punishment" for women who insist on having an illegal abortion. Their censure of this view is inconsistent with their moral position that abortion ends an innocent human life, states the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

A person who demands performance of a criminal act is obviously as guilty as the person who performs the act for hire, AAPS points out. When a woman voluntarily presents herself for an illegal procedure, with the intention of ending the developing human life that she carries, the physician who accomplishes her purpose is not the only wrongdoer.

Political expediency should never justify advocating the morally bankrupt position of exonerating a guilty party or, even worse, criticizing someone for being morally consistent, AAPS states. It is wrong for pro-life organizations, politicians, or others to scapegoat physicians alone for acceding to illegal demands by women and men.

Increasingly abortions are attained by women taking medications in order to induce a miscarriage, without any surgical intervention by a physician, AAPS observes. While those drugs currently require a prescription, it is easy to imagine a future politically motivated decision by the FDA that will convert such drugs to over-the-counter status, available to all without a prescription. Will pro-life organizations, AAPS asks, continue to deny that the women having the abortion cannot be subjected to "some kind of punishment" in that scenario?

The Catholic Church does not exempt a woman who has an abortion from accountability. No one should be above the law, states AAPS, and rules should not be applied more harshly against physicians than against those who procure the services of physicians.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943.

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

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