Heartland hospital losing its soul

The essence of health care is supposed to be doing no harm and saving life, when possible. But in the heartland of the nation, one Wisconsin hospital is stealthily expanding its abortion operations.

Today the Washington, DC-based Alliance Defense Fund exposed secret plans of the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics (UWHC) and Meriter Hospital to provide a full range of second-trimester abortions at the Madison Surgery Center…

Pro-Life Wisconsin State Director Peggy Hamill said of the proposal, “Pro-Life Wisconsin condemns the UWHC/Meriter Hospital plan to do late-term abortions at the Madison Surgery Center. We are appalled to learn that our own publicly-funded University of Wisconsin hospital and medical foundation is planning to directly participate in the dismemberment of second-trimester babies – babies that can suck their thumbs, turn somersaults in their mother’s wombs, and whose hearts are pumping gallons of blood every day.

It is likely these babies will become an in-house source of fresh, cheap fetal body parts for UW research activities.

How will this UWHC/Meriter plan accommodate existing state and federal laws that prohibit public funding of abortions and protect the conscience rights of our medical professionals? Medical staff at the Madison Surgery Center must be disheartened to learn that their esteemed, state-of-the-art surgical center will double as an abortion center.

Imagine if the Freedom of Choice Act gets passed.

That bill would overturn all state and federal restrictions not only on abortion (such as the partial-birth abortion ban) but also on government funding of abortions. President-elect Barack Obama has promised to sign that bill. He has also promised, in line with the report’s recommendation, only to nominate individuals to the bench who believe in “the right to have an abortion.”

Many Americans have no idea how large this is looming right now, nor what are the implications of FOCA. 

Those who refuse to perform or refer abortions are protected under current law, but the elimination of appropriations laws and federal rules could make them vulnerable to discrimination by governments or institutions that seek to require cooperation in abortion. This is no unimportant issue — recall that in 2002, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a policy of forcing all medical students who train in public hospitals to participate in abortion (with students who object on moral or religious grounds allowed to opt out).

As is oft-repeated here, there is no freedom and no choice in this insidious act (with a deceitful name).

At least there’s pushback. And it’s expanding.