Update at end:
MedSFLA Tour Speaker & Pro-Life OBGYN in West Virginia Continues to Fight for Women Victimized by Abortion
Pro-Life Military Veteran Fights Abortion Bias to Graduate As Surgical Tech
Medical Student Confronts Abortion, Becomes Pro-Life
Courage in Medical School
The idea of starting a Med Students for Life [ http://med.studentsforlife.org/ ] group at your Medical School can be daunting when you consider the demands of your M1 and M2 schedule.
Not to mention the stigma that is placed on students who dare to speak up on behalf of life-affirming medical care for the preborn and their mothers.
Despite the obstacles, the need for med students to be the voice of truth and light on our medical school campuses is imperative to advancing a strong patient-doctor relationship based in the rights of conscience and grounded in the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.
Jason wrote us to tell of his success in starting a Medical Students for Life group at a private medical school:
“Yesterday I presented to the SGA and through lots of prayer and reaching out to others, we were officially approved as Medical Students for Life. It was a tough crowd and a difficult presentation to give, but one that I made sure to be well prepared for in advance. It proves that anything is possible with prayer and I learned that it's all about the approach you take and to ask for God to be there at your side. Thank you for the prayers and support, I couldn't have done it without you! I look forward to working with you in the future to bring awareness and education to the medical students…”
As Jason and many others change the hearts and minds of their fellow medicals students, Medical Students for Life of America is here to provide resources, training and guest medical lectures — http://med.studentsforlife.org/
If you are interested in starting a Medical Students for Life group at your medical school, please send us an email and let us know how we can help.
Notes from the Med Students for Life Tour
Last week we traveled with Dr. Lanfranchi on our Spring Tour to present the abortion breast cancer link at Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University. A large number of pro-abortion medical students arrived to hear the presentation.
After Dr. Lanfranchi gave her presentation, she opened the floor for discussion. The pro-abortion students started the process of poking holes in her presentation; they had reviewed her video lectures and examined her website in an effort to discredit her.
All of their efforts were refuted by an overwhelming body of published work that shows the association between abortion and breast cancer. Many of them left the Q&A in frustration.
Dr. Lanfranchi is a well-respected breast surgeon and published clinician. Our guest lecturers have impeccable credentials and as much as the other side tries to silence the truth, it’s hard to argue with an expert.
Medical Students for Life to Hold First Northeast Regional Conference
On Saturday April 27th, 2013, Medical Students for Life of America will be hosting a Northeast Regional Conference at Dartmouth College Geisel School of Medicine. Our featured speaker will be Dr. Byron Calhoun; he will address prenatal diagnosis and perinatal hospice. Dr. Calhoun will be joined by physicians such as Dr. Nicole N. Varasteh, OB/GYN and others from the Northeast discussing topics such as right of conscience, counseling patients considering abortion and more. We will also be joined by special guest Anne Burge, Executive Director of the Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley to discuss medical connections with Pregnancy Resource Centers.
When: Saturday April 27th, 2013
Time: 8am-1pm
Where: Dartmouth College Geisel School of Medicine
Chilcott Auditorium, Vail Building
1 Medical Center Dr
Lebanon, NH 03756
The conference is free and open to any medical students, faculty or professionals throughout the Northeast. However, you must register by emailing us at [email protected]. Lunch will be provided free and donations will be accepted to help cover the cost of the conference.
2013 Spring Med Students for Life Tour
The 2013 Spring Medical Students for Life Tour continues next week. By the end of the tour we will have traveled to over 25 medical schools across the country with pro-life doctors who provide medically-accurate lectures on issues such as perinatal hospice, embryo adoption, counseling patients with medical ethics, things pro-life OB-GYNs should know, and conscience rights.
FULL 2013 MEDICAL STUDENTS FOR LIFE SPRING TOUR SCHEDULE — http://med.studentsforlife.org/national-speaking-tour/2013springtourdates/
Healthcare professionals are welcome to attend all lectures by making reservations with MedSFLA at [email protected]
HELP SAVE LIVES TODAY!
Students for Life of America
Office: (571) 379-7261 http://med.studentsforlife.org/
——————————————————————————–
Find the Courage to Stand Up for Your Convictions
Katie at Graduation
Living consistently with one’s personal pro-life convictions takes courage, and sometimes comes at significant cost.
Katie, a veteran of the United States Military, returned to school as a surgical technician student at a university in Virginia. She was looking forward to graduation in June 2013; all she had left was completion of her clinical phase of study. Three days into clinicals, she was discharged from the school because she dared to express a personal pro-life conviction.
Before going into their assigned hospitals, surgical technician students were instructed to let hospital staff know if they had a problem with the performance of any surgical procedure. Following these instructions, Katie brought up a personal religious conviction related to a specific medical procedure sometimes used as a method of abortion. This led to a conversation with her on-site instructor regarding accommodation of this belief, and the effect taking such a position might have on potential career options.
The instructor expressed her opinion that such a position would render Katie “unemployable.” Katie disagreed since she had already researched several career options that she felt would prevent any conflict with her convictions. After the conversation, Katie had no reason to believe that it would not be possible to fulfill her clinical requirements; and she was not instructed to seek an alternate clinical site.
“Knowingly subjecting our innocent unborn children to dismemberment in the womb, particularly when they have developed to the point that they can feel excruciating pain
every terrible moment leading up to their undeserved deaths, belies everything America was called to be. This is not who we are.” —Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.).
The United States House of Representatives passed HR 1797, a bill that would protect unborn children from abortion based on their ability to feel pain.
[Life Legal Defense Foundation ]
Pro-Life Military Veteran Fights Abortion Bias to Graduate As Surgical Tech
Living consistently with one’s personal pro-life convictions takes courage, and sometimes comes at significant cost.
http://www.lifenews.com/2013/06/19/pro-life-military-veteran-fights-abortion-bias-to-graduate-as-surgical-tech/
Medical Student Confronts Abortion, Becomes Pro-Life
Abortion becomes very real when it is seen instead of viewed as an abstract moral and political debate.
Some time ago, I was sent this testimony from a medical student who preferred not to leave a name. He had just witnessed an abortion as part of his training. Deeply troubled, he wanted to tell someone. He was haunted by what he had seen.
The student starts out by saying that he was firmly in the pro-choice camp before witnessing the abortion:
To begin, I must say that until yesterday, Friday, July 2, 2004, I was strongly pro-choice. I am a pre-medical student, and being very scientific, I understood that the mass of cells that forms the fetal body is not often capable of survival before 24 weeks in the womb. I am also somewhat liberal, and I believed that every woman should have the right to choose what she did with her body and one that could potentially be growing inside of her.
The student had heard the pro-choice movement’s slogans. He took them at face value, believing that the unborn baby was “a mass of cells” and not an individual human being. He felt that a woman “had the right to control her body” and did not sympathize with the tiny baby inside her. He did not believe in the child’s humanity or right to life.
Then he took the opportunity to see an abortion performed. Because of his pro-choice beliefs, he did not expect to be disturbed by anything he would see:
This summer, I was accepted into a pre-medical program in NYC in which we are allowed to shadow doctors and see all sorts of medical procedures. When given the opportunity to see an abortion, I did not hesitate to accept the offer. It was something new, edgy, and exciting that I had never seen.
He then describes exactly what he witnessed in the operating room:
When I entered the operating room, it felt like any other I had ever been in. On the table in front of me, I saw a woman, legs up as if delivering a child although she was asleep. Next to her was a tray of instruments for the abortion and a vacuum machine for suctioning the fetal tissues from the uterus. The doctors put on their gowns and masks and the procedure began. The cervix was held open with a crude metal instrument and a large transparent tube was stuck inside of the woman. Within a matter of seconds, the machine’s motor was engaged and blood, tissue, and tiny organs were pulled out of their environment into a filter.
A minute later, the vacuum choked to a halt. The tube was removed, and stuck to the end was a small body and a head attached haphazardly to it, what was formed of the neck snapped. The ribs had formed with a thin skin covering them, the eyes had formed, and the inner organs had begun to function. The tiny heart of the fetus, obviously a little boy, had just stopped — forever. The vacuum filter was opened, and the tiny arms and legs that had been torn off of the fetus were accounted for. The fingers and toes had the beginnings of their nails on them. The doctors, proud of their work, reassembled the body to show me. Tears welled up in my eyes as they removed the baby boy from the table and shoved his body into a container for disposal.
Since this abortion was done by suction, the baby must have been less than 13 to 14 weeks, but still far enough along that his humanity was evident.
Abortions in the second trimester are usually done through dilation and evacuation, a procedure in which forceps are used to tear apart the baby, rather than through suction.
The student was haunted by what he saw:
I have not been able to think of anything since yesterday at 10:30 besides what that baby boy might have been. I don’t think that people realize what an abortion actually is until they see it happen. I have been tortured by these images – so real and so vivid – for two days now…and I was just a spectator.
Never again will I be pro-choice, and never again will I support the murder of any human being, no matter their stage in life.
Unlike the vast majority of abortions, this baby was mourned. Someone felt sadness and horror at his death. Thousands of babies like him are suctioned out of their mothers’ wombs every day. They are rejected by their mothers and regarded as medical waste by their killers. Society allows these babies to die silently, with no recognition or acknowledgment of their humanity. This little baby boy will never have a name. He will never take a breath of air, never pet a dog, never watch a sunset, never ride a bike… He will never experience all the things that you and I take for granted. But this baby, perhaps, did not die entirely in vain – his tragic death revealed the truth to this young man. And those of you who are reading this article now know about this baby’s death.
Perhaps the story of this unfortunate child can motivate you to become more active in the pro-life movement.
There are many things you can do, even from your computer. Share this article on Facebook. Sign on to a mailing list of a pro-life group. Donate money to a pro-life organization or a crisis pregnancy center – every little bit helps. Consider going to an abortion business and trying to talk to the women entering it – with respect and kindness. Vote pro-life. Talk to your loved ones about abortion – share this or other pro-life articles with them.
Be patient and understanding, be kind, be respectful, but most of all, be active – do something.
[October 14, 2013, Sarah Terzo, http://liveactionnews.org/medical-student-confronts-abortion-becomes-pro-life/ ]
MedSFLA Tour Speaker & Pro-Life OBGYN in West Virginia Continues to Fight for Women Victimized by Abortion
For months now, Dr. Byron Calhoun, vice chairman of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department for WVU Physicians of Charleston, has been making waves in West Virginia legal and medical communities in an effort to see the state’s lax abortion regulations tightened to protect women from careless abortionists.
In an article last week by West Virginia Metro News [ http://wvmetronews.com/2013/12/27/kanawha-delegate-state-board-of-medicine-should-look-at-doctors-claims/ ], Dr. Calhoun explains his primary concern arises from, ““[a] lack of regulation [which] allows abortion providers to abandon women with complications from their abortions to fend for themselves,” Calhoun told Morrisey. He said, in other medical situations, such actions would be seen as malpractice.”
Because lack of current regulations leave WVU&rsquo
;s administrators and other medical authorities are ill-equipped to deal with these concerns, Dr. Calhoun seeks political action to effect a more permanent change. Dr. Calhoun frequently treats women for abortion complications and hopes that tightening abortion regulations will prevent more women from being harmed.
Dr. Calhoun is an original author of the perinatal hospice concept, which provides a multidisciplinary care to families with a lethal prenatal diagnosis. He has authored 60+ peer review articles in the obstetric and gynecologic literature, presented 100+ scientific papers, participated in 40+ research projects, and published several articles on perinatal hospice.
Dr. Calhouon is also a speaker for the Med SFLA National Pro-life Physician Speaking Tour which has brought pro-life medical experts to lecture at more than 50 medical school campuses across the nation.
Click here to view a full list of speakers [ http://med.studentsforlife.org/medsfla-speakers/ ], and contact James Christophersen ([email protected]) to request Dr. Calhoun or another tour speaker lecture at your school during the Spring 2014 tour.
[3 Jan 14, http://med.studentsforlife.org/medsfla-speakers/ ]