American Psychiatric Association
THE ABORTION POLICIES OF AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION:
The Denaturalization of The Profession of Psychiatry
THE ABORTION POLICIES OF AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION:
Are not justified because they are a participation in political processes beyond those concerned with the medical treatment of mentally-ill individuals.
Are not necessary because no professional organization should play a social advocate role especially beyond its specific field of expertise.
Are not effective in providing solutions for the multiple complicated social problems which are of such degree that the existence of another human being is prevented.
Are not prudent because life processes are abandoned for expedient and constricted "gain" the hazards of which are unclear and uncertain.
Are not faithful to humanity or life any more than is a major oil spill, and arguments defending the latter are typically as fatuous as those for abortion.
Are not professional in that they deplorably overtly relinquish autonomy (under the euphemism of "cooperation") to the manipulations of non-medical social and political groups.
Are not scientific because claims of therapeutic efficacy and benignity are doltishly accepted passively when evidence is either lacking or tainted by emotion or economic conspiracy.
Are not honorable when APA members, having completed their own fetal lives, subsequently deny that same universal and personal life stage to others.
Are not healthy in the fostering of a defensive pathological denial in anyone who promotes and accepts abortion as an alleged "therapeutic" procedure when it factually destroys a human individual.
Are not honest in the failure to condemn APA members who flouted laws unrepentently when abortion was illegal by writing fraudulent letters about women's conditions supposedly necessitating abortions.
Are not consistent when APA members embrace and promote "the law" when it allows abortions while such members had contemptuously flouted "the law" when abortions were prohibited.
Are not "for choice" at all when unborn human individuals are deprived of their capacity to choose.
Are not "medical" when these policies run counter to medical traditions and are specifically against the codes of Hippocrates, Geneva, Helsinki, the Declaration of Human Rights, and the United Nations Charter.
Are not tolerant of others' point of view and are incompatible with "separation of church and state" when these policies in fact constitute a Jewish morality which has been imposed on all by the overwhelmingly Jewish leadership in the early abortion movement (and as articulated by a Jewish Cleveland abortionist who professed that Judaism does not recognize the personhood of a human being until after birth--almost exactly what the Supreme Court has ruled. This is consistent with the same accusation pro- abortion groups have made against the Roman Catholic Church because its teachings are similar to Right-to-Life efforts. And if it is bigotry the APA is worried about, it should begin by protesting the admitted anti- Catholicism of early abortion leaders amply documented in Bernard Nathanson's book Aborting America.)
Are not logical in professing that being born is a choice for others when it was not a choice made by oneself for oneself.
Are not legitimate in that APA members have become "brokers" for abortionists providing abortion candidates by what is essentially "salesmanship" with the abandonment of standards in pre-abortion "counseling."
Are not credible when the APA, by default, accepts, supports, and authorizes an incompetent quality of pre- and post-abortion counseling by abortion providers.
Are not true to the profession when APA members are encouraged to collude with others to control this issue by blunting social discussion and by censoring other rationally-argued views. (This list of objections has been tendered three times to the offices of the APA between July and December 1991. There has been no acknowledgment as of April 1992. There has been no reasoned rebuttal. There has been no acceptance of these objections into the realm of legitimate argument. There has been no tolerance of these conscientious beliefs forthrightly expressed. There has been neither science nor philosophy. In kindness, the best one can expect from the APA office, besides a pouting silence feigning offended innocence, is a cowardly ambuscade instead of free and considered debate.)
Are not candid when studies which promote and support abortion are selectively publicized but other studies are censored, prohibited or ignored when abortion is found to have negative complications (post- abortion reactions as part of the post-traumatic stress disorder, for example).
Are not ethical in the dereliction of duty by not only failing to recognize the post-abortion syndrome but by persisting to suppress the increasing numbers of case histories documenting adverse reactions (Sigmund Freud never had it as bad).
Are not deeply cognizant of and in fact are unsympathetically and anti- therapeutically resistant to understanding the plight and pain of aborted women.
Are violative of the dignity of humanity by exploiting individuals (who are in a universal stage of human existence) for monetary gain.
Are violative of the unity of humanity by fragmenting the species into those with rights and those without.
Are violative of the integrity of humanity by removing morality from human nature.
Are violative of the identity of humanity by dehumanizing a universal stage of all mankind.
Are violative of the spirituality of humanity by delimiting human existence to its material components only.
Are self-deceptions in the fostering of an unhealthy suppression of the humanity of the unborn child and in the egregious self-serving denial that one is killing a human being.
Finally, more recent data confirm that the original position statement of the APA Board of Trustees at the December 10, 1977 meeting was not based on adequate data but was the result of unwarranted conclusions yet to be confirmed by scientific methodology.
By all standards, the position statement of the APA was based on emotional, political, sociological, and religious factors approaching a repugnant, willful, self-deceptive, sexist, fraudulent scheme with intent "to prove" something rather than objectively embracing
truth. (This is confirmed by the position statement in the October, 1991 APA News, which unprofessionally supported the use of the unproven non- psychiatric anti-hormone RV486--not for psychiatric use--but for abortions!)
The position statement is a scientific disgrace and an embarrassment to read except as an example of rhetoric. Today it is not only wrong, but dated and wrong, exposing the profession to justifiable ridicule. To persist with it is absurd.
The position statement ought to be repealed in order to reestablish the integrity of psychiatry as a bonafide profession for the medical treatment of the mentally ill.
The APA's inability to see the fetus for what it is (and what is being done to it) is the best vivid example ever of a "negative hallucination" collectively deforming an entire profession.
Samuel A. Nigro, M.D. 2517 Guilford Road Cleveland Hts., Ohio 44118
