In 1996, every state acquired federal protection from retribution for not forcing their medical students to participate in abortion.
The applicable federal law is the Coats amendment, voted for by both Kansas’ U.S. Senators at the time, Nancy Kassebaum and Bob Dole.
Coats reads, “In determining whether to grant a legal status to a health care entity (including a license or certificate), or to provide such entity with financial assistance, services or other benefits, the Federal Government, or any State or local government that receives Federal financial assistance, shall
deem accredited any postgraduate physician training program that would be accredited but for the accrediting agency’s reliance upon an accreditation standards that requires an entity to perform an induced abortion or require, provide, or refer for training in the performance of induced abortions, or make arrangements for such training, regardless of whether such standard provides exceptions or exemptions.”
In other words, there is no possible accreditation threat to the medical center of the University of Kansas (KUMC) from section 2 of the Pro-life Protections act (HB 2598)– and now in the state budget (amendment on p. 2115-6 from Joe Patton (R-Topeka))– to deny tax funding for abortion involvement by state employee-residents at KUMC.
An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) phrased it this way: “a medical residency program that chooses not to provide abortion training to its students either in its own facilities or through an arrangement with another facility is protected” and cannot be refused “legal status . . . financial funding, or other benefits.”
The same article verified how abortion advocates mobilized to get mandatory abortion training pushed onto the states as a mandate from the American Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in 1995. The purpose? To reverse the dwindling number of abortion providers by ‘grooming’ physician-residents in abortion, because there was evidence that such training produced physicians more likely to refer for abortion and to become abortion providers themselves.
ACGME doesn’t like that the training mandate was neutered the next year by Coats, and continues to intentionally misrepresent state duties in their requirement numbered Article IV.A. 2.d. The first four sentences are cited by the media and KU’s lobbyist as requiring KU to arrange training with student “opt outs”. But sentence 5 & 6 clearly acknowledges that –under Coats– state medical programs only have to insure that they do not impede, or discriminate against, students who want abortion training.
The Coats amendment absolutely trumps the ACGME bullies, protecting state universities from accreditation threats, if they order medical programs to stay out of abortion training.
In 1998, Kansas thought abortions by KUMC were halted under the hospital authority act, but the abortion training for KUMC residents merely shifted off-campus to abortion businesses. House Bill 2598 and the ‘Joe Patton budget amendment’ affirm what Coats allows– that ob/gyn residents who want abortion training do it “on their own time and their own dime.” Arizona last year enacted a similar law.
No citizen should be alarmed at ob/gyn physicians-in-training losing an abortion mandate– because actual destruction of a living unborn child is not needed to learn how to evacuate the womb for miscarriages and stillbirths.
Under the pending legislation, all KUMC ob/gyns will be fully trained to treat abortion complications as well as manage the full range of maternal conditions, including ectopic pregnancies and other situations requiring life-saving procedures.
