Documents show how conservative doctors influenced abortion, trans rights
newsletter via Feeds on Inoreader 2023-06-15
Summary:
A small group of conservative doctors has sought to shape the nation’s most contentious policies on abortion and transgender rights by promoting views rejected by the medical establishment as scientific fact, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post that describe the group’s internal strategies.
The records show that after long struggling to attract members, the American College of Pediatricians gained outsize political influence in recent years, primarily by using conservative media as a megaphone in its quest to position the group as a reputable source of information.
The organization has successfully lobbied since 2021 for laws in more than a half-dozen states that ban gender-affirming care for transgender youths, with its representatives testifying before state legislatures against the guidelines recommended by mainstream medical groups, according to its records. It gained further national prominence this year as one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit to limit access to mifepristone, a key abortion drug.
Despite efforts to invoke the credibility of the medical profession, the American College of Pediatricians is viewed with skepticism by the medical establishment. For years, the group has presented statistics and talking points to state legislators, public school officials and the American public as settled science while internal documents emphasize how religion and morality influence its positions. Meeting minutes from 2021 describe how the organization worked with religious groups to “affect the idea makers through the high courts, professional literature, and legislatures.”
It promotes conversion therapy, a discredited practice intended to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people that most medical societies warn can result in harm. Pediatric experts deemed a June 2022 report crafted by the group that undergirds a new Florida policy banning transgender care for Medicaid recipients as “unscientific.” Francis Collins, former longtime director of the National Institutes of Health, accused the group in 2010 of distorting his research to “make a point against homosexuality.”
Jill Simons, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, disputed criticism that her organization promotes policies that do not follow science. “Our recommendations are based on the medical research and what is best for children,” she said.
Her organization exists to represent “all the good pediatricians out there who agree with us who maybe are afraid to step forward,” Simons, a Minneapolis pediatrician, said in an interview with The Post. “Very smart people in the field of medicine have disagreed with a lot of these so-called consensus that is out there.”
Sam Wineburg, a Stanford University psychologist who studies online disinformatio