American College of Pediatricians leak exposes 10,000 confidential files

While the material is not expressly religious, it is clearly aimed at painting same-sex marriage as aberrational and immoral behavior. Doctors pressured by the group are also told to urge patients to buy Christian-based parenting guides, including one designed to help parents broach the subject of sex with their 11- and 12-year-old children. The College suggests asking parents to plan a “special night trip,” a pretext for instilling in their children sexual norms consistent with evangelical practice. The group suggests telling parents to buy a tool called a “getaway kit,” a series of workbooks that cost about $54 online. The workbooks methodically guide parents through the process of bringing up the topic, but only after a day of impromptu farce of gifts and games.

These books are full of games and puzzles for parents and children to tackle cooperatively. Throughout the process, the boy slowly digests a concept of “sexual purity,” lessons aided by simplified scriptures and well-worn Bible school parables.

Another document that the group shares with its members contains a script for dating pregnant minors. Its purpose is evidently clear: the advice is specifically designed to reduce the chances that minors will come into contact with medical professionals who are not strictly opposed to abortion. One practice script recommends that the doctor tell the minor that he “strongly recommends” abortion, adding that “the procedure not only kills the baby you are carrying, but is also a danger to you.” (Medically, the terms “fetus” and “infant” are not interchangeable, the latter Referrer to a newborn baby under one year of age).

Doctors are urged to recommend that the minor visit a website that, like the aforementioned website, is not expressly religious but will only direct visitors to “crisis pregnancy centers” run by Catholics, which strictly reject the abortion. The same site is widely promoted by anti-abortion groups like the National Right to Life, which last year argued that it should be illegal terminate the pregnancy of a 10-year-old rape victim.

The professionals

The effort to ban mifepristone, which the Supreme Court paused last month Pending further review, it faces significant legal hurdles but could ultimately benefit from the disproportionately conservative composition of the appeals court. Most of the legal power in the fight was provided by a much older and better-funded group, Alliance Defending Freedom, which has established ties to some of the country’s most elite political figures: former Vice President Mike Pence and Court Justice Supreme Amy Coney. Barrett, among them.

A contract in the leak dated April 2021 shows that ADF agrees to legally represent the College free of charge. Stipulates that ADF’s ability to subsidize costs incurred during trials would be limited by ethical guidelines; however, you could still forgive any ongoing costs simply by declaring the College “indigent.”

In contrast to the College’s approximately 700 members, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the organization from which the College’s founders spun off 20 years ago, has approximately 67,000. The split between the two groups was the direct result of a statement issued by the AAP in 2002. Modern research, the AAP said, had shown conclusively that parental sexual orientation had a negligible impact on children’s well-being. , so long since they were raised in loving and supportive families.

The College would gain notoriety early on by attacking AAP positions. In 2005, a boston globe The reporter noted how common it had become for the American College of Pediatricians “to be cited as a counterpoint” to anything the AAP said. The institution, he wrote, had a “rather august-sounding name” for being headed by a “single employee.”

Internal documents show that the group’s directors quickly ran into obstacles by operating outside of accepted science. Some claimed to be oppressed. Most of the College’s research had been “written by one person,” according to minutes of a 2006 meeting, which were included in the leak. The College was failing to make a splash. In the future, one director suggested, articles rejected by medical journals “should be published on the web.” The vote to do so was unanimous (although the board decided that the term “unpublished” was better than “rejected”).

A second director filed a motion to create a separate “scientific section” on the group’s website, strictly to link to articles published in medical journals. The motion was struck down after the board realized they did not have “enough articles” to make the page “look professional.”

The College made an effort to identify the root cause of its delay. “To get enough influence,” said one director, “it would take substantial numbers, maybe 10,000.” (The university’s recruiting efforts would generate less than 7 percent of this goal over the next 17 years.) Another said the marketing department advised that “the university needs to fight the AAP and move on.” larry king live.” Another, the notes say, felt the organization was too busy trying to “walk the fence” by not acknowledging that “we are conservative and religious.”