While the material is not expressly religious, it is clearly intended to portray same-sex marriage as deviant and immoral behavior. Doctors lobbied by the group are also being told to urge patients to purchase Christian parenting guides, including one designed to help parents broach the subject of sex with their 11- and 12-year-old children. The college suggests telling parents to plan a “special overnight trip,” a pretext for teaching their children sexual norms consistent with evangelical practice. The group suggests telling parents to buy a tool called an “escape kit,” a series of workbooks that run around $54 online. The workbooks methodically guide parents through the process of bringing up the topic, but only after a days-long charade of impromptu gift-giving and play.
These books are full of games and puzzles that parent and child can solve together. Throughout the process, the child slowly processes a concept of “sexual purity,” lessons supported by oversimplified scriptures and common Bible school parables.
Another document that the group shared with its members contains a roadmap for appointments with pregnant minors. Its purpose has been clearly made clear: the advice has been developed specifically to reduce the likelihood of minors coming into contact with medical professionals who are not strictly against abortion. A practice script recommends that the doctor inform the minor that they “strongly advise against” abortion, adding “the procedure not only kills the child you are carrying, but also puts you in danger.” (Medically, the terms “fetus” and “infant” are not interchangeable; the latter refers to a newborn baby less than a year old.)
The doctors are urged to recommend that the minor visit a website that, like the one mentioned above, is not expressly religious, but only directs visitors to Catholic-run “crisis pregnancy centers”, which strongly reject abortion. The same site is widely promoted by anti-abortion groups such as National Right to Life, which ruled last year that it should be illegal to terminate the pregnancy of a 10-year-old rape victim.
The professionals
The effort to ban mifepristone, which the Supreme Court halted last month pending further review, faces significant legal hurdles but could ultimately benefit from the appeals court’s disproportionately conservative makeup. Most of the legal power in the battle has been provided by a much older and better-funded group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has established ties to some of the country’s most elite political figures – former Vice President Mike Pence and Judge Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett among them.
A contract in the leaked April 2021 documents shows that the ADF agrees to legally represent the College free of charge. It provides that ADF’s ability to subsidize costs during litigation is limited by ethical guidelines; however, it could still forgive any lingering charges 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 a direct result of a 2002 statement by the AAP. Modern research, the AAP said, had conclusively shown that parents’ sexual orientation had an imperceptible impact on children’s well-being, as long as they are raised in caring, supportive families.
Data visualization: DataWrapper
The college would gain notoriety early on by attacking the AAP’s positions. In 2005, a Boston sphere The reporter noted how common it had become for the American College of Pediatricians to be “quoted as counterpoint” to anything said by the AAP. The institution, he wrote, had a rather “August-sounding name” because it was run by a “single employee.”
Internal documents show that the group’s directors soon encountered hurdles operating at the fringes of accepted science. Some claimed to be oppressed. According to the minutes of a 2006 meeting included in the leak, most of the College’s research was “written by one person.” The College failed to make a splash. One executive suggested that in the future, articles rejected by medical journals “should be published on the Internet.” The vote to do so was unanimous (although the board decided that the term “unpublished” was nicer than “rejected”).
A second director filed a motion to create a separate “scientific section” on the group’s website solely for linking to articles published in medical journals. The motion was overturned after it dawned on the board that they “didn’t have enough articles” to make the page “look professional.”
The college struggled to identify the cause of the sloppiness. “To gain sufficient clout,” said one director, “sizable numbers would be needed, perhaps as many as 10,000.” (The College’s recruiting efforts would deliver less than 7 percent of this goal over the next 17 years.) Still another said the marketing department advised that “the College should take the fight to the AAP and move forward.” Larry KingLive.” Another, the notes say, felt the organization was too busy trying to “walk the fence” by ignoring that “we’re conservative and religious.”
