The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is not an unbiased organization, yet it is regularly cited as a medical authority by the media. ACOG has been accurately defined by the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) as an “abortion advocacy” organization which is “no longer objective on the abortion issue” and “does not adequately represent its thousands of members.”
This article in Live Action News’ Top Myths DEBUNKED series will disprove several myths about ACOG, revealing that the organization is entirely in support of abortion.
Myth #1: “ACOG is impartial on the issue of abortion.”
The Truth: ACOG has referred for, advocated for, and promoted abortion for decades.
ACOG claims to be the “premier professional membership organization for obstetrician-gynecologists,” but it is far from unbiased where abortion is concerned. Currently, the group is at the forefront of efforts to expand abortion — in particular, the abortion pill (mifepristone).
The organization’s official support for unrestricted abortion on-demand has become more obvious over time. ACOG now refers to abortion (which is the intentional killing of a human preborn child) as “health care.” In addition, a 2023 op-ed written by leaders of ACOG and The Society of Family Planning (SFP) published in The Washington Post stated that abortion “must be available without restrictions, without limitations and without barriers.”
Myth #2: “ACOG’s goal has always been to help women.”
The Truth: ACOG’s goal, from nearly the beginning, has been population control.
ACOG, founded in 1951 as the American Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecology and renamed in May of 1956, began to shift toward abortion advocacy less than a decade after its founding, and was taken over by those involved with Planned Parenthood — the “endemically racist” Population Council and the American Eugenics Society.
These organizations did not have in mind a goal to improve women’s health; they were interested in population control.
In 1960, ACOG fellow Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher, a board member of Planned Parenthood who took the helm as president in 1962, told media that an ACOG committee had begun a fact-finding expedition to liberalize abortion laws. Then, by 1968, its leadership had moved to approve the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code to decriminalize abortion.
By then, ACOG was led mostly by men connected to eugenics-based organizations.
Read more details here about how ACOG officials and Dr. Guttmacher sought to redefine “conception” and “pregnancy,” and how ACOG officials worked to change the definition of the beginning of life from fertilization to implantation (in the uterus) so that they could redefine contraception for population control purposes.
Myth #3: “ACOG only updates its terminology for scientific accuracy.”
The Truth: ACOG changes its terminology to more easily promote a pro-abortion agenda to the public.
“The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) uses clinically accurate language when discussing abortion. We encourage people writing about reproductive health to use language that is medically appropriate, clinically accurate, and without bias,” ACOG claims online.
But ACOG has worked tirelessly to influence the positions of its members regarding abortion, regularly changing its own long-held messaging and definitions on when life begins (fertilization), fetal heartbeat and other developmental markers, as well as later abortion — depending on its goal at the time. Below are some examples:
“Late-term abortion“ – ACOG claims in its abortion language guide for the media that ‘late-term abortion‘ “has no clinical or medical significance.” Yet, pro-abortion medical doctors and media outlets have been using the phrase ‘late-term abortion’ for decades.
“Surgery/Surgical abortion“ – ACOG tells media, “The abortion procedure is not a surgery,” suggesting that “[r]eferring to it as a procedure is clinically accurate.” Yet, Planned Parenthood states that “In-clinic abortions are sometimes called surgical abortions” and then uses the term ‘surgical abortion’ in several places online. AbortionFinder.org and several abortion providers — like the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), which trains abortionists — also refer to surgical abortion on their websites.
“Dismemberment abortion“ – ACOG’s guide says “referring to” a “dilation and evacuation” (D&E) abortion as “dismemberment” is “intentional use of inflammatory” language. But in testimony in the Stenberg v. Carhart Supreme Court case, abortionist LeRoy Carhart described abortion procedures as dismembering, describing the D&E procedure by stating, “My normal course would be to dismember that extremity and then go back and try to take the fetus out either foot first or skull first…” The rest of his testimony graphically describes the process of how he “grasps” and “pull[s] down” on fetal body parts, “rotating to dismember the shoulder or the hip or whatever it would be” until the entirety of the child’s body is torn apart. He said, “[…]when you do a dismemberment D&E, you have a tray full of pieces, and it’s impossible to take a total inventory to know that you’ve taken out all the tissue…” (emphasis added). Carhart also admitted that when the dismemberment process begins, the preborn child is still alive.
“Heartbeat“ – As the popularity of “heartbeat laws” (laws that protect preborn humans upon detectable heartbeat) has grown, ACOG has not only openly opposed these laws, but has gone through multiple revisions in how it now chooses to use terminology surrounding “heartbeats.” Back in 2015, an ACOG bulletin on early miscarriage used the term “heartbeat.” Even as recently as 2018, “heartbeat” seemed innocuous enough for ACOG to use. Since then, however, ACOG and the abortion industry have attempted to downplay the embryonic heartbeat, acting as if a “heartbeat” can only come from a fully formed, four-chambered heart; this is entirely untrue. Instead, ACOG now insists upon using terms like “embryonic pulsing,” “fetal pole cardiac activity” “pulsing cells” and even “vibrations.”
“Baby/unborn child/preborn child“ – ACOG’s media guide states that when discussing abortion with the public, the media should avoid using terms like “baby,” “unborn child,” or “preborn child.” When a woman doesn’t want her child, ACOG doesn’t want that child to be called a child. However, when she wants the child, it’s a “baby.” This can be seen in ACOG’s own publication, “Your Pregnancy and Childbirth, 7th edition,” which openly uses the term “baby” at the earliest stages of pregnancy and for each week thereafter. The “Having a Baby” page of ACOG’s website mentions the term “baby” 40 times in answering questions about the prenatal and postnatal periods. Apparently, “wantedness” alters the use of terminology.
ACOG pregnancy book 7th edition calls embryo ‘baby’
Myth #4: “If you’re a member of ACOG, you probably perform abortions.”
The Truth: Less than 25% of ACOG’s membership in 2019 was willing to provide abortions.
ACOG’s 2022 annual report listed a membership of 61,727 individuals, with over $27 million collected in dues and fees, along with over $14 million in “grants, contracts, or other,” that same year. And yet, in 2019, ACOG’s Green Journal published a study authored by abortionist Daniel Grossman and other abortion industry insiders, utilizing a cross-sectional 2016-17 survey from a national sample of ACOG Fellows. As the LA Times noted, “fewer than 1 in 4 were willing and able to perform [an abortion] themselves,” and “Among the doctors who answered questions about the procedure, 1 in 3 cited personal, religious or moral reasons for not providing abortion services.”
A Green Journal commentary published in 2022 stated that “abortion provision is not a routine part of most general ob-gyn practices; currently, only 14–24% of ob-gyns perform abortions.” And a 2023 report issued by the pro-abortion Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) claimed that “Nearly one in five (18%) office-based OBGYNs nationally say that they are providing abortion services” since the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade. The Foundation added that “Nationally, 14% of OBGYNs say they provide in-person medication abortions, but only 5% say they provide telehealth medication abortions.” (KFF is funded by multiple pro-abortion donors, including the Gates and Buffett Foundations.)
Older surveys found similar results.
Myth #5: “ACOG is ‘pro-choice’ but doesn’t oppose those with a different viewpoint.”
The Truth: ACOG is not impartial, and has attempted to “fact check” and even censor those with whom it disagrees.
ACOG’s abortion advocacy has led the organization to censor pro-life doctors. And despite its clear and obvious pro-abortion bias, ACOG has been asked to play the role of fact-checker against pro-life organizations (including Live Action). It has aided in attacks against pro-life pregnancy help centers (PRCs). It has been called upon to discredit “abortion pill reversal (APR).” And it has opposed state pro-life laws.
ACOG’s website calls the killing of a preborn baby “essential” and claims to be “committed to protecting and increasing access to abortion” along with “oppos[ing] any effort that impedes access to abortion care.” One of ACOG’s intentions is to “integrate abortion as a component of mainstream medical care, and to oppose and overturn efforts restricting access to abortion” (emphasis added).
If a doctor or organization does not fully embrace abortion without restraint, then that doctor or organization may become the target of a smear campaign from this powerful organization, which has never operated with actual science or respect for human dignity in mind.
ACOG supports and partners with the abortion industry; it has issued numerous releases, training documents, practice bulletins, and committee opinions supporting abortion. ACOG’s “Guide for Patients Seeking Abortion” even links to websites such as AbortionFinder.org, the National Abortion Federation, and Planned Parenthood — which committed nearly 400,000 abortions last year alone. ACOG has “partnered” with many abortion– and eugenics-focused groups.
Myth #6: “ACOG wants abortion to be ‘rare’.”
The Truth: ACOG’s goal is to expand abortion, and it is working toward that end.
The American people were told by pro-abortion politicians for decades that they believed abortion should be “rare,” but this view is no longer popular. Instead of finding ways to assist pregnant women to keep their babies, ACOG advocates for more OBGYNs to be trained to commit abortion.
When a shortage of abortion providers occurred in the 1990s, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and ACOG stepped up to “convene[] a symposium to address the shortage,” and more recently, representatives from ACOG District IX took part in California’s Future of Abortion Council, an effort to expand abortion in the state. ACOG even advocates for family physicians and non-physicians to become abortion providers, so that abortion can become more common.
This, of course, aligns with the group’s long-standing goal of population control.
In addition, the organization encourages its members to “advocate” for abortion “in your state” — urging members to “[s]top Florida abortion bans” and to participate in other political efforts to protect abortion, including “ballot initiatives,” which are currently attempting to codify abortion as a “right” in state constitutions. ACOG partnered with a group in a ‘get out the vote’ effort related to the “initiatives affecting abortion access on the ballot in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont in 2022,” and “aided in the passage of abortion shield laws that help solidify New York as a national access state for abortion care.”
ACOG’s 2022 annual report contains nearly three dozen mentions of abortion and its abortion advocacy. Its political action group, ACOG Action, heavily promotes abortion, with a desire to expand abortion access and force federal taxpayers to fund abortion by pushing to end the pro-life Hyde Amendment (which was put in place to prevent taxpayer funding of abortion). One of its “policy priorities” for 2024 is to “[s]upport, defend, and expand access to and availability of comprehensive evidence-based obstetric and gynecologic care, including abortion.”
Myth #7: “ACOG is not influenced by ‘Big Abortion’.”
The Truth: ACOG has become part of Big Abortion, and is funded by those invested in abortion’s expansion.
ACOG has been funded by pro-abortion groups like Ibis Reproductive Health (which has been funded by abortion pill manufacturer Danco Laboratories and Danco investor the Packard Foundation; read more here about Ibis), the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
ACOG has funded the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, where abortionists are trained, even promoting Bixby’s Ryan Residency Programs on its website. The ACOG Foundation, a recipient of taxpayer dollars which claims to fund “programs and activities that further the interests of ACOG members,” has granted (2023-24) Planned Parenthood of California Central Coast $20,000. The Foundation is seeking proposals for grants that will “advance public education initiatives in a post-Dobbs environment.”
