Letter to the Huntsville Times I'm a crank, it's true. Crank, defined as one whose primary means of expressing herself is via Letters to the Editor. *sigh* I confess that the overwhelming majority of my publishing career has occurred in that very section of the local papers. Anyway, here's this month's complaint.

A local OB-GYN is being protested for his covert involvement with an abortion clinic. Why is his involvement covert? Because he's Catholic--he's a member of my parish, in fact. Despite John Kerry's opinions on it, you can't be Catholic and pro-choice. So, if he wants to take money from an abortion clinic, he needs to stop putting that money in the collection plate--it's that simple. Anyway, it's not working out that way, so Liz and Anne made some signs and started picketing the doctor's clinic so patients would know what he was up to. The paper did a short piece on it and totally misrepresented this fellow's duties with the clinic, making him sound like he had nothing to do with it. No no, we don't go for that, so I wrote a short letter.

On January 27, 2005, the Local section of the Huntsville Times featured a short piece on protests staged by Catholic United for Life against the office of Madison OB-GYN Dr. Raymond Lopez. The piece allowed a misleading representation of Dr. Lopez' affiliation with Alabama Women's Clinic to go uninvestigated, which allows a false account of his culpability to stand unchallenged.

Dr. Lopez' wife, Alexandra Lopez, insists that the doctor's responsibilities with the abortion clinic lie only in providing "emergency care" after abortions, presumably botched ones. This is untrue. Raymond Lopez has agreed to serve the Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives as Medical Director and Back-Up Physician; the regulations of the Alabama State Board of Health state that "each abortion . . . center shall employ or shall have under contract a medical director who shall be responsible for overseeing the medical affairs of the facility. Physicians performing abortions in the facility shall not perform any medical procedures unless authorized by the medical director" (Chapter 420-5-1-.02, section 5, paragraph C). While these procedures do include emergency treatment when abortions fail, without an employed Director at the clinic, the abortions cannot even proceed in the first place.

By agreeing to serve as the clinic's Medical Director, Dr. Lopez is directly responsible for any and all abortions performed at the Women's Center. Simply because he does not perform these "procedures" himself does not mean he not accountable for their results.

To be signed, sealed, and delivered this afternoon.

And I don't care that you're rolling your eyes.

Labels: pro-life, raymond lopez

♠ ~ 8:29 PM ~ 0 ♥ ~