The anti-abortion movement at a medical convention? More than a thousand health professionals are against it

The conservative Movement for Life will take part in the four-day congress of the Czech Gynecological and Obstetrical Society ČLS JEP in Karlovy Vary at the turn of May and June. In addition to a number of pharmaceutical companies and medical companies, an organization that has long been opposed to abortion will present its activities there. This will be the second participation in the gynecology conference for the association this year.

This time, however, more than a thousand doctors, nurses and medics spoke out against her in an open letter.

“The movement for life aims at the complete reduction of abortions, which results both from public statements and from the work of journalists engaged in mapping the activities of this organization. Restricting access to abortions only leads to ‘abortion tourism’, illegal abortions under life-threatening conditions and ultimately endangering the lives of pregnant women,” reads the statement signed by hundreds of health professionals.

According to the author of the letter, gynecologist Vít Dvořák, the movement has the right to express these opinions, but he believes that it should not be given space at the professional congress.

“They belong to ultra-conservative organizations and from their rhetoric, whether according to the content on their website or the slogans and banners at the March for Life, it can be concluded that this is a strongly anti-abortion movement. Currently, we can observe the impact of such movements, for example, in Poland or the United States,” he told Seznam Zprávy.

“Of course they have the right to express these opinions, but I see no reason why they should be voiced at a professional medical event, even if only as an accompanying non-professional program,” he explains his motivation for writing the petition.

The chairman of the Movement for Life, Radim Ucháč, told Seznam Správy that the organization has been participating in the congress for many years. According to him, the goal is to show doctors the activities in which the association works with women who have unplanned pregnancies.

Ucháč believes that if gynecologists are able to give pregnant women a contact for “professional socio-economic help, artificial termination of pregnancy may not automatically be the first choice”.

“We believe that if there had been a previous discussion, we could have explored together a wider range of options on how to offer effective help to those women who feel forced to undergo an artificial abortion, for example due to the fear of balancing their studies with an unexpected pregnancy, or how to manage the financial burden associated with by paying off the mortgage after a loss of income,” Ucháč regrets that the authors of the letter did not contact them before publication.

Even Vladimír Dvořák, the chairman of the Czech Gynecological and Obstetrical Society (ČGPS), which sponsors the event, does not see the participation of the Movement for Life as problematic.

“We’re trying to be a democratic society, that means allowing a plurality of opinions, and if someone is interested in presenting at our congress and it’s not a movement that opposes us violently or does something that’s illegal, we think it’s better to discuss than to ban someone and throw them out,” explains gynecologist Dvořák, who works at the Outpatient Gynecology and Primary Care Center in Brno.

He sees no reason why the association’s presentation at the congress should be prevented.

“As far as I know, they accept the Czech legislation, that means they accept that a woman has the right to decide about her pregnancy. And if they are trying to have as few abortions as possible, then they have a similar goal as us, just different means. We are also not in favor of having as many abortions as possible and we try to prevent them in the form of contraception,” says the doctor.

Not even an open letter changes his opinion.

According to him, in addition, healthcare professionals working in fields other than gynecology and healthcare should not comment on the topic.

The author of the letter, doctor Vít Dvořák, perceives this as an odd argument, since, according to him, the topic of abortion extends into several areas.

“The conference is sponsored by the ČLS JEP, which also brings together doctors from other fields. Moreover, the issue of abortions does not concern only us gynecologists, but also midwives, for whom the congress is also intended, anesthesiologists, psychologists and other professions. Despite the fact that the Movement for Life is also not a professional organization and we comment on their participation in a public event, I see no reason why anyone cannot express their opinion,” the doctor counters.

As stated by Chairman Ucháč himself, the participation of the Movement for Life in professional medical conferences is nothing new. For example, last November, representatives of the organization spoke at the XI. In autumn, a meeting of gynecologists with a presentation of their own activities.

According to Ucháč, the association has been participating in the Congress of the Czech Gynecological and Obstetrical Society ČLS JEP for many years. In a Facebook post from 2021 from this event, the movement even states that ČGPS chairman Vladimír Dvořák “is among the supporters of their project to help unexpectedly pregnant women”.

But Dvořák himself later denied it. “If they wrote that I was their supporter, they didn’t write the truth, but I don’t think it was ever heard. But the fact that I am willing to discuss with anyone with whom a cultured discussion is possible is true,” he told Seznam Zprávám.

However, in April of this year, the Czech Women’s Lobby objected to the movement’s participation in a conference of gynecologists, which sent an open letter to the representatives of the Czech Medical Society of Jan Evangelista Purkyně (ČLS JEP).

“We consider it unacceptable that they are given space there, which legitimizes their activities and creates a sense of expertise of this organization, which, however, holds anti-women positions and is against the rights of LGBT people,” says Diana Soták Gregorová, an advocacy expert from the Czech Women’s Lobby.

In response, the representatives of the association of medical professionals referred to the diversity of opinions and stated that who will be invited to the conference, as well as what its content or additional program will be, is entirely up to them.

“They will have an information stand there, they can speak there, talk to those present from the professional society, whether they are doctors, obstetricians, nurses, and basically they have the opportunity to tell them whatever they want,” Soták Gregorová explains why, according to the participation of the Movement for Life at the next medical congress is problematic.

Although the Movement for Life presents itself as an association helping women who have unexpectedly become pregnant, some of its members’ positions have caused controversy in the past.

For example, in April 2022, the organization criticized a Czech initiative aimed at providing post-coital contraception for Ukrainian women and girls who were raped by Russian soldiers. Instead of this form of support, the movement proposed psychological help and prevention.

The current chairman of the organization, Radim Ucháč, also headed the Exodus movement in 2003, which published a book on how to treat people with homosexual orientation. They then distributed the publication to schools and among politicians.

Currently, Ucháč openly speaks out against abortions. “Artificial abortion is never a good thing. It doesn’t protect women, it doesn’t help them, it doesn’t help children, it doesn’t help families. We perceive artificial abortion as hopelessness and resignation. We feel sorry for women who consider getting rid of their unborn child a banality or a proud right, and their unborn children even more,” he said, for example, in an interview published on the Movement for Life website this March.