Connect the Dots 101

A small group of conservative doctors has sought to shape the nation’s most contentious policies on abortion and transgender rights by promoting views rejected by the medical establishment as scientific fact, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post that describe the group’s internal strategies.

The records show that after long struggling to attract members, the American College of Pediatricians gained outsize political influence in recent years, primarily by using conservative media as a megaphone in its quest to position the group as a reputable source of information.

The organization has successfully lobbied since 2021 for laws in more than a half-dozen states that ban gender-affirming care for transgender youths, with its representatives testifying before state legislatures against the guidelines recommended by mainstream medical groups, according to its records. It gained further national prominence this year as one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit to limit access to mifepristone, a key abortion drug.

The American College of Pediatricians formed in 2002 after dozens of conservative doctors split from the nation’s leading interest group of pediatricians, the 67,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), over the academy’s support for same-sex parenting. The academy had determined from its review of scientific literature that children with same-sex parents fare as well as those with heterosexual parents in emotional, cognitive, social and sexual functioning.

Documents show how conservative doctors influenced abortion, trans rights – The Washington Post