in may 2023, Memorial shiloh Confirmed plans to begin aborting babies
Express Your Opposition by Boycotting Memorial & BJC!
The Truth Comes Out
After months of denials or silence, Memorial finally verified their plans…
In a meeting with doctors on Monday, May 22, 2023, and in multiple meetings with most other hospital staff on Tuesday, May 23, 2023, Memorial BJC administrators acknowledged that they are implementing a plan to begin performing induced abortions at Memorial Hospital Shiloh: 1) on unborn children with 'fatal fetal anomalies' (birth defects); and 2) when BJC doctors contend that the mother has 'increased risk factors'.
These meetings confirmed what had previously only been shared with a few select staff. At a previous meeting held at 7:30am on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, the hospital administrative team discussed performing “terminations for fetal anomalies at Memorial Shiloh.” The specific purpose of that meeting was to outline their plan to affected nurses and operating room technicians, and to determine which of those employees might opt in, and which would opt out of, assisting with these abortion procedures.
Present in the meeting and addressing staff was the previous hospital President, Mike McManus, as well as Dr. David L. Eisenberg, who served as Chief Medical Officer for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region from August 2009 until September 2018, and then as co-Chief Medical Officer until July 2019. Eisenberg is described by Washington University’s Institute for Public Health website as an advocate for “…ensuring access to abortion services.” https://publichealth.wustl.edu/people/david-l-eisenberg/.
Per that May 2023 meeting, abortions are planned for babies with a gestational age up to 27 weeks - in other words when the baby is 6 months old and about 14½ inches in length. [What does the baby look like at that stage? The photo above is of a fetal model at 26 weeks]
Employees participating in the meeting were also told that the procedures would occur on the OB floor using forceps and suction abortion with laminaria dilation on the day prior. Recovery would occur in the same room where other women, who delivered by C-section, might be rejoicing over their newborn child.
According to employees in the meeting, they were told Memorial’s abortion services will be targeted towards women with private insurance who want the “hospital experience”.
WILL A Boycott BE EFFECTIVE?
Well over a year later and those on the outside still do not know for sure that Memorial has begun to perform abortions at Shiloh. A doctor attending the May 22, 2023, meeting was left with the impression that abortions would begin as early as July 2023. The hospital did change the nurses’ charting forms to include “Terminations” and “Laminaria” as procedures, suggesting that implementation of the plan was beginning.
But the boycott may have delayed that implementation. A number of employees chose to cease their employment with Memorial BJC, and some suggested because of that, the initiation of abortion at the hospital was set back. Then a number of doctors moved their practices from Memorial and the loss of those physicians and the patients who chose to follow them, may have caused the administrators to think twice.
Mike McManus did admit to one doctor that ‘a few terminations to save the life of the mother’ have already been performed. But in seeking a more comprehensive answer, a letter was sent to the new hospital President, Deborah Graves, on Aug 5, 2024. That letter asked her for the current status of the plans, with three possible answers: 1) abortions are no longer planned; 2) abortions have not yet begun but are still planned; or 3) abortions have already begun. The letter noted that absent a direct response affirming the first - that abortions are no longer planned - it can only be assumed that the plans are either still pending, or have already been implemented.
And since no response has been received from Graves since the letter was sent, it is fair to assume that either abortions have already begun, or they are still planned.
If either is true, Memorial BJC administrators may have significantly misjudged their core customer base and the community from which they draw most of their business - possibly making Memorial the 'Bud Light' of hospitals. What may be a ‘marketing decision’ to add to their revenues by becoming an abortion provider, could instead prove to be their downfall. The damage they will do to their reputation, and the money lost from other patients who will choose to instead buy their healthcare from a non-abortion provider, could far outweigh any possible financial gains.
This is the effectiveness of a boycott. It helps make it clear to Memorial and BJC that their course of action will cause more harm to the hospital's bottom line than any financial gain they think might come from being in the abortion business.
What are fetal anomalies? 'increased Risk Factors'?
What are fetal anomalies?
"Fetal anomalies” is a broad term for what were once called ‘birth defects’ – some structural and/or functional difference from what we would normally expect in an unborn baby’s development.
Anomalies that are structural, affect the unborn baby’s body parts, such as their heart, lungs, kidneys, limbs or facial features. These could include spina bifida, heart defects, missing toes, and something as simple as cleft lip.
Anomalies that are functional affect how the baby’s body parts or body systems work, such as the brain, the nervous system, or sensory perception. So, these could include developmental disabilities, blindness, seizures, Down Syndrome, and one familiar to everyone through the Jerry Lewis telethons - Muscular Dystrophy.
While at the subsequent meetings held in May hospital administrators may have narrowed their terminology to “fatal” fetal anomalies, the original meeting in February did not do so. And regardless of diagnosis, abortion is still abortion. It is still the intentional killing of another human life.
What does ‘mother with increased risk factors’ mean?
"Increased risk factors” is also a broad term, and if left to the determination of a doctor or facility that is going to financially benefit from providing an abortion, has the potential to be broadly applied for the financial benefit of such a facility. To our knowledge, Memorial BJC has not specifically defined what they as a hospital will include in this category. Or what they would specifically exclude.
What can you do as part of this boycott?
As a patient / customer of Memorial...
As a doctor or other medical provider who believes in the sanctity of human life...
As a doctor or other medical provider who believes in the sanctity of human life...
1. Cease to use Memorial in Shiloh or Belleville or any other BJC facility for any medical testing, services, procedures or hospitalization and notify Hospital President, Deborah Graves, in writing via mail or email that unless Memorial BJC stops performing abortions in Illinois, you will continue to procure your health care from someone
1. Cease to use Memorial in Shiloh or Belleville or any other BJC facility for any medical testing, services, procedures or hospitalization and notify Hospital President, Deborah Graves, in writing via mail or email that unless Memorial BJC stops performing abortions in Illinois, you will continue to procure your health care from someone else.
2. Cease to be a patient or customer of any doctor or other provider who is located on a Memorial Hospital campus or in a Memorial BJC owned building, notifying each doctor and provider that you are doing so because Memorial began to perform abortions and you will not enter onto their campus for medical services.
As a doctor or other medical provider who believes in the sanctity of human life...
As a doctor or other medical provider who believes in the sanctity of human life...
As a doctor or other medical provider who believes in the sanctity of human life...
1. Cease to refer patients to Memorial in Shiloh or Belleville or any other BJC facility for any medical testing, services, procedures or hospitalization and notify Hospital President, Deborah Graves, that you will refrain from referring your patients until Memorial BJC stops the performance of induced abortion at the Shiloh campus or any
1. Cease to refer patients to Memorial in Shiloh or Belleville or any other BJC facility for any medical testing, services, procedures or hospitalization and notify Hospital President, Deborah Graves, that you will refrain from referring your patients until Memorial BJC stops the performance of induced abortion at the Shiloh campus or any other Memorial / BJC facility in Illinois.
2. If as a doctor or other provider you are currently under contract to Memorial Hospital, Memorial Medical Group, or another affiliate of Memorial BJC, notify the appropriate entities that if Memorial BJC continues to perform abortions at any Memorial / BJC facility in Illinois, you will explore all options to be released from your contractual relationship, and in the absence of that option, you will not renew that relationship upon its expiration.
As an employee of Memorial BJC or an affiliate...
As a doctor or other medical provider who believes in the sanctity of human life...
As an employee of Memorial BJC or an affiliate...
1. Immediately exercise your rights, in writing, to not be party to any abortion or abortion-related services that the hospital might choose to provide.
2. Some of your co-workers have already quit their jobs – refusing to work for an abortion provider. Immediately begin to seek employment with another non-BJC entity where you know induce
1. Immediately exercise your rights, in writing, to not be party to any abortion or abortion-related services that the hospital might choose to provide.
2. Some of your co-workers have already quit their jobs – refusing to work for an abortion provider. Immediately begin to seek employment with another non-BJC entity where you know induced abortions will never be performed. When you are able to resign, notify Hospital President, Deborah Graves that the reason was the hospital’s decision to begin performing abortions. See: https://abortionworker.com/
As a concerned member of the community...
As a doctor or other medical provider who believes in the sanctity of human life...
As an employee of Memorial BJC or an affiliate...
1. Actively boycott Memorial Hospital and all other BJC affiliates, and continually encourage your family, friends, church members, and neighbors to do the same. Spread the word to others by sharing the link to the website www.Memorial-BJC.com. Notify Hospital President Deborah Graves that you are doing so because the hospital chose to b
1. Actively boycott Memorial Hospital and all other BJC affiliates, and continually encourage your family, friends, church members, and neighbors to do the same. Spread the word to others by sharing the link to the website www.Memorial-BJC.com. Notify Hospital President Deborah Graves that you are doing so because the hospital chose to begin performing abortions.
2. Place a Boycott Memorial BJC bumper sticker on the back window of your car.
3. Join those standing outside Memorial Shiloh in silent witness, to help raise public awareness, and encourage others to boycott as well.
Questions for Memorial and Deborah Graves
Why are you willing to sully Memorial hospital’s hard-earned reputation by going into the abortion business? In the future, Memorial will be referred to by many with a qualifier: “…a great hospital, but they perform abortions…” Are you not concerned with that reputation?
Area residents already have easy access to abortion at Planned Parenthood in Fairview Heights and the Hope Clinic in Granite City. What makes you think the hospital should compete / can compete with those long-term abortion providers?
With annual net revenues of $5 billion, does BJC, as a not-for-profit hospital system, really need the extra money to be gained from performing abortions?
Has anyone performed a cost / benefit analysis? Have you compared the revenue you hope to gain from performing abortions, against the revenue that you and other doctors on your campus will undoubtedly lose from patients who will not do business with an abortion provider?
Has anyone considered the impact on gifts to the Memorial Foundation should current financial supporters and businesses decide to withhold future gifts because of their opposition to abortion?
At the hospital’s original dedication ceremonies in 1958, Dr. Frank Eversull was quoted as saying, “From these halls will go forth renewed life and new life to the glory of God and the service of all mankind.” If he were alive today, what would Dr. Eversall think of Memorial's plans to abort babies with disabilities?
Your website touts that the Family Care Birthing Center at Shiloh features two dedicated c-section rooms. Do you plan to change that language to note that one or both of those may no longer be “dedicated” – but now may be regularly used to perform abortions instead? Or that a woman in need of a c-section may have to wait because an abortion is in progress in the room she needs?
The hospital’s most recent Community Health Needs Assessment and Implementation Plan, which determined the most critical needs in the St. Clair County community, concluded that Memorial will focus on three priorities: “mental health, drug abuse and maternal/infant health.” Do you believe that intentionally ending the lives of innocent infants, contributes to their “health”?
How does providing abortions fit with the Hospital’s Mission Statement: “Providing exceptional healthcare and compassionate service.”? Would it not be more compassionate to help a couple through the birth and natural death of a child with severe disabilities - in light of the long-term guilt and anguish experienced by many women who choose abortion?
