Aspiring physicians, heal thyselves

It was a story that few seemed to notice, but a medical student walkout at the University of Michigan in protest of a pro-life professor is the latest example of the abortion-on-demand movement’s dangerous, illiberal, and anti-science ideology.

The professor in question, Dr. Kristin Collier, was eminently qualified to give the keynote for the University of Michigan Medical School’s White Coat Ceremony, in which incoming medical students take pledges and receive their official vocational garb. Dr. Collier was nominated by students and selected to speak at the ceremony because she is a “doctor’s doctor”—“somebody we would want to go to for our own care.”

She grew up in Michigan, graduated from the University of Michigan with her bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in medicine (where she attended her own white cloak ceremony), completed her residency in the University of Michigan Health System, and now serves as a clinical assistant professor in the University of Michigan Health System and director of the medical school’s health, spirituality, and religion program.

Her keynote speech was about how to survive, thrive, and flourish in the medical profession. The advice was threefold: remember that “you are not a machine, and neither is your patient,” “ask big questions,” and “practice gratitude.” Wise, but not exactly protest-worthy material. Never once did she mention abortion—not that the pro-abortion protestors would have known that, having left before Dr. Collier even began her speech.

In their petition to remove Dr. Collier as a speaker, students accused the professor and others with pro-life convictions of “trying to take away human rights and restrict medical care,” and compared the decision to have her as a speaker with a litany of injustices pertaining to racism, sexual assault, child pornography, and the suppression of speech (this last one without any trace of irony). The University of Michigan, the students demanded, must “stand in solidarity” with them, which means denying a university platform to anyone with whom they disagree. That might sound nice in the echo chamber of today’s university campuses, but a quick reality check reveals that banning a pro-life speaker would disqualify the vast majority of the country.

Polling from AP-NORC demonstrates that 80 percent of the country believes that abortion should be illegal in the third trimester, while 65 percent thinks abortion should usually be illegal after the first trimester. The same poll indicates that only eight percent of the country supports abortion in all cases during the final trimester. Protesting students accused Dr. Collier of harboring a “non-universal, theology-rooted” opinion on abortion (despite the fact that her comments in question had nothing to do with theology), but this polling reveals the opposite. It’s the protestors’ abortion-on-demand view that is far from “universal.”

What pro-abortion America needs is the same thing the rest of our country needs: spaces where the truth can be heard, even when it is unpopular. In other words, we need spaces where people can change their minds.

Our country was founded on these ideals. Our U.S. Congress is structured on deliberation and persuasion. The university is supposed to be the greatest symbol of our shared commitment to the pursuit of truth. But increasingly, these universities have devolved into bastions of illiberalism where no one expects to have liberal views challenged or changed, only affirmed. This is anti-American, anti-intellectual, and—most pertinent to the University of Michigan Medical School student protestors—anti-science.

In an interview before her address, Dr. Collier shared the importance of the university, noting that the word itself comes from both “uni-” and “diversity,” indicating that the university is a place to be unified in diversity. Dr. Collier says that both unity and diversity “are necessary for deep learning to take place—we cannot learn deeply from another if we are forbidden to share certain perspectives which may differ from colleagues based on a culture which penalizes or discourages such sharing. The university experience should provide students with opportunities to ask deep questions of meaning and existence, which seem to be increasingly overlooked in contemporary academia.”

The White Coat Pledge, which the aspiring doctors at the University of Michigan took moments before walking out of the auditorium, recognizes the necessity of unity in diversity. These future doctors pledged that they will “listen to each patient’s unique human story,” that they will mind their “biases and treat every patient with compassion,” that they will “assume the best in others and be kind,” that they will support their “colleagues as they join to care for patients.” These students would do well to remember that these pledges apply to future pro-life patients in their care and pro-life colleagues in their practices.