Democracy Dies in Darkness

Documents show how conservative doctors influenced abortion, trans rights

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June 15, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
A photo illustration with a red background, showing torn paper of some of the documents leaked from the American College of Pediatricians.
More than 10,000 confidential files from the American College of Pediatricians were exposed after the organization left the contents of its Google Drive publicly accessible. (Washington Post illustration)
15 min

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.