C. Everett Koop, the Christian physician and former US Surgeon General who brought abortion to the forefront of evangelical social action, died on February 25, aged 96.
Together with theologian Francis Schaeffer, Koop, a pioneering paediatric surgeon, exposed the issues of abortion and euthanasia in a series of films and books in the early 1980s. Their arguments began the movement against abortion that continues within American evangelicalism today.
Nights with dying children
A graduate of Dartmouth College, Cornell Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania, Koop established the first neonatal surgical intensive care unit and was the first surgeon to separate twins conjoined at the heart. ‘Operating on newborns with life-threatening birth defects, spending nights at the bedside of a sick or dying child, and consoling bereaved parents gained Koop acclaim as a pioneering surgeon and empathetic healer, and led him to re-examine his Christian faith and the ethical implications of medical procedures, above all abortion and euthanasia’ (National Institutes of Health).
