American College of Pediatricians
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| Founded | 2002 |
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| Founders | Gerry Boccarossa and Joseph Zanga |
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Members
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500 (estimated) |
| Slogan | "The Best For Children" |
| Mission | "Enabling all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being" |
| Website | www |
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is an advocacy group of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals in the United States. The group was founded in 2002 by a group of pediatricians, including Joseph Zanga, a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), as a protest against the AAP's support for adoption by gay couples. The group's membership as of 2016 is estimated at 500 members, in contrast to the AAP's over 60,000 members.
ACPeds describes itself as "a national organization of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals dedicated to the health and well-being of children... committed to fulfilling its mission by producing sound policy, based upon the best available research, to assist parents and to influence society in the endeavor of childrearing." Founder Joseph Zanga has described it as a group "with Judeo-Christian, traditional values that is open to pediatric medical professionals of all religions" provided that they "hold true to the group's core beliefs: that life begins at conception; and that the traditional family unit, headed by an opposite-sex couple, poses far fewer risk factors in the adoption and raising of children."
The organization's view on parenting is at odds with the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which holds that sexual orientation has no correlation with the ability to be a good parent and to raise healthy and well-adjusted children. The American College of Pediatricians has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hate group", with "a history of propagating damaging falsehoods about LGBT people".
The American College of Pediatricians releases official policy positions on their website. Some of the organization's policy stances include:
The American College of Pediatricians argues that mainstream health organizations have taken public positions based on their own social and political views, rather than the available science. The American College of Pediatricians has vehemently condemned the American Psychological Association as a “gay-affirming program” which “devalues self-restraint,” and supports “a child’s autonomy from the authority of both family and religion, and from the limits and norms these institutions place on children.”
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