Urologists on social media are urging the American Urological Association (AUA) to strengthen what they feel was a tepid statement from the group in reaction to the US Supreme Court’s decision overturning the federal right to abortion.

On Saturday, the AUA joined a host of medical societies in condemning the court’s ruling when it released a brief statement which read, in part: “While abortion is not a procedure performed by urologists and we look to our colleagues in the House of Medicine who specialize in this procedure to lead the way, the AUA recognizes the impact the Court’s opinion could have on women’s health care and reproductive rights.”

The conditional nature of the last part of that sentence appeared to anger many urologists, who took to Twitter to point out that the effect of the decision was not “could” but almost certainly “will”:

Manoj Monga, MD, chair of urology at University California San Diego, wrote:

Fenwa Milhouse, MD, a urologist in Oak Lawn, Illinois, said the AUA statement “really needs a do over”:

Lauren McGee, MD, a urology resident at Ohio State University, Columbus, wrote:

Kristina Suson, MD, a pediatric urologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, noted that she and her fellow subspecialists do sometimes become involved in discussions of abortion:

And Max Bowman, MD, a urology resident at the University of California San Francisco, tweeted:

The AUA also drew criticism from specialists who said the society delayed in speaking out against the court ruling. Prior to the appearance of the statement, Todd Morgan, MD, research professor and chief of urologic oncology at the University of Michigan and two other male urologists released a petition calling on the AUA to join other medical groups in condemning the decision. That petition has so for garnered 629 signatures.

But Morgan wasn’t happy with the statement that arrived, calling it via Twitter “an effort to appease rather than lead with 1 sentence for those who think this isn’t the AUA’s domain and 1 for those who think it is. The result is a conflicting statement which misses the mark.”

Even members of other medical specialties took aim at the AUA, including Louise Perkins King, MD, JD, director of reproductive bioethics at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, Boston, Massachusetts, who tweeted:

The AUA has not responded to a request for comment on whether it intends to issue a new statement. The group says it represents more than 23,000 members worldwide, including more than 15,000 in the United States.

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