What the Supreme Court Should Know about Abortion Care

Many people are not comfortable with abortion. I understand. When I was an ob-gyn resident, I told my physician that I would learn the skills to perform an abortion, but probably wouldn't provide them after I graduated because it made me a little uncomfortable.

I was asked by my physician if women have a right to this procedure.

The Supreme Court is willing to place a brick on the scale of the statue of Lady Justice, which is located in the Supreme Court building. The goal of law is to find a balance between benefit and harm. The justices are on the side of harm.

It will take a sustained effort to balance the scales. Most Americans fall in the middle of the abortion debate and may be reluctant to get involved. This hesitancy is understandable. Many people are uncomfortable with the topic of abortion. People who have been passive on this issue can no longer be so. It's not too late if this is you. Let them know where you stand on this issue. You should have difficult conversations with your family and friends about why you support bodily autonomy. Donate to organizations that are doing this work.

When I was a young doctor unsure of my willingness to provide abortions, my supervisor and I talked about how I possibly have an ethical and moral obligation to do my part in assuring that the procedure is available. It's not about me, or my comfort, or anyone except the person seeking care. I now provide abortions and teach new doctors how to do them, as well as providing prenatal care and deliveries of complex pregnancies, almost 20 years later.

I do this because people have a right to this procedure, but also because I agree with a medical adage: "May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain."

I have an idea that if anti-abortion crusaders could spend a few days in my office, they would start to get it. While that daydream may seem naive, the fact is that many patients who identify as pro-life have sat in my office after unexpected news about their pregnancies and expressed to me that they have a new understanding of these nuanced issues. They can now see how the laws they supported hurt people.

Providing medical care that honors birth and upholds a person's right not to carry a pregnancy is not a contradiction. I am compelled to provide full-spectrum reproductive care because of the medical ethical principles. 50 years of precedent that protects the right to end a pregnant woman's life will be upended if the leaked opinion on Dobbs stands. The Mississippi Gestational Age Act prohibits abortions after 15 weeks with few exceptions. The Court was asked to overturn precedent establishing a constitutional right to previability abortions. States will now be able to force people to have babies against their will. If the court rules that the laws are constitutional, more than 20 states have abortion bans that are 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465.

This is bad news for anyone who values bodily autonomy, separation of church and state, and government interference in science and medicine. We can't eliminate individual values and morality from this debate, but we can examine the science behind why abortion restrictions are harmful.

Multiple studies have shown that abortion restrictions do more harm than good, that abortion is safe, and that there is no correlation between abortion and mental health. The main finding of the Turnaway Study is that abortion does not harm health and well-being, but that being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health and family outcomes.

Carrying a pregnant woman to term is more dangerous than an early legal abortion. While we should work to reduce the maternal mortality rate, especially among women of color, the fact is that being pregnant is always going to be riskier than a safe abortion.

Mainstream medical societies oppose abortion restrictions because of their harm. The Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Family Physicians are examples. The most restrictive laws have been opposed by the American Medical Association. These groups are made up of physicians who live in your community and care for you every day.

The original abortion decisions of 1973 and 1992 have continued to advance technology. The low complication rate is due to new techniques in medical and surgical abortions. Home pregnancy tests allow people to recognize a pregnant woman without a doctor's visit. Diagnostic techniques inechocardiography and genetics have expanded so much that they can detect problems before birth.

As we face an onslaught of anti-abortion state legislation, we should be prepared with an idea of how to best balance the scales to offer the greatest benefit for the least harm. My opinion is that the best way to help pregnant individuals and babies have the best outcomes is to remove all restrictions on abortions. This isn't an extreme position.

One of the most complex biological processes is pregnancy, and thus the ways in which it can go awry, and some people might conclude that it is appropriate to limit abortion after a certain point in pregnancy. The argument in the case of Roe v. Wade was that decisions that a person makes with their doctor need to be nuanced, rather than a generalized approach that can be legislated.

The concept of viability, which SCOTUS based previous decisions on, is not clear. The estimate of the likelihood that a fetus will survive outside the uterus is based on a number of factors. prognoses will change as technology advances. It's a poor legal standard to be viability. viability was abandoned as a benchmark if Justice Samuel Alito did anything wrong in the leaked opinion.

Dogmatic laws presume a certainty that is rarely found in clinical medicine. They don't account for the range of prognoses that characterizes many conditions, as well as how the complexity of mental health and access to care affect a person's health outcomes. Lawmakers can't possibly legislate every circumstance that must exist to prevent harm. Biology surprises us.

We should dismantle other barriers after removing abortion restrictions. It is not just laws that limit choice. It doesn't help that abortion is legal if you can't afford it, can't get time off, or have other constraints. The Hyde Amendment needs to sink without bubbles. The FDA's unnecessary restrictions on the safe and common abortion drug Mifepristone need to go. There are many excellent organizations that help people access care and dismantle barriers. As reproductive choice is about choice, we need systems in place to support individuals who choose to stay pregnant and/or parent. There is no need for a Supreme Court decision. Many could be legislated by Congress or implemented by executive order.

Lady Justice has a scale and a sword. She is blindfolded. The Supreme Court will not use this sword with respect to abortion and some justices need to come off their blindfolds. The work of preserving abortion rights is not limited to people who are pregnant. My patients should be free to make decisions about their bodies. So do you.