A Public Health Advocate’s View of the Supreme Court’s Judgment on Legalizing Abortion: A Response to a PR Official
I live in a state where the realities of abortion are stark and politicized. Since June 24 when the Supreme Court upheld the law that legalized abortion, I have been worried about what will happen to patients like mine.
She said a physician in a leadership position at the hospital was disappointed that they’d had to say no to the journalist’s request to embed at their hospital. The doctor in the leadership position told her that they had to stop muzzling physicians. I want to figure out a way to get our voices out there.’ “
The doctor was asked by the PR official not to make comments to the NY Times, and he replied: “We ask that you not make comments at this time.”
The Impact of Prohibited Abortion on Women’s Health in a Country with a Liberalized Probabtion Law: A CNN Interview with the Associated Physician
As many physicians do, I also have more than one job. My other office – where I work as a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, not a maternal-fetal specialist – is at a clinic that regularly provides abortion care to all kinds of patients. Their lives are not always easy.
I assumed that as a state with relatively liberal abortion laws, we would step up to meet the surge. And I thought we would use our position as a respected women’s health institution to continue to educate about the impact these laws have on women’s health,” she told CNN.
In the aftermath of recent abortion restrictions, medical centers have to contend with fear and confusion, according to an acting chief health care officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges.
The clinicians are trying to avoid a situation in which something is said that could cause a problem for the institution, according to the leader of the group.
The fetus was too young to survive outside the uterus. Her water had broken, an ultrasound showing no amniotic fluid around the baby. In states where abortion is allowed, doctors would offer to terminate the pregnancy, since pregnant women in this situation have a high likelihood of developing an infection and becoming septic, which is a life-threatening emergency.
Since the passage of the Texas laws, some women have been denied abortions even when their lives were in danger and the fetus had fatal birth defects and would die within minutes of birth. Others have been denied abortions even after the fetus had died.
“Literally, we’ve had to watch patients deteriorate in front of our eyes,” said the doctor, a specialist in high-risk pregnancies who works at a public university.
A university official tells residents to do something nice and quiet and not to make a big deal out of something they aren’t interested in
It seems that this has been done to make us feel like criminals. That’s exactly how it makes us feel – like we’re doing something wrong,” she said. I think that we are all scared. I’m afraid of losing my job. I am the main breadwinner in my family, so if I lost my job it would be a big deal.
The doctor told CNN that at the meeting, administrators obtained a transcript and watched the video to make sure he wasn’t connected to his employer.
They said they had a good feeling they would say no. “They worry about state funding sources and what happens if it gets controversial, so unfortunately instead of supporting us, they want everyone to play nice and quiet and not stir up any trouble.”
The battle comes with a high price for everyone. Patients seeking abortion care and providers of that care should not be leveraged as political pawns or pushed to the forefront of national elections.
Despite these statements from respected national organizations, a university official told the residents to also remove the photo from their personal social media accounts, according to the doctor familiar with the situation. The doctor added that a little bit later, the official told the residents they could post the picture on their own accounts, as long as they didn’t identify where they work.
The doctor said that lawyers from the university gave a speech to the residents about the limitations of free speech. CNN has seen a photo.
The doctor said residents will not be able to find a new job if they are seen as difficult, so they are hesitant to make trouble.
CNN spoke with the UT Southwestern Medical Center about the Supreme Court opinion on abortion bans in high-risk maternal-fetal medicine
In the past year, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has issued more than 150 news releases detailing advances in the lab, studies conducted by its doctors, awards for its researchers and a new culinary medicine program, among dozens of other topics.
The official with CNN said that the researchers, if interested, could speak with CNN but they wouldn’t be involved in the state’s affairs.
The director of public relations for UT Southwestern said they won’t be commenting on the Supreme Court opinion at this time. The findings speak for themselves.”
Oncologists have expressed concern that abortion bans could hurt pregnant cancer patients. Pregnant women can’t receive certain cancer tests, and treatments that can harm a fetus, so if abortion is not an option, they sometimes have to delay lifesaving cancer care. In August of this year, two doctors wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine that abortion bans can hurt some patients, because they cannot offer complete or safe treatment to pregnant women with breast cancer.
When CNN reached out to the doctors at MD Anderson, they were not available for an interview, according to the MD Anderson public relations office.
MD Anderson said in a statement that its providers discuss the published data on the implications of delaying treatment due to pregnancy, and they refer patients to maternal fetal medicine specialists.
On October 7, CNN pressed further to speak with the doctors, and an associate vice president said they were working on coordinating the interviews, but none was made available prior to the deadline for this story.
Wade is the chief public affairs officer at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, a membership organization that includes physicians who are experts in high-risk pregnancies. A few months ago, a reporter from The New York Times Magazine approached Wade with the idea of embedding a photographer in a high-risk maternal-fetal medicine department.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/health/abortion-doctors-talking/index.html
The first day of the Supreme Court trial: a mother with twins, frightened to death or threatened to lose both, or forced to leave the hospital
I think people don’t understand what the laws are doing to real people due to not hearing the stories. That’s what people need to understand and hear,” she said.
She said that hospitals and practices that declined The New York Times’invitation told her that they were very nervous. “
As the laws change rapidly and the hospitals interpret them differently, there is a part of me that understands. So I can understand someone taking a very cautious approach – why they might see the world that way,” she said.
It started soon after the Supreme Court’s decision, when she and other maternal-fetal medicine specialists got on a call with their hospital’s administrators.
The medical center was not going to take a particular activist approach and would not make it easy for doctors to describe the impact of the new laws to the public.
The people were crying on the call when they realized how difficult the institution was going to be.
Because I specialize in diagnosing and treating high-risk patients, the people who come to me are already facing something they couldn’t possibly have planned for. I keep thinking about the mother with twins, facing a choice: aborting one fetus or losing both. A frightened 21 year old with a life threatening infectious disease developed after her water broke too early.
A Midterms Attorney’s Perspective on Abortion Laws in Michigan: How Much Will I Have to Donate? How Many Should I Ask for?
So far, courts have blocked enforcement of the 1931 law. But the appeals and judicial wrangling continue — and the uncertainty has been stressful and confusing for abortion providers in Michigan.
It’s hard to practice medicine when you’re always bracing for the next legal crisis that could harm your patients. I talk to hospital lawyers more frequently than any physician should, begging and pleading on patients’ behalf, frustrated that patients cannot receive the same care as they would in a different state.
Sometimes I have to turn a patient away because I have too much on my plate and I am not able to help them. Alternatively, I have the time and energy to help a patient and I am not able to. This serious breach of my duty as a physician is not easily recovered from, even when I am powerless to do otherwise.
But most of all, I worry that the next lawyer I discuss a complex case with will not understand, and that the patient who needs an abortion will be denied. I worry they will lack the time, money, transportation, and support to get the care they need. This denial will forever alter their life because it is not in line with my opinion or the patient’s wishes. I am afraid they will die.
But I still experience joy in my job sometimes. The trembling hands of a college student, suddenly still after swallowing the first pill of their medication abortion regimen, whispering with increasing confidence, “I’m going to be ok.” The tears of a transplant recipient dry when she knows she won’t have to go back on the transplant list when her already tenuous kidney fails again during another pregnancy.
The weight on a single mom’s shoulders has been removed, thanks to the fact that she can focus on her family and career now that she is free of the constraint of an unwanted pregnancy. I take some comfort from knowing that the shattered hearts of Tara and Justin – who desperately wanted the baby they had to say goodbye to – can finally start to heal now, knowing they did what was right for Tara’s health and spared their baby, who could not have lived, a short lifetime of pain.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/opinions/abortion-midterms-a-doctors-perspective-winchester/index.html
Telemedicine for Women: The Rise of Abortion in the United States After the Dobbs v. Jackson Anomaly
Patients should be able to make medical decisions that align with their beliefs and the health of their family and friends, without being pressured by the government. They should be able to receive accessible, compassionate care regardless of what state they live in. And doctors should be allowed to simply be doctors. I should be allowed to care for my patients without fear of reprisal or legal jeopardy.
It’s notable that some states that don’t restrict abortion access have seen a rise in the number of abortions due to necessity as well as “comfort and privacy.” The University of Texas at Austin public health researcher said this suggests that more women are choosing abortion for “comfort and privacy”
Clinics in states like Colorado, Illinois and New York have also seen more patients as women travel out of state for abortions. But the shift to telemedicine makes sense for practical reasons. First, having an abortion with pills at home, which has the physical effects of miscarrying, is as safe and effective in the first trimester as going to a clinic.
Democrats are in an unfavorable position as their party in control of the White House and facing growing concern about inflation and the economy, and the question is what degree the energy unleashed by this summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision will be.
Republicans focus on voters’ concerns about the economy, inflation, and crime. In some cases, they’re attempting to distance themselves from some of the most severe abortion restrictions that have taken effect since this summer’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
The overturning of Roe sent the question of abortion back to the states – making state legislators and governors extremely important in determining the laws and policies that regulate the procedure.
Governor’s races with mixed party control will be key, particularly in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Kansas – where Democratic governors have fought efforts to impose restrictive abortion laws.
The Women’s Health Protection Act is designed to codify abortion rights in federal law. That legislation passed the House last year in a largely symbolic vote but has lacked the votes to overcome the Senate filibuster.
Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of government affairs at SBA Pro-Life America, said without a nationwide abortion ban, people will continue to travel from states with restrictions to those with more liberal abortion laws.
President Biden has promised he would veto any such anti-abortion legislation that might pass while he’s in office, but NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said that would be too close for comfort.
The crisis pregnancy center where a woman in the U.S. was born: Women Speak Out Pac, PWPP, and Timmaraju
“We certainly don’t want to let it get that far. Timmaraju said it’s a bad precedent. “We’re not going to allow it to get to that point, that’s our goal.”
It is said that the issue of abortion rights may not be a priority for voters in this year’s election.
Voters are whole people, they carry their whole selves into the ballot box. “And what we have experienced as a nation is that our economy ebbs and flows – but once our fundamental freedoms are taken away, we don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to get that back.”
To that end, a coalition of national abortion rights groups is spending $150 million toward this campaign season, along with hundreds of millions more in abortion-focused ads from Democratic candidates themselves.
Meanwhile, SBA Pro-Life America’s Musgrave says the group’s Women Speak Out Pac has contacted some 8 million voters nationwide on behalf of anti-abortion rights candidates and related ballot measures.
The crisis pregnancy center where she ended up had a waiting area. Such centers are usually religious, and most aren’t licensed medical clinics, though their advertising can be misleading. Their primary goal is to convince people not to get an abortion.
NPR agreed to not to use full names for all the patients interviewed in this story because of the intimate medical information discussed concerning a highly politicized and controversial issue.
The conversation between a woman and her father about abortion in the statehouse: Why abortion is legal in Michigan at breakfast and lunchtime, but illegal by dinner
The waiting room at the Northland is pretty. Big windows look out on tall pines bending in the breeze. The TV will show the chatter of women who are remodeling their farmhouses.
Her father told her that she couldn’t tell anyone because no man would marry her if he knew. You’re going to get through it. We are going to take care of you. After this conversation, we’ll never discuss it again.’”
If the election is correct, it will be up to the voters if abortion stays legal. Proposal 3 would ensure the right to abortion in the Michigan constitution, as well as other reproductive rights, if voters approve it on Tuesday.
On August 1 for example, rapid-fire court rulings meant that abortion in Michigan was legal at breakfast, illegal at lunchtime, but legal once again by dinner.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/07/1131353552/michigan-abortion-legal-ballot-clinic
Annihilating into a marriage: A hummingbird’s tale of three visits to Northland, Michigan, and the abortion legal balance clinic
Northland’s founder Chelian, now 71, is like a hummingbird: a petite powerhouse who never stops moving. When she was a teenager, she wished the clinics she wanted existed, and she poured that energy into creating them: clean rooms, with soothing music playing in the procedure rooms. After their appointments, patients are given a brown paper bag filled with their prescriptions, and their names and a small heart on a pink marker.
But there was an abrupt turn to the appointment. “She wanted to pray for me, too,” she said. She handed me a book. It didn’t even seem like it was religion until the very end … They were posing to be so pro-choice, and they’re not.”
I am going through a divorce and I have slept with someone before. And then I got pregnant. And they were like, ‘Are you sure that you don’t see a future with this guy? What if we brought him in here?’ They were trying to talk me into having a baby that I couldn’t have, and then they’re trying to talk me into a relationship. It’s crazy.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/07/1131353552/michigan-abortion-legal-ballot-clinic
Melissa, 30, is coming to work every day. Why she is excited, how she’s scared, and why she’ll go to work for her husband, or why she wouldn’t
Once Melissa understood the Ohio center wasn’t going to help her, she tried to make her own appointment. At the time, abortions in Ohio were banned after six weeks. The clinics near her home had long wait lists. At the time of this appointment in Michigan, she was 14 weeks pregnant.
“And I wouldn’t trade my kids for anything, I love them to death,” M. says. “But I just feel like that phase of my life is over. And it was an amazing phase. But I don’t want to keep going back. I want to go forward.”
The doctor who is going to perform the procedure is an ogygrapher named Timothy Lance, who was brought into the procedure rooms by a staff member.
Like many of the patients here, Lance has children and the experience of raising a toddler gives most of the small talk before the procedure begins.
Lance has a cool purple hair and it helps nervous young patients relax when she walks in, because she is actually a woman with cool purple hair.
Lance says that it’s important for a small moment of connection and ease to be present given how political and ugly the legal fight over abortion have become. “It has been a hard couple of months, ever since the Dobbs decision.”
Lance says that “every week there is a new thing happening that affects way we could work, or whether we could work and whether we could continue to provide care.”
She’s hopeful that the vote on Prop 3 will wipe out the threat from the 1931 ban. “I am hopeful. But…” she sighs, then pauses. I believe you have to be. How could I come to work everyday if I wasn’t?”
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/07/1131353552/michigan-abortion-legal-ballot-clinic
A Mom in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and a Parent to Two Baby Girls With Her Ex-Mom, Annie Northland
Northland’s clinic in Sterling Heights sees about 22 to 24 patients a day. Half of the patients who a reporter visited allowed the reporter to accompany them to the surgery or the office visit.
A. is a slender, energetic mom with big, bright eyes. She’s quick to cut through any tension with a joke. But she dissolves into tears when asked about why she came to Northland.
“I don’t think I could survive if I knew that I had to have these babies with an abusive person,” A. says. “That’s insanity to me. I feel like a prisoner.
A has two small children with her former partner. She took the girls and left, and was trying to get a personal protection order when she found out she was pregnant with twins.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/07/1131353552/michigan-abortion-legal-ballot-clinic
An “abortion-legal-ballot-clinic” mom: “I can’t have sex, so I’ll have to give up”
I’ve asked them to fix it or do something else, and I’ve begged them to do it. They deny me,” she says, sobbing. I end up on medication for birth control. It’s insanity.”
“And I’m so fertile that it’s like, literally, I just, I have to stop having sex in order not to be pregnant. It’s my first abortion, and I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again.
A. wipes the tears from her face. She has a small smile. “That’s more sharing than I’ve done in like, ten years. I’m like the Grinch: my heart’s getting bigger.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/07/1131353552/michigan-abortion-legal-ballot-clinic
Bringing an abortion to Northland, Michigan: The story of a woman in a hairdresser’s dilemma at the end of her life
A. is what you might imagine when you think about why someone would need an abortion: An abusive relationship. Money problems. Emotional distress. And you do see a lot of that at Northland.
You see patients who are stable in their finances and are well-adjusted. Women like M. — who also asked to be identified only by her first initial.
“I want to go back to work and just kind of have something for myself other than just be a mother all day, every day,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
M. is married and has three kids, the youngest of which is about to enter school. After ten years of staying at home with her children, M. felt like she was on the cusp of something new.
At Northland, the pills for medication abortions are prescribed and dispensed in the morning, while the afternoon is dedicated to the surgical procedures.
Lance told one patient that the reporter could observe and record her procedure, but she asked not to be identified.
After the procedure is over, the lights are off and music plays. The patient is wearing a medical gown, her feet are stirrups, and the staffer is next to her holding her hand.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/07/1131353552/michigan-abortion-legal-ballot-clinic
The woman who caused her pregnancy to lose her job: a woman with a lot of responsibility but no need to lose it. The role of the family planning administrator
It’s typical for patients to be partially awake during first trimester abortions. Every patient gets the numbing medication and the IV medications for the pain and anxiety at a discounted price from the family planning organization.
Sitting in the waiting area a patient talked about how hard the journey had been. How she hid it from her mom at first, until her aunties threatened to tell her mom if she didn’t do it herself. How her mom was surprisingly supportive, getting up early with her that morning, and making sure she ate a good breakfast before her appointment.
But she did not want to be trapped with the guy who got her pregnant, she says. He was asked by her if he could help pay for the abortion. He told her the most he could do was split it.
She says that the men are never held responsible for things like this. “It’s always the woman. It’s always important for us to take care of it. Whether we keep it or not, it’s always put in our lap.”
You should stop thinking it can’t touch you. It could touch you in a number of ways. It could be your mother. It could be your sister. It could be your niece. It could be a girl of yours. Your future, your future daughter. Your future wife. Stop thinking it’s not going to touch you, man or woman.”