Dobbs Has Created a Health Care Apocalypse [View all]

[marmar]

(Mother Jones) Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung spent four years in medical school, four years in an OB-GYN residency, and three years in a maternal-fetal medicine fellowship learning how to care for high-risk pregnant patients. In her decade-plus of medical training, she learned that in some cases, the only rational and responsible option for medical intervention is an emergency abortion. In July 2021 she moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and discovered she was the sole provider in her area trained to perform second-trimester dilatation and evacuation abortions for patients who needed them to survive.

But in 2022, the Supreme Court delivered its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, and Tennessee’s trigger ban—written in preparation for the possibility that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe—went into effect a month later. Suddenly, providing an abortion in Tennessee became an immediate Class C felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. There were no exceptions, even when an abortion was necessary to save a life or prevent serious bodily harm. Only after being arrested could a physician provide something called an “affirmative defense” to fight the charges. (Eight months after the trigger law took effect, the GOP governor signed a bill allowing abortions in limited medical emergencies.)

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“As more clinicians leave those states, as more maternity care deserts happen, we will see poorer outcomes,” says Dr. Stella Dantas, an OB-GYN in Oregon and the president-elect of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “And I do think we will see more maternal mortality just by the sheer fact that we won’t have providers even trained to take care of some of these obstetric emergencies.” Indeed, 64 percent of practicing OB-GYNs who responded to a KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) survey said the Dobbs ruling has worsened maternal mortality.

In the before times, a high-risk obstetrics patient might consider having an abortion to nearly eliminate their potential maternal health risks, or even just seek more frequent monitoring to decrease them. But what happens when there are fewer clinicians left to treat sicker pregnant patients—and higher numbers of them—as birth rates rise in abortion-banned states? Data from states tell the story. ..............(more)

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/dobbs-worsened-maternal-mortality-abortion/