Republicans Threaten Doctors Who Fail to Provide Emergency Pregnancy Care Amid Abortion Bans
Florida health officials issued new guidance about abortion on Thursday, threatening to take “regulatory action” against doctors who delay in providing emergency medical care to pregnant patients, as providers say the state’s abortion ban has doctors afraid to do their jobs and is putting patients at risk.
“They know their law is what puts women in danger and they’re just trying to threaten physicians so that we feel scared, rather than taking accountability for what their law is doing to people,” an OB-GYN in Florida tells Rolling Stone. She asked that her name not be used because the state controls her license and she fears retaliation for speaking out against them.
“You can’t legislate an individual person’s health care decisions because all it does is create mayhem for the patient and the doctor involved,” said the physician. She says the new guidance just further muddies the waters about what’s legally permissible under the state’s six-week ban. “It’s playing politics and trying to cast blame on doctors,” she added.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision allowing states to ban abortion, reports have trickled out around the country of patients who are unable to obtain necessary medical care, as doctors worry they will be prosecuted. Florida’s six-week ban went into effect in May; under the law, doctors who perform abortions can face felony charges and up to five years in prison.
That law was signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose administration is now openly campaigning against a ballot measure to restore abortion access in the state. The Agency for Health Care Administration and the Florida Health Department sent all licensed physicians a provider alert yesterday, claiming to “address misinformation currently being spread concerning Florida’s abortion laws.”
The alert points to several exceptions to the abortion ban. “The law is clear: abortion is permissible at any stage of pregnancy in Florida to save the life and health of the mother,” the guidance says. They add that a failure to provide life-saving treatment to pregnant patients without delay “may constitute malpractice” and “regulatory action” will be taken against providers.
The American Civil Liberties Union says, in reality, the ban “makes it difficult for survivors of rape, incest and human trafficking to access an abortion in Florida. Under the ban, survivors of rape, incest, and human trafficking are required to provide documentation of their assault, and if they don’t, they will be required to carry and give birth. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or human trafficking after the fifteenth week of pregnancy.”
The ACLU adds that the ban’s exceptions for a pregnant patient’s health are “inaccessible” and “endanger patients’ health, safety, and future fertility.”
Lauren Brenzel is the campaign director for Yes on 4, the ballot measure that would relegalize abortion in the state. They say it’s tough to be an OB-GYN in Florida right now.
“You are simultaneously being told you are going to prison if you make a mistake and provide abortion in a context they don’t consider valid, while also being threatened with regulatory action and malpractice if you do not provide that care,” Brenzel tells Rolling Stone. “It’s an impossible choice — physicians are being threatened on all sides by the government intervening in their medical decisions.”
Abortion rights supporters in the state find the timing of the state’s new guidance to be a political calculation. The guidance was issued days after the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights released a report about the consequences of the state’s abortion ban. It contained harrowing stories about cancer patients, underage rape survivors, and women miscarrying who had difficulty obtaining care this summer, following the state’s six-week abortion ban.
“Instead of [responding with] guidance on how to keep people healthy and protected, they’re sending out intimidating letters to every licensed physician,” says Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida alliance of Planned Parenthood affiliates. Goodhue said that after the guidance was issued, she received an influx of questions from doctors and nurses across the state.
“Doctors don’t know what to do,” said Goodhue. “It’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” She said she usually hears from the doctors she works with, but this was a much larger amount. They were telling her they were confused, that they felt they’d already been following the law, and one maternal fetal medicine specialist told Goodhue she found the guidance offensive.
“She was like, I’ve never been so offended — I’m in this work because I want to protect mothers and babies, that’s what I do,’” recounts Goodhue.
In addition to being a major talking point in this year’s election, particularly in Florida, the national abortion conversation heated up this week with ProPublica’s reporting on two Black women in Georgia whose deaths were “preventable” but happened as a consequence of the state’s abortion ban.
One of the women, a single mother named Amber Thurman, was diagnosed with “acute severe sepsis” which would typically be treated by a common minor surgical procedure called a dilation and curettage, or D&C. But doctors, afraid of potentially violating a new George abortion ban, waited 20 hours to operate and Thurman died.
Last night, Thurman’s family attended Oprah’s virtual campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris. “People around the world need to know that this was preventable,” said Thurman’s mother, Shanette. “You’re looking at a mother that is broken. The worst pain ever, that a mother, that a parent, could ever feel.”
Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, emphasized Shanette’s words that Amber’s death was “preventable” and that abortion bans criminalizing health providers can have fatal consequences, even when there are exceptions for the life of the mother.
“Here’s the problem with that: Is she on death’s door before you actually decide to give her help? Is that what we’re saying,” said Harris. She added that politicians, including Donald Trump, “think they’re in a better position than a doctor or a nurse to determine when their patient needs medical care.”
On Friday afternoon, Harris brought up Thurman’s case during a campaign event in Atlanta. She described Thurman as a “vibrant” and “ambitious” 28-year-old mother of a six-year-old boy. “We will speak her name — Amber Nicole Thurman,” said Harris, leading the crowd in a chant repeating her name. Harris pointed out that the two Georgia deaths reported on by ProPublica are “only the stories we know.” Because of how maternal mortality data is reviewed in states, there is a lag in reporting on preventable deaths such as Thurman’s.
As controversy grows over the health consequences of abortion bans in states like Florida and Georgia, Republicans are increasingly characterizing these cases as “misinformation” or saying that doctors are misunderstanding the law.
In Louisiana, Attorney General Liz Murrill released a six-page statement with similar language to Florida’s health department. She claimed the media and politicians are spreading “disinformation” about Louisiana’s abortion ban.
“To be clear: nothing in Louisiana laws stands in the way of a doctor providing care that stabilizes and treats emergency conditions,” said Murrill. “Any statements to the contrary are flatly incorrect. Any hospital or doctor at any hospital or emergency room who refuses to treat and stabilize a woman having a miscarriage or suffering with an ectopic pregnancy could be committing both medical malpractice and violating federal law.”
Murrill’s statement comes after increased pressure on Louisiana for passing an unprecedented law reclassifying common pregnancy care pills, including misoprostol, as controlled dangerous substances. Hundreds of doctors have spoken out about concerns the law will cause delays in care for women, particularly since misoprostol is used to treat postpartum hemorrhage and will be removed from obstetric carts.
Goodhue says it’s typical for anti-abortion politicians to pass laws that endanger women, and then try to deflect blame for the consequences.
“It’s the way that they operate — through intimidation and bullying. It’s been going on since we’ve had protesters outside of our clinic since Roe v. Wade [was originally decided],” she says. “Women have been judged and shamed for accessing health care for 50 years. And now it’s state sponsored intimidation and bullying.”
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