Legalized misogyny
As I write, the lead story on the Washington Post’s (WaPo) website reports on Michael Cohen’s testimony in the Trump hush money trial. Why not? Anything Trump is clickbait. And the media talks about little else. But the following two stories illuminate the looming threat to women’s health in America. A peril growing in virulence in red states and threatening to affect access to medical treatment for women — even in blue states.
Mifepristone and misoprostol
In the story: “Louisiana moves to make abortion pills ‘controlled dangerous substances’.” WaPo reports:
Louisiana could become the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice.
Legislators in Baton Rouge added the provision as a last-minute amendment to a Senate bill that would criminalize an abortion if someone gives a pregnant woman the pills without her consent, a scenario of “coerced criminal abortion” that nearly occurred with one senator’s sister.
I cannot say the unnamed senator is lying about their unknown sister. However, we should note that the authority cited in most urban legends is the friend of a friend, the friend of a relative, the relative of a friend, or the relative of a relative.
Regardless, no one should object to laws criminalizing coerced abortion — although liberals should be wary of any language that grants ‘personhood’ to a fetus. But the reader must suspect that legislators added the story of the Senator’s sister for its emotive value rather than proof of widespread coerced criminal abortion.
WaPo continues:
The amendment would list mifepristone and misoprostol under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act, which regulates depressants, opioids and other sometimes highly addictive drugs. It elicited a strong reaction from more than 240 Louisiana doctors, who called it “not scientifically based.”
“Adding a safe, medically indicated drug for miscarriage management … creates the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation,” they wrote in a letter sent last week to the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Thomas Pressly. They noted misoprostol’s other critical uses, including to prevent gastrointestinal ulcers and to aid in labor and delivery.
“Given its historically poor maternal health outcomes, Louisiana should prioritize safe and evidence-based care for pregnant women,” they urged.
There’s the rub. Louisiana ranks 6th in infant mortality rate and 5th in maternal mortality rate. We should not be surprised. Death rates from most causes are high in pro-life states. And yet these states hate to spend money to keep people alive.
The 240 dissenting doctors should not expect Louisiana to “prioritize safe and evidence-based care for pregnant women“ any time soon. Empathy is not in the state’s political DNA.
Louisiana criminalizes medicine
Misogyny and wanton cruelty to women thrive in Louisiana. The state bans almost all abortions. Exceptions are limited. It does permit the procedure to save the pregnant woman's life. To prevent serious risk to the pregnant woman's physical health. And if the fetus is not expected to survive the pregnancy.
But that language is cold comfort to pregnant women carrying terminally compromised fetuses or whose pregnancy threatens their health and life. Their doctors face criminal jeopardy if prosecutors disagree with their diagnosis. The law mandates criminal penalties for an OB-GYN who gets it ‘wrong’. And those penalties for error are steep
Administering, prescribing, or providing abortion-inducing drugs to a pregnant female carries a penalty of 1-10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000-$100,000. Performing surgical abortions: 1-10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000-$100,000. Performing a late-term abortion: 1-15 years in prison and a fine of $20,000-$200,000.
Why would anyone want to be an OB-GYN?
Obstetrics and gynecology should be deeply satisfying medical disciplines. Pregnancy and childbirth — for women ready medically, physically, psychologically, and financially to be voluntarily pregnant — are usually the most emotionally fulfilling experiences they will experience.
But when red states make uteruses potential crime scenes, young Americans contemplating a medical career will move OB-GYN down the list or look to practice elsewhere. WaPo reports as much in its piece “Abortion bans are repelling the nation’s future doctors”.
Ash Panakam is about to graduate from Harvard Medical School. She’s from Georgia and always assumed she would return to the South for her residency. But the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the nationwide right to abortion changed everything.
“Ultimately I shifted my selection pretty drastically,” she said. “I was struggling to find a residency program in the South where I could still get the training I consider fundamental to the skill set needed to be an OB/GYN.” Instead of going home to Georgia, she’s headed to Pittsburgh to start her medical residency this summer. Panakam has plenty of company.
It is not just potential OB-GYNs rejecting states where politicians practice medicine. WaPo continues:
For the second year running, fewer graduating U.S. medical students applied for residency training in states with abortion bans or restrictions than in the previous year, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. (Overall applications were down slightly, because students are being urged to apply to fewer programs, but the decrease was markedly larger in states where abortion is illegal or significantly restricted.)
It’s not just obstetrician-gynecologists; the decline crosses specialties, including those that don’t serve primarily pregnant patients. That could threaten the future of the overall medical workforce in states with bans, because doctors tend to locate permanently where they do residencies.
Today, Louisiana. Tomorrow, the US?
Women in blue states should worry as well. The Supreme Court has already spat on women by stripping them of a fundamental right in the Dobbs decision. The smart money says they are ready to do more damage. Is a national abortion prohibition impossible to imagine?
A national ban will put OB-GYNs everywhere in the same legal jeopardy they already work under in the ‘women are second-class citizens’ states. And women in relatively enlightened states will end up as dismissed as their sisters in the hell of the Bible Belt.
If that is not reason enough to vote, what is?