The War Against Women
27 September 2024
I am a member of the Committee to Protect Healthcare, whose mission is to provide better healthcare and pro-patient leadership in the U.S., based on support by doctors and advocates. It does not accept donations from Big Pharma, insurance companies or for profit healthcare corporations.
This week’s newsletter focuses on the reproductive rights of women and girls, which were severely damaged by the Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade and continue to be attacked by Donald Trump, Republican governors and Republican legislatures. It describes what committee members have done and should be doing.
Physicians in Florida, Montana, Arizona or Nevada are requested to sign or endorse letters to their state legislatures. Other physicians should get involved with their state’s efforts to improve healthcare.
From Jessica Valenti:
ProPublica has published another story of a woman killed by Georgia’s abortion ban. Candi Miller died at home, too afraid to seek out care in her anti-abortion state after trying to self-manage an abortion. Her story comes on the heels of the news that Amber Thurman died in an Atlanta hospital after being denied a D&C.
It’s hard to know what to say at this point. Please read both articles about these women, if you haven’t already. Please share their stories, and make sure people in your life know that for every story we hear there are a hundred more that will never be told.
And remember, the people who created these laws knew women would die. Not only that, they expected it. They planned for it, polled and messaged it—they strategized their talking points! Everything they say now is the result of decades of work preparing for this moment.
From Sarah Jones, New York Magazine
When abortion bans kill, they reveal their true purpose: to grant a handful of extremists power over the lives and deaths of American women. Women aren’t human beings to these extremists; to them, there is nothing real about female suffering. Women are not flesh but abstractions, and their deaths are remote. What matters, instead, is the fetus – in reality a non-person, a possibility only, but a useful tool by which an extremist may discipline a woman for any infraction imaginable. Abortion opponents will hardly admit this and burrow into rhetoric about human dignity and the sanctity of life. In death, however, we see the truth. The further a woman falls from a far-right ideal of white Christian womanhood, the more severely she must be punished.
From Care Post-Roe: Documenting cases of poor-quality care since the Dobbs decision:
The post-Dobbs laws and their interpretations altered the standard of care across these scenarios in ways that contributed to delays, worsened health outcomes, and increased the cost and logistic complexity of care. In several cases, patients experienced preventable complications, such as severe infection or having the placenta grow deep into the uterine wall and surrounding structures, because clinicians reported their “hands were tied,” making it impossible for them to provide treatment sooner. One physician described a case of a patient who had ruptured membranes at 16-18 weeks’ gestation but was denied an abortion because of a new state law. She was sent home and developed a severe infection requiring management in the intensive care unit. The patient subsequently delivered her fetus but required a procedure to remove her placenta. The physician wrote, “The anesthesiologist cries on the phone when discussing the case with me—if the patient needs to be intubated, no one thinks she will make it out of the OR.” Health care providers described feeling moral distress when they were unable to provide evidence based care, and some reported considering moving their practices to a state where abortion remains legal.
What can you do? This is what I am doing - you should find things to do that make sense for you:
Supporting Democratic (pro-choice) candidates for President (Harris), the U.S. Senate and U.S. House so we can restore reproductive rights across the country.
Supporting pro-choice candidates at the State level in Michigan and anti-abortion states, and supporting pro-choice organizations such as the Committee to Protect Healthcare and Planned Parenthood.
Telling my friends and social media contacts to do this and publicizing related material.
Avoiding business and other travel to anti-abortion states since they are dangerous to women and girls. If my staff are pregnant (which is none of my business and so I may not know) and have a problem, they may not get optimal care because the physicians and other health care personnel in anti-abortion states cannot deliver it - if they do, they may be charged with serious crimes.
Avoiding toxic media, such as Fox and anything associated with the Murdoch family, which has promoted these anti-women laws.
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