A Care Post-Roe Study released last week by an Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), led by abortionist Dr. Daniel Grossman at the University of California San Francisco, revealed confusion among pro-abortion doctors over pro-life laws and the basic difference between an induced abortion and actual health care.
The report claimed that doctors are feeling distress, now that they can’t commit abortions in pro-life states, and patients are afraid that they won’t get the health care they need because of pro-life laws protecting preborn children from induced abortion. But induced abortion is different; it carries the intent of producing a dead patient — the preborn child — without that patient’s consent or due process. Yet, the doctors quoted in this study either aren’t aware of that or are purposefully conflating induced abortion with preterm delivery in an emergency.
Combined with poor and dishonest journalism from major media outlets, ill-informed doctors are endangering the lives of women. Faulty research from abortion industry insiders and stories of women who have suffered as a result of a misunderstanding of abortion and abortion laws are further fueling the lies that induced abortion is ‘health care’ and that women are being denied that ‘health care’.
ANSIRH researchers Daniel Grossman, Carole Joffe, Shelly Kaller, Katrina Kimport, Elizabeth T. Kinsey, Natalie Morris, and Kari White noted stories of second-trimester complications, ectopic pregnancies, pre-existing medical conditions, miscarriage, fetal diagnosis, and additional denials of health care as alleged proof that doctors are being prohibited from taking care of women. But this is a pro-abortion lie that is brewing the fear among women. preventing them from seeking care in an emergency, and leading to potential irreversible damage or death.
Key Things to Note:
1. Second trimester complications like PPROM, HELLP syndrome, anemia, preeclampsia, etc., do not warrant intentionally killing the preborn baby during an induced abortion. It is not the standard of care for these complications. Shouldn’t doctors know this?
2. Treating ectopic pregnancy is legal in every state. Doctors should be aware of this, too.
3. It’s not necessary to intentionally kill preborn babies with life-limiting conditions. Abortion doesn’t prevent loss or grief.
4. Doctors aren’t being prevented from caring for their patients because of pro-life laws; they simply seem unwilling or unable to understand the difference between natural death and intentional killing. This is unacceptable and should be basic medical ethics.
“Obstetric complications in the second trimester”
The report’s section on “Obstetric complications in the second trimester” used examples such as preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), anemia, elevated blood pressure, HELLP syndrome, and molar pregnancy. And yet, induced abortion is not the standard of care in any of these situations.
If medical institutions like Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and others are openly listing the standard of care for such situations, many updated and medically reviewed within the past two years — and none of them recommend induced abortion but instead recommend expectant management or early delivery in an emergency situation — how is it that practicing doctors don’t know this?
Pro-life laws specifically restrict actions taken to intentionally end the lives of preborn children, not to save their mothers’ lives. In fact, every single pro-life law in the country has an allowance to commit an abortion to save a mother’s life. Some also have provisions to allow it to prevent significant and/or irreversible damage to a bodily function of the woman.
In these situations mentioned above, after all other options are exhausted, a preterm delivery may be the last resort to save a woman’s life. But a preterm term emergency delivery isn’t classified as an abortion under the law, unless the intent of that emergency delivery is to ensure the death of the preborn baby. Delivering a baby to save a mother’s life isn’t an induced abortion — not even if the baby dies as a result of being delivered too early.
The intent of an emergency delivery is to save the mother, not to make sure the baby is directly killed or neglected until he or she dies. And therefore, that delivery is not considered an abortion or induced abortion under the law.
“Ectopic pregnancy”
According to the report, “Health care providers submitted several narratives related to ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable, will become life-threatening, and are generally treated with methotrexate or surgery according to standard of care.”
This is accurate — however, those treatments carry the goal of saving the mother’s life and are therefore not considered abortions under pro-life laws, and are not prohibited by those laws.
To claim that pro-life laws prevented ectopic pregnancy treatment is an admission that doctors are not properly informing themselves of the laws surrounding abortion, and neither are the hospitals where they practice.
The report continued, “However, submitters reported cases of ectopic pregnancy in which extra steps, including consulting multiple physicians, were required to provide the needed care post-Dobbs.”
However, those steps were not necessary and put women in danger.
In one story, a patient experiencing an ectopic pregnancy was told by the doctor that she needed a manual D&C procedure to see if there was pregnancy tissue in the uterus — an unnecessary step. Since he perceived a D&C to be illegal (and it isn’t), instead of giving the patient methotrexate, he sent her home. They repeated testing two days later and then two days after that she was supposed to repeat testing again — however, she arrived with severe pain and blood in her abdomen and pelvis. She had to undergo emergency surgery.
The ANSIRH report claimed, “This could have been avoided if [state] law had allowed the patient to receive evidence-based treatment when she first presented to the [emergency department].”
State law did allow treatment. It was a misguided doctor who caused the issue.
The report also states, “A few of the submitted narratives described cases of ectopic pregnancy where care was delayed because the patient was fearful or wary of seeking any pregnancy-related care in their home state where an abortion ban was in effect.”
This is evidence that the false narratives in the media regarding pro-life laws are leading women to wrongly believe they cannot receive treatment for ectopic pregnancy in their home states. Media and abortion industry lies are now costing women’s lives.
Another two patients presented with C-section scar ectopic pregnancies, a condition in which induced abortion is not necessary and can prove dangerous.
“Underlying medical conditions complicating care”
The report also noted underlying medical conditions that could complicate pregnancy, as a reason for induced abortion.
One patient had five born children and had postpartum cardiomyopathy, which had persisted since her previous birth. Because preborn children are protected from abortion in her home state, she traveled out of state in the second trimester (16-18 weeks) for a D&E abortion in which her preborn child, just three to five weeks away from viability, was dismembered.
According to the National Institutes of Health, “women who have cardiomyopathy without any complications can have safe pregnancies.” An induced abortion is unnecessary, but if the mother’s health is at serious risk, inducing labor early to save her is not considered an induced abortion and is legal.
Another patient in the report had mental health concerns when she became pregnant — concerns that the report claims ‘required’ her to “travel out of state to get abortion care…” That patient, who was a sexual assault survivor, had attempted suicide when suffering from morning sickness. Rather than provide her with emotional support and mental health care, she was sent for an abortion.
“Fetal anomalies and other fetal compromise”
The report also referenced situations of abortion for fetal diagnosis, such as severe growth restriction and conditions deemed to be life-limiting for the child. Researchers found it to be a problem that a woman who was told her child had a life-limiting condition could not undergo a second trimester dismemberment abortion at their practice, and told her she would need to travel out of state. They blamed the pro-life law for the woman’s decision to carry the baby.
A second story included in the report was of a baby with anencephaly and the heartbroken mother who carried the baby to term “just to see the demise of her baby” — as if an abortion wouldn’t have led to the baby’s death. Abortion doesn’t prevent loss or grief. Abortion is loss, and can cause additional grief. Dismembering one’s child or ending his life by lethal injection and induction is not better than seeing and holding one’s child, whole and intact and treated with proper human dignity.
In fact, research shows that women who carry their babies with life-limiting conditions to term and are allowed to grieve, actually do better mentally than women who abort their babies with such diagnoses. As previously noted by Live Action News:
According to Perinatal Hospice and Palliative Care, which provides resources for parents who are facing such a diagnosis, significant research shows that women who have an abortion following a fetal diagnosis suffer “physical and emotional pain, with psychosocial and reproductive consequences.” Additional studies found that aborting a ‘wanted’ baby due to a diagnosis can be a “traumatic event … which entails the risk of severe and complicated grieving.”
Alleged distress among doctors
The study authors claim that pro-life laws have left doctors unable to provide the standard of care “leading to harm and negative health outcomes for patients…” and “moral distress” for the doctors.
“One thing that was notable in some of these more recent submissions,” Grossman told States Newsroom last year, “is how moral distress is being incorporated into medical education, like medical students and residents are essentially now learning about the moral distress as part of their medical education, as they’re learning about the care that they can’t provide.”
However, it isn’t that doctors are being prevented from caring for their patients; it’s that they are unwilling to understand the law or the difference between intentionally killing a baby when a pregnancy must end or carrying out an emergency delivery to save a mother’s life regardless of the baby’s viability.
A natural death is not the same as an intentional killing. This is not a difficult concept, and should be part of basic medical ethics.
Women are being put in danger, not by pro-life laws, but by misinformation being spread by abortion groups like ANSIRH and abortion-friendly media.
This was made evident this week when ProPublica published the story of Candi Miller, who failed to seek treatment for her unique situation out of fear and misunderstanding of her state’s pro-life law. Because of that fear, she ordered abortion pills online, experienced an incomplete abortion, and died.
