A troubling new report from Louisiana shows how the state's abortion ban from 2022 is forcing doctors to delay or withhold medical care in
Put Republicans in power nationally and dystopian pregnancy care in "MAGA Mike" Johnson's Louisiana will become the norm from sea to shining sea. Republicans won't be happy unless there's a virtual MAGA overseer in every doctor's office.
In Louisiana, MAGA Republican state abortion restrictions are causing OB-GYNs to practice an extreme form of defensive medicine to avoid arrest.
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In the wake of Louisiana's abortion ban, pregnant women have been given risky, unnecessary surgeries, denied swift treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, and forced to wait until their life is at risk before getting an abortion, according to a new report first made available to NPR. It found doctors are using extreme caution to avoid even the appearance of providing an abortion procedure. "We were stunned by just how much regular medical practice for pregnant people has been disrupted," said Michele Heisler, the medical director of Physicians for Human Rights and one of the report's authors. [ ... ] In one of the most extreme examples of how pregnancy care has changed, doctors described cases of women who experienced preterm premature rupture of membranes (when the "water breaks" early in pregnancy, before the fetus is viable). Some of these women were forced to undergo Cesarean section surgeries to empty their uterus and avoid infection, instead of receiving an abortion procedure or medication. "Which is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous," said Freehill. "The least safe thing that we do, no matter if it's early in pregnancy or full-term at your due date, is a C-section." [ ... ] In what doctors described as another serious deviation from standard medical practice, OB-GYNs in Louisiana are now delaying routine prenatal care until patients reach 12 weeks of pregnancy — the point at which the risk of miscarriage drops significantly. One patient interviewed in the report said several different doctors' offices wouldn't see her before 12 weeks. [ ... ] Physicians are also delaying treatment of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy out of fear of breaking the law, the report found — as previously reported in news stories from states operating under abortion bans. Ectopic pregnancies — when the embryo implants outside of the uterus — are never viable, and they can even be deadly. [ ... ] Some hospitals have even told physicians that they can't give patients any information on how to get an abortion outside of Louisiana — because that advice could be construed as "providing" an abortion.
Believe it or not, things could get even worse in the state. There have already been reports at other news sources of OB-GYNs leaving Louisiana.
Louisiana already suffers from some of the highest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity in the nation. Black women in the state are more than twice as likely to die as a result of their pregnancy as white women. Nearly two-thirds of maternal deaths in Louisiana are among low-income women on Medicaid. Some doctors in the report said they have considered leaving Louisiana. Others warned that a possible exodus of OB-GYNs would exacerbate the state's existing shortage of obstetricians.
Considering how MAGA Republicans regard women as little more than baby-making machines, their assault on reproductive freedom ironically discourages pregnancies in the first place.
