Now that Indiana’s far-reaching abortion ban is about to take effect, we are days away from what realists have been warning about: Women with pregnancy complications will suffer, and some may die, because of politicians who put a small but vocal anti-abortion-rights base first.
It’s illegal to practice medicine in Indiana without years of education, training and certification. That hasn’t stopped our state’s supermajority Republican lawmakers, however, from imposing themselves between women and their doctors.
The Indiana law set to take effect Aug. 1, if it is not again blocked by a court, would be among the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans. The Indiana General Assembly’s supermajority Republicans took a damn-the-torpedoes approach, rejected the many voices who last year urged restraint, and rushed through bad law just days after the US Supreme Court overturned a federal right to abortion.
Simply put, our leaders turned a deaf ear to arguments that the law would harm women.
The law, as The Republic’s Andy East reported, “prohibits the vast majority of abortions even in the earliest stages of a pregnancy except in cases of rape and incest before 10 weeks post-fertilization, to protect the life and physical health of the mother and if the fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.”
As is often the case, this law comes chock full of what health providers describe as unintended consequences — just like pregnancies can when there are complications.
Under this new law, a doctor’s judgments regarding the care she provides will be under an invasive microscope. This is by design. If you don’t believe that, simply look at Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s repulsive public war on Dr. Caitlin Bernard.
Medical professionals trained to care for patients in a spectrum of situations should not face the added complication of perhaps running afoul of vague law crafted by political opportunists in the Statehouse who couldn’t pass basic anatomy. Yet here we are.
Columbus Regional Health and other providers are trying to comply with the law, but as CRH vice president and associate chief medical officer Dr. Rachel Reed told East, when a doctor may intervene to terminate a pregnancy is unclear, even when there are complications. Even if the doctor knows from her training that termination is in the patient’s best interests.
“Guidance from the Indiana Hospital Association has led us to define it … as if the patient were at risk of death or substantial or irreversible physical harm,” Reed said. “However, it does not include psychological or emotional mental health-type conditions. Basically, it’s that the physician makes this decision based on reasonable medical judgment. So it is left very nebulous.”
And doctors had better be ready to back up their judgment in court. Because this law permits the prosecution of healthcare providers.
Patients are not served by this new law. Indiana women will suffer as a result of this new law. Doctors will be restricted from the full range of effective care and treatment of women experiencing complications during pregnancy as a result of this law.
Our state’s leaders heard all of this last year. They simply did not care.
