On this edition of Your Call, we’ll speak with doctors about the unprecedented landscape they face now that Roe has been overturned.
Yesterday, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, closed its doors. The clinic’s owner Diane Derzis has worked in abortion care for 50 years. She told Newsweek abortion bans will be in place for decades to come. "Most doctors are not going to jail for murder and I don’t think people realize that," she said. Doctors across the country are so frightened that "you’re going to see women of privilege start dying." Derzis is opening a new clinic in New Mexico, where abortion is legal.
Whole Woman’s Health, an independent abortion provider in Texas for 20 years, is also closing four clinics and relocating to New Mexico.
With providers fleeing states where bans are now enforced, patients could lose access to birth control, prenatal care, and other reproductive health services. What will happen to pregnant patients dealing with life threatening circumstances? Who will care for them?
Guests:
Dr. Ashley Brant, staff physician in the OB/GYN and Women's Health Institute at Cleveland Clinic in Northwestern Ohio, and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health
Dr. Erika Werner, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Tufts Medical Center, and the Louis E. Phaneuf teaching and research professor of gynecology at Tufts University School of Medicine
Web Resources:
Politico: Abortion doctors’ post-Roe dilemma: Move, stay or straddle state lines
Axios: Abortion restrictions could worsen Arizona's OB-GYN shortage
The Washington Post: The fall of Roe scrambles abortion training for university hospitals
WBUR: I'm a high-risk OB-GYN: Abortion helps me save lives
TIME: Abortion Restrictions May Be Making It Harder for Patients to Get a Cancer and Arthritis Drug
