Abortion is about protecting women's health

Opinion essay echo:  A dangerous time for pregnant women in Wisconsin published in The Cap Times newspaper, in Madison, WI:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade opens the door for states to ban abortions, including in Wisconsin.

As a physician, I worry about how our state’s ban is already interfering with women’s health in the state. I urge Wisconsin’s legislators to restore abortion access in the state to protect my patients’ — and all Wisconsinites' — reproductive freedom.

With Roe out of the way, a Wisconsin law dating back to 1849 that criminalizes abortion can once again be enforced — and is already preventing nearly all abortions in the state. This antiquated law provides no exceptions for rape or incest. Wisconsin has taken a big step backward in time, and modern medical decisions are being held hostage to a law written a year after Wisconsin became a state, 70 years before women could legally vote, and well before we even understood how to determine if a pregnancy was going to go on to become a baby. This law is from a time before there was even a medical school in Wisconsin.

The 1849, law’s only exception is so vague it leaves gold-standard, life-saving, and life-affirming medical therapy open for interpretation and scrutiny. Abortions are allowed only to save a pregnant person’s life. Yet deciding what constitutes a life-threatening emergency isn’t defined in this law.

We’ve already seen examples from Texas and here in Wisconsin where physicians are paralyzed to treat emergencies like ectopic pregnancies. So instead physicians direct patients to drive to nearby states, deny them care, or ask them to delay treatment until their situation becomes critical. The politicians that have worked so hard to prohibit abortions, most of them men who have no regard for the life of pregnant persons in their own state, have given no thought to patients with preeclampsia or pre-viable premature rupture of membranes, or the myriad other pregnancy complications that can occur prior to the fetus being able to live outside the womb.

Most physicians are less concerned about going to jail, as we are about what happens to our patients without access to abortion. 

That being said, physicians are fearful of being prosecuted just for doing our jobs. This fear may lead to decision paralysis and result in poor outcomes for patients.

Without access to abortion, women will be forced to flee to seek care elsewhere. Those who can’t take time off or afford to travel to another state for an abortion will be forced to carry unexpected pregnancies to term, or seek to end their pregnancy without the benefit of a trained provider. While many of us don’t remember the days before Roe, when pregnant people died trying to end unintended pregnancies at the hands of fly-by-night practitioners or worse, we have heard the stories. We refuse to allow pregnant humans to be subjected to these types of situations again.

As physicians, we know all too well that pregnancy comes with risk to the life and health of the human carrying it. Pregnancy can be dangerous and can have physical and mental health complications. In the United States, pregnancy is also all too often deadly.

The United States has a shockingly high maternal mortality rate, much higher than similarly developed nations. Pregnancy can cause other complications with long-term health impacts such as high blood pressure, diabetes and infection.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg(1933-2020)

Apart from medical complications, abortions are also necessary in non-clinical situations. Women in abusive relationships might not be able to leave because of a forced pregnancy. Some women may simply not want to be pregnant. Women from all walks of life make these deeply personal decisions.

Physicians must be able to continue to care for our patients with evidence-based, science-backed health care. We must be able to offer our patients all the options our modern medicine allows and trust that they will make the decisions that will be best for their bodies, their families and their futures. At no time do we want politicians and unelected judges interfering in our personal medical choices.

Every Wisconsinite deserves privacy. Every Wisconsinite deserves autonomy over their own health and safety. And every Wisconsinite should have the freedom to make their own decisions around abortion, just as they have for nearly half a century now.

We thank Governor Tony Evers for his leadership on protecting abortion access, but we need leaders in the Legislature to step up too. Politicians who put up barriers to health care, including abortions, must be held accountable. Instead of prohibiting health care, they should be working to protect all aspects of it, including abortions.

Jill Cousino is an OB-GYN physician, in Janesville, Wisconsin and a member of the Committee to Protect Health Care.