AAPLOG’s Post

🔴HAPPENING NOW! We are in court in Tennessee today for a hearing in our case challenging the state’s extreme abortion ban. Watch it live here: https://bit.ly/3VNZ05A We're representing seven Tennessee women who were denied medically necessary abortion care while facing severe and dangerous pregnancy complications, and two physicians who have been prevented from offering their patients the medically indicated treatment during obstetrical emergencies. Tennessee's ban purports to have a “medical exception,” yet each of our patient plaintiffs was denied care DURING A MEDICAL CRISIS. Why? The unclear, unscientific wording of the ban and the extreme penalties for providers who violate the vague law ENSURED they'd be turned away. Our lawsuit asks Tennessee to clarify the law, to give patients and doctors clear guidance on what qualifies as a medical emergency, so that no one else need ever experience the extreme pain and suffering our clients endured at the hands of the state. Meanwhile, the State of Tennessee has the audacity to ask the court to dismiss the case entirely—to completely disregard and write off our clients' trauma—as if the government hasn’t made enough of a mockery of their suffering already. This effort is appalling. This case is clear cut: Tennesseans deserve access to essential medical care and laws that provide coherent guidance in keeping with medical standards. We will not stop fighting for justice for our plaintiffs, and for every person living under these intolerable laws.

Please join the Network for Public Health Law for a free webinar, It Takes a Village: Expanding the Types of Professionals Who Can Provide Reproductive Care for Improved Maternal Health Outcomes, on Thursday, April 18, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET. This webinar will focus on issues surrounding maternal health, with a focus on access to reproductive health care and pregnancy-related services to improve maternal health outcomes and reduce health inequities. Haley Campbell Garcia (University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law Class of 2024) will focus on midwife care. Comprehensive access to midwife care could play a critical role in reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. States are working to expand the number of midwives by allowing the licensure of direct entry midwives, which are midwives who may be credentialed without formal nursing education. The training requirements and practice guidelines vary widely state to state. Haley will discuss those varied requirements, with examples from several states, drawing from her Network resource, Direct Entry Midwives Across the Nation. Similarly, Jordan Jekel (University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Class of 2024) has been examining the role of state law in supporting access to doula services. Jordan’s presentation will focus on the themes in doula regulation across fifty states, including the insurance coverage for doula services and doula certification requirements. She will also explain the importance of doulas and how states can implement new laws or regulations to increase access and improve maternal health outcomes. Dr. Mary Jo Bondy and Dr. Jessica Lee are leading one state’s efforts to expand access to reproductive and sexual health care by expanding the type of health professionals who may provide reproductive health care, specifically including nurse practitioners and physician assistants. As described in Maryland’s Approach to Enhancing Access to Abortion: Expanding Scope of Practice, a Network Law and Policy Insight, Maryland’s Abortion Care Access Act created the Abortion Care Clinical Training Program through which health care providers will be educated and trained on providing reproductive health care, including contraception and abortion care. Drs. Bondy and Lee are leading the efforts to design and implement the education and training program contemplated in the Act. They will describe the program and the efforts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) to increase community access to reproductive health care through the program. Attendees will learn about the law and policy levers than can improve maternal health outcomes and expand access to reproductive health care, with concrete examples that can be implemented in any jurisdiction, regardless of laws regulating abortion care. https://lnkd.in/egx63vvF

Please check out this exciting webinar from the Network for Public Health Law!

July 18, 2024 Just released: 2024 State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care https://lnkd.in/erP2Zcs2 The health of women in the United States is in a perilous place. Deaths from preventable causes are on the rise and deep inequities persist, leading to stark racial differences in maternal mortality and deaths from breast and cervical cancers. Despite a small rebound in women’s life expectancy in 2022, it remains at its lowest since 2006.1 These troubling health trends are occurring while women are experiencing the consequences of state policy choices and judicial decisions that limit their access to the full range of health services and reproductive care.  The U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022 has significantly altered both access to reproductive health care services and how providers are able to treat pregnancy complications in the 21 states that ban or restrict abortion access. Clearly, women’s health is under threat. That’s why the Commonwealth Fund has developed the first-ever state scorecard to track trends in women’s health over time and document how policy choices and judicial decisions may impact women’s access to timely health care.

ICYMI: Texas abortion bans lack specific guidelines for physicians to follow when providing reproductive care, especially in miscarriage cases. Thus, health care providers are forced to weigh legal consequences before patients’ safety. In a paper by researchers from the Baker Institute Center for Health and Biosciences and Rice University students, authors outline the large-scale implications of Texas policy on access to miscarriage care and recommend policy actions to ensure the protections for physicians and patients. Read more: https://bit.ly/3SFcuhO

Despite challenges and opposition, the dedication of #PrimaryCare physicians is reshaping reproductive health care. They are normalizing #AbortionCare and making it more accessible in states where it remains legal. Read more about how primary care is changing the landscape of #AbortionAccess: https://ow.ly/tGl750SzBxx #ReproductiveRights #FamilyMedicine

It's #2024. This time last year, I was spending my days analyzing, writing, and conducting stakeholder outreach to effectively protect #California #abortion and gender-affirming care providers and abortion-seekers across the country. On January 1st this California "Shield Law" officially took effect. California now protects providers, pharmacists, and individuals supporting abortion, contraception, and gender-affirming care in three key scenarios: 🔸 When a #patient travels from a banned state to California for essential reproductive and/or gender-affirming healthcare and returns home after receiving care 🔸 Where the California-licensed clinician provides care via telehealth, regardless of patient location (#Colorado, #NewYork #Vermont #Massachussetts and #Washington, all with similar #teleMAB shield laws") 🔸 Where a California-licensed clinician serves a patient in a state other than California in which they are licensed and where the care provided is permitted, but the patient travels from a third state where the healthcare provided may be restricted or banned Additionally, 🔹 CA law enforcement, government officials, or government contractors are prohibited from cooperating with out-of-state prosecutions related to #abortion, #contraception, #gender-affirming care 🔹 CA-based social media and tech companies are prohibited from disclosing to law enforcement any private communication of patients regarding health care that is legally protected in our state ⚖ Anyone seeking to provide or support these legally protected healthcare services should consult an attorney to have an individualized risk analysis. ⚠ These laws are novel and have not yet been upheld in any state or federal courts to date. ❓ Questions? Feel free to reach out, I'm happy to connect!

Having a purpose in life: As a Medical/surgery resident, I witnessed a Board certified obstetrician commit malpractice: fail vaginal delivery, proceed to forced, fail, then vacuum, fail, then forcep again, fail, then vacuum again, repeatedly until the child was born: with bilateral fractures skull and intracerebral hematomas and bleeding, producing seizures. At the time, common practice allowed one try vaginal, one try forcep, one try vacuum, then C Section if all else fails. That was the malpractice: not going to C Section. After that fuckup, I committed my life to 10 years of delivering babies alone in my practice, into this world to know one thing: I could deliver these babies safer than that obstetrician every time. 500 babies. 0 fetal fatalies. 5 congenital malformations that were non-viable during gestation (they could not live outside the mother’s pregnancy on their own). 0 maternal fatalities. I was really good at my job In women’s health. I’m asking every woman who reads this post, to sharpen your pen, and vote blue in November so you can be as committed to women’s health and reproduction as I was and I am…as a male physician, and take Trump MAGA oppressive Project 2025 hypocrisy and shove it right down their fucking throats and let them choke on it every day… The women in this country need to show Trump and MAGA who the important people are and who has the power. Take all 900 pages of Project 2025, open Trump and MAGA mouths, and stick your fists right down their throats and make them choke on it. Oppressing women and their rights is not fucking cool by me. 💙

New research published by American Public Health Association's American Journal of Public Health from UCSF's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) found that patients find telehealth for medication abortion HIGHLY acceptable: 📳 98% of patients trusted the virtual clinic and 96% felt that telehealth was the right decision. 📳 Patients reported feeling both cared for and very satisfied with the telehealth model of care. 📳 Patients cited privacy, timeliness, and being able to stay home as the biggest benefits of telehealth for abortion care. Read the study here: https://lnkd.in/eXK4hswB Learn more about the telehealth provision of medication abortion at RHITES.org.

Texas abortion bans lack specific guidelines for physicians to follow when providing reproductive care, especially in miscarriage cases. Thus, health care providers are forced to weigh legal consequences before patients’ safety. In a paper by researchers from the Baker Institute Center for Health and Biosciences and Rice University students, authors outline the large-scale implications of Texas policy on access to miscarriage care and recommend policy actions to ensure the protections for physicians and patients. Read more: https://bit.ly/3SFcuhO