Maternal Health Specialists Issue Joint Statement on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
As organizations representing health care professionals specializing in the provision of maternal care, we join together to denounce the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This decision promises to severely limit many of our members' ability to provide high-quality, patient centered maternal health care, and it will certainly lead to unnecessary patient suffering and harm.
A broad medical consensus holds that abortion is an essential part of reproductive health care and that without access to abortion, people will face harmful and enduring repercussions. As maternal health care professionals, we know that when we are restricted from using our training and expertise to serve patients to the best of our ability, our patients suffer. Those who are denied abortions suffer when they are forced to continue pregnancy, in some cases putting their lives and well-being at risk. Those who are denied the comprehensive spectrum of maternal care, including abortion, suffer when their trusted clinicians are forced by law to disregard evidence-based guidelines and standards for care they are otherwise trusted to follow.
Communities for whom structural inequities already exist will be further harmed by restricted access to abortion care as the gap in access to necessary health care widens. The restrictions that will fall into place as a result of this decision will radically diminish the pool of health care professionals who are trained in providing abortion care, including lifesaving interventions and care for high-risk and complex pregnancies.
Abortion is a common medical intervention that is critical to the lives, health, and well-being of those who need it. As in all medical matters, decisions regarding abortion should be made solely by patients in consultation with their health care professionals. This decision in Dobbs v. Jackson is a systemic dismantling of patient autonomy, reproductive health, and the patient–clinician relationship, and we soundly condemn this outcome. Eliminating and restricting access to legal abortion care does not mean that no one will receive abortion care; it means that in large swaths of our country, people will no longer have access to abortion care provided and supported by trusted health care professionals. Those who lack the extensive resources needed to seek abortion care outside their communities will suffer the most.
The devastating consequences of this decision are yet untold. As experts in maternal health care, we today redouble our commitment to serving our patients, protecting the patient-clinician relationship, and fighting for equitable access to the high-quality abortion care no individual should be denied.