It’s been two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion. Patients deserve to know why this is disastrous.
Every physician remembers the most awful deaths — and for many, these include a death during pregnancy. These deaths are particularly terrible because the deceased is generally young, healthy and hopeful about becoming a parent. I remember very clearly my surprise while first learning in my medical school textbooks about how dangerous pregnancy is. I also vividly remember conversations with medical friends about the devastating and heartbreaking deaths during pregnancy and delivery. The June 24 anniversary of the disastrous Dobbs decision reminds me how protected most Americans are from the reality of what doctors know about deaths during and from pregnancy.
Most Americans would have been surprised how my social media feed changed when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Where I usually saw posts of kids and vacations, I now saw countless physicians recounting stories of people who were dying during their pregnancy and because of their pregnancy, and for whom having an abortion saved their life. Some of the stories included graphic details about catastrophic bleeding, heart failure, brain injuries, infections and strokes. Some were written by my friends, some were written by my coworkers, and some were written by strangers. And some were written about my friends and coworkers whose lives were saved during their pregnancy by their ability to get an abortion.
All those devastating stories reflected what doctors know but generally don’t speak about: that being pregnant is often the most dangerous time in most women’s lives. And when we limit access to abortion, we are limiting access to a lifesaving medical procedure. Perhaps we would be having a different conversation nationally if doctors like me hadn’t been shielding them from these truths.
Not enough people know that pregnancy is an independent risk factor for death, meaning that being pregnant increases someone’s risk of dying independent of other factors such as their age and medical problems. A short list of life-threatening conditions during pregnancy include bleeding to death, blood clots to the lungs, strokes, overwhelming infection and heart failure. Pregnancy is often when domestic violence increases, too.
In all these cases, being pregnant makes treatment either difficult or impossible. In my more than 20 years as a physician, I’ve been on teams taking care of countless devastatingly ill people, most of whom we were able to save. But the most terrifying situations were those that involved a pregnancy because as an internal medicine doctor, it is unusual for me to see someone who is pregnant. And when I do, it is usually because something has gone catastrophically wrong.
In addition to reasons of respecting bodily autonomy and preventing inappropriate interference of government in the doctor-patient relationship, physicians overwhelmingly support access to abortion because having this care available is literally lifesaving. We know the medical and scientific evidence shows that people often cannot get desired family planning care, that most people with an unintended pregnancy are using contraception, that pregnancy increases risk for death, that when women cannot get abortions they are at risk of dying, and that even if they survive pregnancy complications, are at risk for long-term worsened health.
As doctors, we also know that for the history of humanity, people have sought to control their fertility — and they will never stop doing so. If we want to believe about ourselves as Americans that we care about preventing needless deaths, we must ensure access to effective contraception and safe abortion care. I hope our legislators and judges never personally see what doctors see about young people dying without access to reproductive care, but that they follow the science anyway.
Dr. Eileen Barrett, MPH, is president-elect of the American Medical Women’s Association and lives in Albuquerque.
The Santa Fe New Mexican observes its 175th anniversary with a series highlighting some of the major stories and figures that have appeared in the paper's pages through its history. The collection also includes archival photo galleries.
