A patient-doctor relationship should be one of complete trust and understanding. In the guise of more proactive, pro-life policies, the recent law hijacks the physician’s right to freedom.
Tennessee’s new abortion restriction laws, or rather the abortion ban, require doctors to inform their patients that the process of drug-induced abortions can be reversed or halted midway. The physician’s failure to act upon the law comes with charges of Class E felony and imprisonment.
However, this latest change in abortion laws is scientifically flawed. Drug-induced abortion reversal lacks validated data. Stakeholders question the legitimacy of this forceful law being advocated under the pretense of better counseling practices regarding abortion.
It is alarming that doctors are forced to inform patients regarding drug-induced abortion reversal, despite evidence showing that halting the process midway is associated with hemorrhaging in pregnant women. Patients do not have the choice to stop appendix removal or any other kind of surgery midway; to do so would have dangerous side effects. This protocol is no different.
The requirement of compliance from medical professionals seems more like a government-mandated dialogue, and it hampers the First Amendment rights of physicians. There have been concerns from various physicians’ associations that since the reversal procedure has various safety implications and limitations, the state-orchestrated advisory affects the well-being of the patients.
This problematic law is not only a serious concern for professional ethics, but also for its impact on pregnant women’s health. A lawsuit has been put in motion, with plaintiffs positing that the patient-physician relationship should be based on factual information and backed by evidence. However, the latest abortion reversal law seriously affects physicians’ integrity.
Pro-choice stakeholders, along with physician rights advocates, believe that the drug-induced abortion reversal is a highly political move that further advances the conservative agenda on anti-abortion without research-backed evidence. Such laws aim to dampen the pro-choice movement.
Additionally, delivering an agenda-based message to the patients undergoing drug-induced abortions questions the physician’s ethics since the relationship is supposed to be based on unbiased medical care. The state pushing for providing patients with unproven information puts the patient's health at risk.
This step not only politicizes medical professionals but also stigmatizes their freedom. Such measures from the government are putting patients’ lives at risk. Pre-abortion counseling is important, however, feeding biased information to the patient to strengthen the pro-life agenda is ethically and professionally ambiguous.
While Tennessee pushes for a strict anti-abortion agenda, hope remains to repeal this fallacious law. A federal judge has blocked the medication abortion law as there are grave concerns about the legitimacy of the abortion reversal procedure.
Pro-life advocates are mandating a research narrative that is still in an experimental phase and has various limitations. Tennesse raises questions on whether these abortion restriction laws are in favor of the pregnant woman, allowing them to make an informed decision, or is a politically motivated move to halt pro-choice beliefs and to restrain medical professionals and their First Amendment rights.
This latest string of laws has an undertone of censorship that goes against the core of the American constitution.
