Letter: Restrictive abortions laws put pregnant women at risk

To the Editor:

As soon as a woman is aware that she is pregnant, medical professionals recommend the initiation of regular and frequent prenatal care.

There is a good reason: Pregnancy and childbirth can be dangerous.

However, in states such as Texas, where abortion is severely restricted, appropriate medical care may be limited for those who discover that the fetus they are carrying is non-viable, experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, or suffering a miscarriage.

That is one reason why the American Medical Association opposes restrictions on abortion care. Jack Resneck, president of the American Medical Association, recently issued the following statement: “The American Medical Association is deeply disturbed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nearly a half century of precedent protecting patients’ right to critical reproductive healthcare – representing an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine, the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services. States that end legal abortion will not end abortion – they will end safe abortion, risking devastating consequences, including patients’ lives.”

Imagine your wife or daughter being sent home from a doctor’s appointment, knowing that the fetus she is carrying is actively dying but the law requires that her physician may not assist her until a heartbeat is not detected. At that point she faces the risk of infection and unnecessary major surgery.

Is that what you would want?

Sarah Bingaman

Dixon

Editor’s note: This version corrects an edited version that was published in Thursday’s edition that omitted the grammatically intended reference in the final paragraph.