CMA Health Professionals Lament Supreme Court Ruling Striking Down Louisiana's Patient-Protecting Abortion Doctor Requirement

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Christian Medical Association (CMA)
June 29, 2020

BRISTOL, Tenn., June 29, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- Today the 18,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA) decried a Supreme Court ruling striking down a Louisiana law that required abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. CMA had filed a brief in the case, June Medical Services v. Russo.

Dr. Jeff Barrows, CMA Senior VP for Bioethics and Public Policy and an Ob-Gyn physician, said, "The simple truth that a slim majority at the Court today failed to recognize is that women undergoing an abortion deserve the same health and safety measures required for other similar surgical procedures.”

"The continuity of care provided by a doctor's admitting privileges at a nearby hospital can be critically important to treating a patient suffering life-threatening complications that may have directly resulted from that doctor's procedure. But instead the Court chose to allow abortion doctors to simply wash their hands of any responsibility for patient continuity of care. That leaves emergency room doctors caught figuring out the causes of complications with no direct knowledge of what happened during the abortion procedure. And if the patient herself is unconscious, those doctors may not even know that an abortion had been performed on her.

"All we need to understand the need for health and safety requirements in abortion facilities is to recall the tragic example of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion butcher convicted of murder and who had a patient die of complications. That's what happens when abortion doctors are not required to follow health and safety requirements. Patients die and suffer under squalid conditions and doctor incompetence."

In a dissent on the ruling, Justice Samuel Alito observed that "there is ample evidence in the record showing that admitting privileges help to protect the health of women by ensuring that physicians who perform abortions meet a higher standard of competence than is shown by the mere possession of a license to practice."

SOURCE Christian Medical Association (CMA)

CONTACT: Margie Shealy, margie.shealy@cmda.org