The report shows that standard pregnancy care has been disrupted in Louisiana
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She said that doctors fear being ostracized from community and institutions where they work, even after going to prison.
The executive director of Lift Louisiana said that the anti-abortion movement has been creating a culture of harassment and intimidation for decades. “People in that movement are saying that providers are overcomplying with the law or they’re misunderstanding the law, no.” They are terrified.”
Clapper has said previously, in response to claims that the law is harming women’s health, that these concerns have been “manufactured” by abortion rights supporters.
Its executive director, Benjamin Clapper, told NPR that the law clearly allows for the treatment of miscarriages and that OB-GYNs contacted by his organization have seen no change in miscarriage care as a result of the ban.
Some doctors in the report said they have considered leaving Louisiana. Others warned that a possible exodus of OB-GYNs would exacerbate the state’s existing shortage of obstetricians.
The state of Louisiana has some of the highest rates of mortality and morbidity in the nation. Black women in the state are almost twice as likely to die as white women due to birth defects.
Physicians interviewed in the report and those interviewed separately by NPR agreed that women’s health and their lives were being put at risk because of the abortion ban, especially Black and low-income women.
Another physician in the report couldn’t get their colleagues to agree to an abortion for a patient with a history of multiple C-sections, hemorrhaging and infections in past pregnancies.
“And what if she doesn’t want to delay, because she could die from a heart attack?” the OB-GYN said. “At what point can you act? How many cardiac meds have to fail?”
In one situation, an OB- GYN needing to treat a patient with severe heart failure had to prescribe multiple medicines before being allowed to offer an abortion.
These included pregnant women with cancer; patients with heart problems and kidney failure, who were on dialysis and hospitalized; and women who’d experienced life-threatening complications from previous pregnancies and found themselves pregnant again.
The medical director of Physicians for Human Rights and one of the report’s authors said they were surprised at how much regular medical practice for pregnant people has been disrupted.
There are going to be deaths that didn’t need to happen. There are going to be severe complications that didn’t have to happen,” said Dr. Nicole Freehill, a New Orleans OB-GYN interviewed for the report.
One example of how this has changed is that doctors have told of cases of women who had their fetus burst early, before it’s viable. Some of these women were forced to undergo Cesarean section surgeries to empty their uterus and avoid infection, instead of receiving an abortion procedure or medication.
“That is completely ridiculous,” said Freehill. “The least safe thing that we do, no matter if it’s early in pregnancy or full-term at your due date, is a C-section.”
The C-section was done to make it look like they were not doing a abortion, said Dr. Heisler with Physicians for Human Rights.
Patients who get a C-section in that circumstance are told that they can’t deliver vaginally in the future, and that could lead to a rupturing uterus.
One doctor from New Orleans who did not want her name used because she worried about her job said “this is not what’s in the best interest of the patient.” “This is what’s in the best interest of…the physician in protecting themselves from criminal prosecution.”
A patient interviewed in the report said some doctors didn’t see her until after 12 weeks. One office said that the abortion ban was new, and that doctors wanted to stop some abortions before they reached the 12 week mark, the patient said.
Doctors tell NPR that a history of blood clot or an ectopic pregnancy that goes undetected can be dangerous if you delay care into the second trimester. Without treatment, some pregnancy-related problems can lead to birth defects, stroke, heart attack, or even death.
According to news stories from states with abortion bans, doctors are slowing down treatment for ectopic pregnancies because of the risk of breaking the law. When an embryo implants outside of the uterus, it can be deadly and cause ectopic pregnancies.
In another case, Sukhavasi had a patient in her first trimester who came to the hospital bleeding and in pain. The patient wanted to get an abortion that used a method that would help stop the pain and bleeding, called D&C.
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“Institutions don’t want the government coming down on them, accusing us of doing something wrong when what we’re doing is just providing essential health care that people are coming to us for,” she said.
When miscarrying women arrive at ERs in rural areas, those rural hospitals are increasingly transferring patients to urban, specialty hospitals, the report found, to avoid having to treat those patients altogether. But refusing miscarriage treatment could be a violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA — a federal law requiring emergency medical care.
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A report by the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) claimed that Louisiana’s new abortion ban has put women’s lives at risk, especially black and low-income women. “What if she doesn’t want to delay because she could die from a heart attack?” a physician was quoted as saying by NPR. The ban came into effect on October 1 and allows only abortions performed to save a woman’s life.