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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOB/GYNs opposing "women's health" bills is a good indicator the bills are NOT about women's health
Last edited Wed Jul 10, 2013, 10:19 AM - Edit history (1)
FROM THE AMERICAN CONGRESS OF OBSTETRICIANS AND GYNOCOLOGISTS (ACOG):
Open Letter to Texas Legislators: Get Out of Our Exam Rooms
July 9, 2013
The following ACOG statement was published as an advocacy ad in the July 9, 2013, print and online subscription editions of the Austin American Statesman:
All eyes are on Texas again this week as the fate of a far-reaching measure to restrict abortions and close many abortion facilities faces its last days of debate. Unlike almost any other issue, abortion generates strong feelings on all sides. This is true within our own organization, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and we respect that our 58,000 members have deeply held personal beliefs on this topic.
While we can agree to disagree about abortion on ideological grounds, we must draw a hard line against insidious legislation that threatens womens health like Texas HB2 (House Bill 2) and SB1 (Senate Bill 1). Thats why were speaking to the false and misleading underlying assumptions of this and other legislation like it: These bills are as much about interfering with the practice of medicine and the relationship a patient has with her physician as they are about restricting womens access to abortion. The fact is that these bills will not help protect the health of any woman in Texas. Instead, these bills will harm womens health in very clear ways.
Were setting the record straight, loudly and unequivocally, with these simple messages to all politicians:
Get Out of Our Exam Rooms
Physicians from all specialties insist that there must be only two people in our exam rooms: the patient and the doctor. The sanctity of the patient-physician relationship is central to good medicine, a critical tenet embraced by ACOG and other medical societies such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American College of Physicians. These organizations recently wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine:
Facts Are Important
Facts are very important, especially when discussing the health of women and the American public. And a lot of facts are being asserted in this debate. Truth be told, the scientific underpinnings of this legislation are unsound. First, theres the 20-week ban, which is based on the argument that a fetus can feel pain. Recent and rigorous scientific reviews have concluded that there is no evidence of fetal perception of pain until 29 weeks at the earliest2 (third trimester is 2840 weeks).
These bills would also impose a number of requirements for abortion facilities that are touted as necessary to ensure the health of the woman, but are, in fact, unnecessary and unsupported by scientific evidence. These proposed requirements, concerning door width and other irrelevant issues, would only make it extremely difficult or impossible for most clinics, including clinics that primarily provide important non-abortion well-woman health care services such as mammograms and prenatal care to low-income women, to stay open. For example, the bills would require physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles and allow abortions only in clinics that meet surgical clinic standards, imposing government regulations on abortion care that are much stricter than for colonoscopy and other similar low-risk procedures. The fact is that abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with minimalless than 0.5%risk of major complications that might need hospital care.
Women Can Make Their Own Medical Decisions Without State Interference
Texas women are renowned for their strength, courage, and smarts. Women across this nation are completely capable of making their own medical decisions with their physicians, as they make many other important decisions every day for themselves, their families, and their businesses. Women do not needor wantany government to make medical decisions for them.
Women must have access to all needed health carefrom mammograms to prenatal visits to reproductive carebased on scientific facts, not political ideology. ACOG opposes Texas HB2 and SB1, which jeopardize womens health care and interfere with medical practice and the patient-physician relationship. Politicians are not elected to, nor should they, legislate the practice of medicine or step foot into our exam rooms.
Sincerely,
Jeanne A. Conry, MD, PhD
President
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Lisa M. Hollier, MD, MPH
Chair, District XI (Texas)
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Sources:
1 Weinberger, Lawrence, Henley, Alden, & Hoyt. Legislative Interference with the Patient-Physician Relationship, N Engl J Med 2012; 367:1557-1559
2 Bellieni & Buonocore, Is Fetal Pain A Real Evidence?, 25 J. Maternal-Fetal
& Neonatal Med. 1203, 1205 (2012)
2 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Fetal
Awareness: Review of Research and Recommendations for Practice 11 (Mar.
2010)
2 Lee, Ralston, Drey, Patridge, & Rosen. Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence. JAMA 2005;294(8) 47-954
_ _ _ _ _
SOURCE: http://www.acog.org/About_ACOG/News_Room/News_Releases/2013/Open_Letter_to_Texas_Legislators (provided in its entirety since it's an "open" letter)
Tanuki
(14,920 posts)Benton D Struckcheon
(2,347 posts)But does your title need fixing? Seems like it needs a "Not" before "About" there at the end.
Triana
(22,666 posts)That's what I get for posting before coffee!
CrispyQ
(36,509 posts)Who are the women who vote for men like Perry? Who are they?
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)to get an abortion. Republican women who are too old to have children and are stupid, selfish and unsympathetic...typical ReThugs.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)I mean, they don't need the services of planned parenthood, they have health insurance, a job (or a partner with a job). They, like many people really, don't think beyond their little bubble. If it doesn't personally affect them, it doesn't exist or shouldn't exist for those it does affect.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)Ilsa
(61,698 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)The party that thinks that government-sponsored insurance can't be trusted thinks it's perfectly fine to force doctors to perform politically motivated procedures and making teachers lie to schoolchildren about whether abortion causes future premature delivery (it doesn't).
Triana
(22,666 posts)when Obamacare was being debated, but is now forcing state-mandated ultrasounds on women. That tells you their objections to Obamacare then as well as their reasons for forcing these ultrasounds on women now are all disingenuous, pretentious bullshit.
Lying sacks of shit.