Abortion Laws and their Lasting Impact on US Health Industry

The abortion laws passed in Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia have been called regressive and have propelled debate on women’s choices, freedom, and their reproductive health. Public health is also going to be affected because of these laws. There is a lot of flurry over the abortion laws, what this means for OB/GYN practices and how does this affect women across the States. Some states have yet to battle their mortality rates such as Massachusetts, Iowa, New Jersey and Washington. The mortality rate might worsen because of the new laws. If all this is accounted for, the population health of patients is bound to decline, and will worsen as more infant and women mortality rates will be recorded.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 370 restrictions on abortions have been introduced since the beginning of 2019. Only a few of these have been implemented. Many of these include the number of weeks in which a woman can get an abortion (also known as “heartbeat bills”), and no exception in pregnancies which result in rape and incest cases. Teenage pregnancies also need to be taken to full term. The states with the most restrictive abortion laws such as Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana are going to be affected the most when maternal and infant health outcomes are out. These laws have far-reaching repercussions such as reduced clinical care access for women, and little concern for their lives.

To consolidate the legislation, in Alabama, the laws bypassed that any practitioner who aids an abortion after the time period, or in other cases are likely to be jailed. According to Siobhan O’ Grady, “doctors who perform the procedure outside of strict legal parameters could face up to 99 years in prison.” These laws have been termed as life-affirming, at least for Jim Daly, who is the president of Focus on the Family, a large Christian conservative party and supports the new laws. He also believes that the community will help expectant and new mothers. However, this puts many lives at danger, and will also affect the poorer areas of America where access to medical care is negligible and many young mothers do not have insurance.

Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp signed a bill stating that when a fetal heartbeat is detected abortion cannot be legally performed. The surprising bit of this story is that Georgia has one of the poorest maternal care in the United States, with 46 mothers dying for every 100,000 deaths. The infant mortality rate is even worse, with 7 infants dying for every 1000 births. These stats are the reason why it is under question whether the new laws affirm life or not.

However, we live in a world where health can be researched, studied and calculated. ObamaCare’s clause for every practice to have an EHR database might be the answer and these records may be able to switch laws back. An EHR can also hold demographics – questions regarding race, age, and state of a patient should be taken into account for the new laws for sociological and physiological research. Abortion is a sensitive topic, and these questions may seem to be insensitive, but are important for knowing the repercussions of the laws passed in the 10 states. These questions, along with the patient case may be able to provide better research and for better legislation regarding women’s health in future.

EHRs will allow to track various abortions performed, women who died giving birth, and infant mortality rates along with various other data sets. There may be a more unified maternal care facility across the US. Women are more adversely affected by poverty than men, and with an increasing number of single mothers, or teenage mothers, it will be harder to empower women of all races. The laws target women’s right to abortion, and not contraceptives, or hold men liable to support women either. Guttmacher Institute’s research states that 75% of women who get abortions live in low income households.

However, EHRs will not be able to record abortion done at home through unsafe means, with little patient safety, and there might be a more general move towards primitive ways of aborting a fetus which will also result in a decline in population health. However, EHRs will have the records of abortion cases from licensed physicians in certain states, and there may be chances of a comparative study population health stats from states with stringent abortion laws like Georgia, and a state like Maine where abortion laws are flexible. In Maine, nurse practitioners and other qualified medical staff that can perform an abortion will be able to perform abortion freely. In the New York Times, Jacey Fortin writes; Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, allows “publicly accessible health care centers where a patient can get an aspiration abortion, which is a procedure that involves suction. The new law could make it easier for more rural clinics to offer the same service.” The bill Mills signed takes into account rural accessibility to safe healthcare, and the liberty to make life choices.

Doctors have had enough problems with healthcare legislation. In recent months, abortion clinics have been closing down. While abortion is not the only task of a gynecologist; sexual health, family planning, prenatal counselling, fertility and menstrual health, and post-conception care is all part of their services. However, doctors are now under threat of being fined, jailed and even liable to lose their license, which is why they are not too keen on operating their services. Missouri might not have any abortion clinics in the near future if the current legislation prevails where only a licensed physician can perform an abortion.

EHRs are likely to report to the government in case an unlawful abortion was performed. They will also be able to track all abortions that take place in the 10 states where bills have been passed. From a health point of view, ultrasounds, scans, and other images powered by AI and analytics will allow for better judgment in cases where abortion should be allowed – if it harms the mother’s health, or the fetus is in danger. With analytics in place, an EHR is likely to tell decision makers in which cases abortion is likely to be a preferred option.