PCMS Board Members Respond to Arizona’s Abortion Ban

At the time this was written, abortion was illegal in Arizona. At the time this was posted here, abortion was legal up to 15 weeks.

Imagine a doctor’s visit where a young mother with a year-old baby comes into the office excited about her new pregnancy but, during the physical exam, a breast mass is found. A subsequent biopsy reveals the worst possible result: an aggressive cancer. Without timely chemotherapy that will kill the fetus, the young mother will die and leave behind a motherless toddler and bereft family. Similar scenarios occur more often than one might think, as breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women of childbearing age and 4 percent of these cancers are diagnosed during pregnancy.

Banning abortions is a crude and not very effective way to reduce the number of abortions. This has been confirmed by studies around the world. However, it clearly has the unintended effect of making pregnancy care much more difficult. What should the doctor do when the mother’s health could be adversely affected or the baby has no chance of living? In states that severely restrict abortion access, women are being sent home with pregnancies, which are endangering their lives, waiting until it’s an emergency before the pregnancy can be terminated. Then it is sometimes too late to save the mother’s life.

Ten to 15 percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. Total abortion bans tied to a detectable fetal heartbeat, greatly complicate the care of miscarriage patients. Ectopic pregnancy is incompatible with fetal life and deadly for pregnant women. Laws banning abortion do not account for all the complexities of medical care and will increase maternal mortality.

In addition to banning abortions, some politicians want to jail medical providers for literally saving lives. This is wrong in so many ways. Political posturing has no place in the physician-patient relationship. Government-mandated medical malpractice should not be accepted.

The Pima County Medical Society believes that pregnant women must have autonomy and be able to make informed decisions about their health and life; they should not be at risk for entirely preventable death when we have the ability to save them. We also believe a doctor should not be criminalized for providing the best medical care for our patients.

We encourage everyone to support politicians who allow doctors to treat pregnant women with the care they require.