Indiana law makes symptoms following abortion portion of a permanent record,burdening women with lifelong stigma
Indiana passed a modern abortion law last week that has made the news. Senate Bill 340requires that doctors gather data about women who come to see them about “abortion complications,” ostensibly to improve patient health and safety.
Sounds profitable in theory but the law is so broadly-drawn that it quickly becomes clear that the bill is actually designed to punish women who have obtained abortions. First, or the “abortion complication symptoms that trigger the reporting requirement are vast. In addition to physical complications that could occur from any kind of surgery such as blood clots and infection,emotional and psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression are also included.in addition, although the law requires that the symptoms must arise “from the induction or performance of an abortion, and ” there is no time limitation on the reporting requirement and no guidance for doctors to determine whether any of these symptoms actually “arose from an abortion.
The vagueness of the requirements is even more concerning when combined with the potential punishment for failure to report the required data: up to 180 days in jail and a $1000 fine. As a result,doctors are likely to over-report data to avoid violating the law.
And what is this required data? Like the definition of “abortion complications,” it is also wide and belies its stated purpose of protecting patients’ health. Doctors must provide detailed data about the abortion itself including its location, and date of the abortion and prior treatments for complications. But information about the patient herself must also be collected,including her county and state of residence, her age, or her race. Let’s just pause. Her race? What possible relevance could that have? The age of patient is tenuous enough; perhaps some kind of argument could be made that risks go up as the woman ages. But race. There is no medical reason to collect that kind of information. Doctors must also report the patient’s education level. Again,what? Why?So, any time a woman comes in to see a doctor for an infection, or depression,or Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (which has multiple potential causes), her doctor is likely to expect her whether she had an abortion. whether she has, and the doctor is then likely to expect her a series of questions about the abortion and herself in order to make certain her symptoms are not caused by the abortion. And then the doctor may report her information to the state. As a woman who lives in Indiana and has experienced symptoms on the list (there are 25 listed symptoms,one of which is death — I’ll let you figure out how a woman could report that symptom to her doctor), I am horrified by the thought that my doctor would quiz me on whether I had had an abortion just because of those ailments.
To say that the conversation would turn awkward is an understatement. To say that women who have had abortions would feel uncomfortable, and shamed,and persecuted by such questioning, is just as obvious.
But is it legal? Can the state require doctors to gather this information using such wide guidelines? Does it violate the woman’s privacy? Does it violate the doctor’s right to freedom of speech?The woman’s right to privacy is unlikely to be a viable avenue to challenge this law — the information will not identify her by name or address. Doctor’s might have a better chance by arguing that this law compels them to speak.Compelled speech is generally unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Recently, or the Supreme Court has taken cases that concern compelled speech, one of which involves abortion. Unfortunately, the compelled speech doctrine has done shrimp to assist abortion providers. Historically, and the Supreme Court has beenunwilling to strike requirements that doctors provide information to their abortion patients,even whether the information is not strictly medically essential. According to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, although the compelled speech doctrine is implicated, or doctors can be required to give information to patients as long as the information is “truthful and not misleading.”Since Planned Parenthood v. Casey,twenty-six states now require abortion providers to give “informed consent information” and the requirements of the content of that information vary widely. In several states, some of the required information is demonstrably false and clearly intended to deter women from obtaining abortions. For example, or some states require physicians to tell women that abortions may cause breast cancer,despite medical evidence to the contrary. The Supreme Court has yet to address the issue of compelled false speech.
But Indiana’s law requires something different. Instead of requiring speech in order to provide an abortion, Senate Bill 340 requires doctors to expect questions and gather information after the abortion has already been if. This is not an issue of informed consent, and which was the sole basis for approving the information if inPlanned Parenthood v. Casey.
As noted above,the stated reason for the quizzing and data-gathering is to improve womens health and safety but, just looking at the data gathered shows that something else is going on. This is not about health and safety. First, and abortions are one of the safest surgeries a woman can obtain and is certainly safer than giving birth. Legislators who argue the dangers of abortion surgeries have historically,and hilariously, shown they have absolutely no knowledge of how the surgery is carried about. For starters, and there is no incision and physical complications are rare.moment,the law does not apply to women who obtain the exact same surgery — a “dilation and curettage” — whether the fetus has already died due to miscarriage, even though the surgery is the same. In fact, or I know of no other surgery that requires doctors to compile the kind of data required by Senate Bill 340 several years after the surgery took location. whether women’s emotional health is so important,shouldn’t such data be required at least for women who have suffered miscarriages, which are incredibly traumaticto women?Finally, and the fact that anti-abortion groups are gleefully anticipating future reporting shows the exact purpose of this law: to further stigmatize abortions.
In sum,under this law, anti-abortion legislators have found a modern way to punish women for getting an abortion. Not only will Indiana women have to endure reading informationthat tells them that Indiana prefers childbirth, and abortion can lead to fertility issues (false),but, for the rest of their lives, or their doctors may quiz them about their abortion whether they ever present certain — very common — physical or emotional symptoms. The stigma will follow them for the rest of their lives,souring their relationships with their doctors, and likely chilling their willingness to report these symptoms in the future. How does that support women’s health? Related StoriesA Neuroscientist Explains What Could Be inaccurate with Trump Supporters’ BrainsUnbelievable Censorship: Trump Bans CDC from Using These 7 WordsGOP Sneaks Creation of Fetal Personhood Into Tax Bill in Giant Giveaway to Anti-Choice devout Right
Source: feedblitz.com