New study shows worsening standard of Care
University of Texas researchers polled 50 medical practitioners about how abortion laws affected them
A new study from the University of Texas shows that the quality of reproductive care has dropped in states where abortion restrictions have arisen.
The Texas Policy Evaluation Project conducted the effort from September 2022 to March 23. Researchers received 50 submissions from healthcare professionals describing cases in which abortion regulations affected the patient’s treatment. The laws caused delays, worsened health outcomes, and made things more expensive.
Laura Dixon, the spokeswoman for the project, explained the reason behind that.
“Providers are afraid of legal consequences,” Dixon said. “They find that their hospital policies and the laws, in general, are unclear. And they don't feel like they can provide the standard of care that they used to before.”
The report also found that healthcare executives and higher-ups told doctors to not discuss with the media how abortion laws had affected their practices. The researchers permitted doctors and providers to submit their thoughts anonymously.
Dixon said that doctors have to wait until things worsen, or patients get sicker or infections get worse before care can be provided.
They also sometimes have to suggest that patients travel, which is not always a great solution for patients because that's an additional risk they have to take on in conjunction with a higher-risk pregnancy,” Dixon said.
The more severe the ban, the more challenging it becomes for medical providers, who reported a lot of emotional and moral distress over the position they’ve been put in.
“They're looking for ways to continue to provide the best standard of care, but they're not really finding it,” Dixon said. “They're being forced to put their patient's health at risk, which is inherently very stressful for someone who's in a field of care work.”