06/29/2022

Physicians Face Confusion and Fear in Post-Roe World

Gray areas in new abortion bans worry many

It had been barely 80 minutes since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24 when physician Nisha Verma's phone pinged with an urgent group message from another obstetrician and gynecologist that made her catch her breath.

There was a woman in Wisconsin carrying a fetus with anencephaly, a fatal birth defect in which parts of the brain and skull are missing. With abortion likely illegal in the state, the clinic had canceled her appointment for a termination later that day. But forcing her to continue the pregnancy was cruel and risked complications. "What should I do?," the doctor wrote.

As colleagues in other parts of the conservative Midwest responded with leads for out-of-state clinics, Verma mentally added the case to her growing list of gray-area situations where the new abortion bans fail to capture the complexity of modern medicine and leave doctors in the lurch.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.