The American Medical Association:
The American Medical Association is deeply disturbed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nearly a half century of precedent protecting patients’ right to critical reproductive health care. This is an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.
States that end legal abortion will not end abortion—they will end safe abortion, risking devastating consequences, including patients’ lives.
And:
State lawmakers who take the position that restricting or eliminating abortion under the pretense of “protecting women’s health” must realize that this claim has absolutely no basis in medical science. Evidence and experience show us conclusively that the risk of death during or after childbirth is approximately 14 times greater than the risk of death from abortion-related complications.The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology:
Today’s decision is a direct blow to bodily autonomy, reproductive health, patient safety and health equity in the United States. Reversing the constitutional protection for safe, legal abortion established by the Supreme Court nearly fifty years ago exposes pregnant people to arbitrary, state-based restrictions, regulations, and bans that will leave many people unable to access needed medical care. The restrictions put forth are not based on science nor medicine; they allow unrelated third parties to make decisions that rightfully and ethically should be made only by individuals and their physicians. ACOG condemns this devastating decision, which will allow state governments to prevent women from living with autonomy over their bodies and their decisions.
The New England Journal of Medicine:
Experience around the world has demonstrated that restricting access to legal abortion care does not substantially reduce the number of procedures, but it dramatically reduces the number of safe procedures, resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. Millions of persons in states lacking protections for abortion care are also likely to be denied access to medication-induced abortions. It may be difficult for many Americans in 2022 to fully appreciate how complicated, stressful, and expensive, if even attainable, their most private and intimate decisions will become, now that Roe has been struck down. A recent New York Times article recounted the experiences of women, now in their 60s and 70s, who sought abortions before Roe. They described humiliating circumstances, unsafe procedures literally performed in back alleys, and the deep shame and stigma they endured. Common complications of illegal procedures included injury to the reproductive tract requiring surgical repair, induction of infections resulting in infertility, systemic infections, organ failure, and death. We now seem destined to relearn those lessons at the expense of human lives. [HTML links from footnotes in original.]
The American Society of Pediatrics:
Today’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade means that the once Constitutionally protected right to access an abortion is no longer guaranteed nationwide. This decision carries grave consequences for our adolescent patients, who already face many more barriers than adults in accessing comprehensive reproductive healthcare services and abortion care.
The Association of American Medical Colleges:
We are deeply concerned about the impact of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson on patients nationwide. The court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, rescinding the protection of the right to safe and effective abortions for nearly five decades, will leave women’s reproductive health under the purview of various state laws. Laws and policies that restrict or otherwise interfere with the patient-physician relationship put a patient at risk by limiting access to quality, evidence-based care.
The American Bar Association remains committed to doing all it can to support reproductive choice. Limiting this choice can have devastating consequences for those who are pregnant and can adversely affect their physical and mental health, their lives and the lives of their families.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that overturns Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey will deny millions of people in our country what has been a protected right for half of a century. In an amicus brief filed in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ABA had urged the Court to uphold Roe v. Wade and its subsequent line of decisions. The brief cited the extensive legal precedent, the irreparable harm that reversing Roe would cause women and the disproportionate effect of a change in the law on women of color.
Our organizations, representing over 400,000 physicians and medical students, condemn the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, striking down the protections afforded to people in need of abortion care for five decades. Our organizations have consistently opposed any legislation or regulation that interferes in the confidential relationship between a patient and their physician and the provision of evidence-based patient care for any patient—and this decision will allow states to gravely interfere in that relationship by penalizing and even criminalizing the provision of evidence- based medical care. This ruling will curtail access to critical reproductive health care for millions of people across the country, will grow the health inequities that already exist in the medical system, and will set a dangerous precedent for legislative interference across medicine.
What they did was not pro-life. It's forced-birth and it's utterly cruel.
