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Dr. Caitlin Bernard
Editor’s note: The Indiana Medical Licensing Board found earlier this year that Dr. Caitlin Bernard violated privacy laws in her handling of a 10-year-old abortion patient’s information last summer, but cleared her of the charge that she failed to report abuse of the girl quickly enough. Experts in the medical community – from the American Medical Association to an author of HIPAA, a federal patient privacy law – have said that Bernard did nothing wrong and worry the decision will have a chilling effect on those involved with patient care.
One year ago, we watched in fear as abortion bans rolled out in state after state. One year ago, we began to see firsthand the real consequences of women and girls losing access to critical medical care. And almost one year ago, I spoke about what I was witnessing to warn others, in the hope that I could prevent even one more person experiencing trauma. In response, I was personally attacked on national television by the very people elected to “protect” us.
You might be wondering why I have been quiet for the last six months. It’s because I have been effectively gagged as I fight to keep my medical license and my ability to continue providing critical medical care in the Midwest.
I’m here now to speak my truth to power once again.
Almost every day we read a new story detailing the horrific experience a woman went through when she was denied access to essential health care. Women from states such as Missouri, Tennessee and Texas are being denied care for life-threatening pregnancy complications, including ectopic pregnancies.
Women were forced to wait until they almost died of infection, told to sleep in their car in the hospital parking lot so they’re close by in case they start hemorrhaging, forced to undergo risky surgery and traumatic deliveries, forced to travel thousands of miles – all while facing the increasing chance of complications with every additional hour.
North Carolina abortion ban:NC abortion ban is an extreme extension of my grandfather’s legacy. I’m working to undo it.
In every one of these stories, there is also a doctor like me who is being forced to stand by and watch as patients are denied basic health care. Every day, we endure the kind of moral injury described by the psychiatrist Jonathan Shay – sustaining the painful wound that occurs when a person’s ethical obligations and moral knowledge of what is right are betrayed by their leaders.
I won’t be the last example of post-Roe political attacks on doctors
To watch as someone gets sicker, their hands tied not by lack of resources but by legal risk of criminal prosecution. To be silenced in the face of atrocity. The ever-present threat of losing your medical license and livelihood – or worse. Not for engaging in criminal misconduct, but instead for providing or advocating for lifesaving health care, the basic tenets of our physician oath.
Even as I have personally endured these moral injuries, I have not been able to speak out against it.
This moral injury weighs heavily on me every day. I am not the only physician who has faced backlash for advocating for patients and for access to health care. Make no mistake, the targeting of physicians who provide abortion care with both personal and professional violence and harassment is nothing new.
Our post-Roe world:A 10-year-old rape victim had to travel out of state for an abortion. Why is this our country?
When politicians and others attack physicians who provide abortion care, they know that these types of attacks have ended in murder before. I might have been the first example of post-Roe political targeting of physicians, but I will not be the last.
How much worse will it get?
For many physicians like me, that moral injury and fear of legal prosecution becomes unbearable and it’s why leave states with abortion bans altogether. When OB-GYNs leave, hospitals are forced to close their labor and delivery services, creating maternal care deserts and forcing pregnant women to travel for or forgo basic pregnancy care.
Women and their babies in states with abortion bans already face the highest risk of death in the country. How much worse will it get?
One year after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, I am appalled by the harm women are enduring as a consequence of abortion bans.
As we witness the deaths of women who didn’t get adequate health care and the attacks against doctors for advocating for their care, we have to ask ourselves: “Is this really what we want for our own loved ones, for the women and physicians in our communities?”
In the past six months, I’ve been denied the ability to publicly advocate against legislation that will harm patients. But I will no longer be silenced, no matter what comes next. No other physician should have to go through what I have gone through, and I will continue to advocate for them every day.
More important, I hope that our children will one day live in a country that truly supports women and their families. This hope is what keeps me going. I will continue to fight for access to health care for all, but I can’t do it alone.
Dr. Caitlin Bernard is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She specializes in Obstetrics & Gynecology and Complex Family Planning.
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