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In open letter, 700 Tennessee healthcare providers call on Legislature to 'reconsider' abortion ban – Tennessee Lookout [1]
['Anita Wadhwani', 'More From Author', '- October']
Date: 2022-11
More than 700 Tennessee doctors, nurses and other medical professionals are calling on the state’s GOP-super majority Legislature to revisit an abortion ban that criminalizes the procedure with no exceptions and subjects doctors who perform it to prosecution, fines and jail time.
In an open letter to the legislature, published in a full page ad in The Tennessean on Sunday, the healthcare professionals are asking the General Assembly to “reconsider the ‘trigger law.'”
“Tennesseans should have the right to make personal health care decisions with the assistance of their doctors and healthcare team – without the intrusion of politicians,” the letter says.
“This law puts the government in charge of deciding which healthcare options are available to patients, setting a dangerous precedent that violates the sacred physician-patient relationship.”
“And because it includes zero exceptions – not for rape, incest, fetal anomaly, or even to protect the mother’s life – it forces health care providers to balance appropriate medical care with the risk of criminal prosecution.”
Tennessee’s trigger law, formally named the “Human Life Protection Act,” took effect Aug. 25, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion rights case, Roe v Wade and left to individual states the right to set abortion rules.
In Tennessee, the law makes performing an abortion a Class C felony, punishable for up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for anyone who performs one. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Instead of containing an exception to the law for abortions necessary to spare the life of, or grave harm to, a pregnant patient, the law says doctors may use those circumstances as an affirmative defense in a criminal trial.
All Tennessee abortion clinics have ceased offering the procedure; women seeking abortions must travel out of state. And doctors say they fear they will be prosecuted for providing life-saving abortions.
The signers of the paid ad are individuals, not the hospitals that employ them. Hospitals have declined to answer reporters’ questions about how they will comply with the law and whether they are permitting any life-saving abortions to be performed at their facilities.
“We are doing the heavy lifting ourselves—and that means funding the effort ourselves, as well,” said Dr. Amy Gordon Bono, a Nashville physician.
The letter was initiated by Dr. Nikki Zite, a Knoxville OB-GYN, Dr. Heather Maune, a Nashville OB-GYN and Dr. Jessica Rosen, a Nashville emergency medicine physician, a news release said. “This letter quickly gained support from so many colleagues because healthcare workers don’t want a ban without exceptions,” Dr. Zite said. “Medical professionals understand that there are situations, often heartbreaking, when ending a pregnancy is necessary. People don’t want physicians delaying care because they fear being criminalized.” Organizers are working to next run the ad in the Tennessean online, Dr. Bono said. The letter does not include specific recommendations for whether the law should be amended or overturned, but notes the law, as it is written now, could criminalize routine and urgent medical procedures, including tubal pregnancies, serious infections or cancers during pregnancy and miscarriage care.
Full text of the letter:
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[1] Url:
https://tennesseelookout.com/briefs/in-open-letter-700-tennessee-healthcare-providers-call-on-legislature-to-reconsider-abortion-ban/
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