Consensus Statement on Threats to Reproductive and Maternal Health Care
American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists | American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists | American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society | American Society for Reproductive Medicine | American Urogynecologic Society | Council of University Chairs of Obstetrics and Gynecology | Infectious Diseases Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology | North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology | Society for Academic Specialists in General Obstetrics and Gynecology | Society of Family Planning | Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine | Society of OB/GYN Hospitalist
For the last several decades, members of our organizations have watched with growing alarm as politicians and court systems have chiseled away at the fragile protections to abortion care afforded by the Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. From gestational age bans and personhood measures to burdens imposed on patients and clinicians, these attacks made it harder for people to access needed abortion care in the United States.
Our members also watched with dread—but not surprise—when the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization put into action immediate bans and restrictions, overnight curtailing patient access to a safe, essential medical intervention and compromising the health of patients and the sustainability of the obstetrics and gynecology community.
We knew, after decades of fighting them, that the attacks would not stop there. We warned that attacks on reproductive health care would not only target safe, effective abortion, and that they would extend to contraception; miscarriage care; fertility care, including IVF; and other facets of critical health care.
Our organizations, which represent physicians and clinicians who are dedicated to compassionate, evidence-based delivery of obstetric and gynecologic care to patients, together assert that abortion cannot be viewed independent of the full range of maternal and reproductive health care, and that attacks on abortion are complete and total attacks on maternal and reproductive health care.
We urge fellow health care professionals to speak out against attacks on maternal and reproductive health care, because legislative and judicial interference in one area of medicine threatens all practices across all specialties.
Further, we urge voters to use the power of the ballot box to demand that policy makers stop their attacks on health care and advance policies that will directly and immediately halt the real, ongoing suffering of patients and communities.
We urge policy makers to leave medical decision-making to patients who are experts in their own health, lives, and values and the health care professionals committed to their care. We will work as partners to policy makers who will commit to restoring uncompromised access to all facets of reproductive health care.