California lawmakers are considering legislation to protect California physicians and pharmacists who prescribe abortion pills to out-of-state patients. The proposed law would shield healthcare providers who are legally performing their jobs in California from facing prosecution in another state or being extradited.
State Senator Nancy Skinner (D, Berkeley), who introduced the bill, said the legislation is necessary in a fractured, post-Roe legal landscape where doctors in some states can face felony charges or civil penalties for providing reproductive healthcare. It’s part of a package of 17 new bills aiming to “strengthen California’s standing as a safe haven for abortion, contraception, and pregnancy care,” according to a press release.
“I’m trying to protect our healthcare practitioners so they can do their jobs, without fear,” Skinner said in a statement Friday.
Most abortions are banned in 14 states after the US Supreme Court in overturned Roe v Wade. Lawmakers in those states have established a variety of penalties for doctors, pharmacists, and other clinicians to provide abortion care or assist patients in obtaining abortions, including jail time, fines, and loss of professional licenses.
As a result, doctors in restrictive states have anguished over having to delay treatment for patients experiencing miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other conditions until their lives are enough at risk to satisfy exceptions to state abortion laws.
“As a physician, I believe everyone deserves the care they need, regardless of where they live,” said Daniel Grossman, MD, a University of California, San Francisco, ob/gyn professor who directs the university’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program.
“Since the fall of Roe v Wade, patients are being forced to travel long distances — often over 500 miles — to access abortion care in a clinic. People should be able to access this essential care closer to home, including by telemedicine, which has been shown to be safe and effective. I am hopeful that SB 345 will provide additional legal protections that would allow California clinicians to help patients in other states,” he stated.
Other states, including New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, have passed or are considering similar legislation to protect doctors using telemedicine to prescribe abortion medication to out-of-state patients. These laws come amid a growing push by some states and anti-abortion groups to severely restrict access to abortion pills.
Wyoming is the first state to explicitly ban the pills, although a judge on Wednesday blocked that ban. And, in a closely watched case, a conservative federal judge could soon rule to ban sales of mifepristone, one of the medications in a two-pill regimen approved for abortions early in pregnancy.
California’s legislation protects clinicians from losing their California professional licenses if an out-of-state medical board takes action against them. It also allows clinicians to sue anyone who tries to legally interfere with the care they are providing.
It also covers California physicians prescribing contraceptives or gender-affirming care to out-of-state patients. At least 21 states are considering restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors and another nine states have passed them, according to the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. Courts have blocked the restrictions in some states.
“It’s understandable that states like California want to reassure their doctors…that if one of their patients is caught in one of those states and can’t get help locally, they can step up to help and feel safe in doing so,” said Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, FACP, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado.
“This is also a crazy development in terms of the law. It’s just one part of the legal mayhem that was predicted when the Supreme Court overturned Roe,” Wynia said of the growing number of bills protecting in-state doctors. These bills “will almost certainly end up being litigated over issues of interstate commerce, cross-state licensure and practice compacts, FDA regulations and authorities, and maybe more. It’s a huge mess, in which both doctors and patients are being hurt.”
Barbara Feder Ostrov is editorial director, Medscape Business of Medicine. Twitter: @barbarafederostrov
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