White House: GOP abortion ban would mean a nationwide crisis

WASHINGTON — The White House and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say a Republican-led proposal to ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks would endanger the health of women and have severe consequences for physicians.

“If passed and enacted, this bill would create a nationwide health crisis, imperiling the health and lives of women in all 50 states,” according to a preliminary analysis of the bill by Jennifer Klein, the White House Gender Policy Council chairwoman, that was obtained by The Associated Press. “It would transform the practice of medicine, opening the door to doctors being thrown in jail if they fulfill their duty of care to patients according to their best medical judgment.”

The measure introduced last week by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., proposes a nationwide ban that would allow rare exceptions. The legislation has almost no chance of becoming law in the Democratic-controlled Congress. GOP leaders did not immediately embrace it and Democrats are pointing to the proposal as an alarming signal of where Republicans would try to go if they were to win control of the Congress in November.

Many in the United States had believed the constitutional right to abortion, established by the Supreme Court almost 50 years ago, could never be overturned. But that protection was stripped away this year by the court’s conservative majority, and advocates are leaving nothing to chance.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a nonprofit organization representing more than 60,000 physicians nationwide, sent a letter to the White House on Thursday outlining its concerns about the proposed law.

The group took issue with the “arbitrary gestational age limit” because it was “not grounded in science and medical evidence and would dramatically interfere with the ability of patients to receive timely medical care, including prenatal care, miscarriage management, and abortion care.”

The organization argued that doctors would become less skilled because if the bans were in effect, their training would be altered to comply with law. The letter said doctors feared the bans already in place in several states following the overturning of abortion rights will “have deadly consequences, further exacerbating the worsening maternal mortality crisis, within which 80% of deaths are preventable.”

The White House said the Republican proposal could have a chilling effect, with the prospect of doctors unwilling to care for patients any more. Doctors could also face criminal charges for performing an abortion to safeguard the health of the mother, offering miscarriage care, providing an abortion to a pregnant woman whose baby has no chance of survival, or treating a rape victim who has not fully completed reporting requirements.