NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin Testimony in Opposition to SB 306 - So-Called Coercive and Webcam Abortion Bill
Testimony of Lisa Subeck, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, to Senate Committee on Health Opposing SB 306 December 13, 2011 Members of the Senate Committee on Health, my name is Lisa Subeck and I am the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. I am here to testify on behalf of our over 35,000 members and activists in opposition to SB 306. NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin opposes this legislation because it imposes new and unnecessary barriers for women seeking safe and legal abortion care and is yet another example of politicians interfering with decisions that should be made privately between a woman and her doctor. Specifically, we object to the first part of the bill, which adds to the already burdensome so-called counseling requirements that must take place before a physician may perform an abortion. Certainly, we do not want to see any woman coerced into having an abortion, just as it is our wish that no woman is coerced into carrying forth an unwanted pregnancy. Our current law already requires that a woman give “voluntary and informed written consent” which is considered voluntary only if “given freely and without coercion” so we question the necessity of this provision of the bill. The requirements put forth here simply add to the already lengthy so-called counseling requirements, dictated and scripted by elected officials rather than trained counselors or medical professionals. We also object to the second piece of the bill, regulating the use of telemedicine in abortion care. While this practice is not currently used in Wisconsin – nor do we know of any plans to begin its use in our state – we acknowledge that telemedicine is an emerging practice in the field of medicine and holds promise for allowing women who otherwise have significant barriers to accessing their constitutionally protected right to choose abortion to do so with fewer hurdles. Opponents of this practice have described it as if something out of Brave New World where a woman goes into an empty booth in an undisclosed location quite literally in the middle of nowhere and converses with a doctor via webcam, then swallows a pill dispensed from a tube in this empty booth. To the contrary, in Iowa – the only State where telemedicine is currently used for abortion care – a woman goes to a clinic where medical personnel are present. She meets with these medical personnel and receives a sonogram and counseling prior to speaking with the doctor who prescribes the medication necessary for a medical abortion. She takes the medication at the clinic with these medical personnel present. It is a safe procedure, utilized by more than 2000 women in Iowa without any significant difference in side effects between women using telemedicine vs. women seeing a doctor in person. The rates of successful abortion among women seeing a doctor via telemedicine also mirror those of women seen in person. A study done in Iowa earlier this year demonstrated no significant difference in outcomes for women utilizing telemedicine for abortion care. Dr. Daniel Grossman, an OB/GYN at University of California, San Francisco and research with Ibis Reproductive Health who performed the study including 446 Iowa telemedicine abortion patients concluded, “Our findings indicate that the clinical outcomes with medical abortion provided through telemedicine are the same as when the procedure is provided with a face-to-face visit with a physician.” In Wisconsin, 94% of all counties have no abortion provider. Because of our 24-hour waiting period, women who do not live near a clinic must not only travel to receive care but must also either do so twice or accommodate an overnight stay. This adds to the cost of abortion care, particularly for rural women, and many low to moderate income women cannot afford the additional travel costs and time off work, creating a disparity in access between those who can and cannot afford to access safe and legal abortion services. Not only is the proposal to ban the practice of providing medical abortion an overreach by government into the field of medical care, it is unnecessary regulation of a procedure deemed safe for patients who otherwise lack access to this critical piece of reproductive health care. The motive is clear. This bill is not about patient safety and only serves to diminish access to women’s health care. It is nothing more than a blatant attempt by its authors to chip away at women’s access to their constitutionally protected right to choose safe and legal abortion when facing an unintended pregnancy. I ask that you vote against SB 306 because it is an unnecessary intrusion by government into the doctor-patient relationship and only makes it more difficult for women faced with unintended or untenable pregnancies to access the health care they need.
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