Solomon Center Hosts Panel on Abortion Care During the Pandemic

On October 8, 2020, the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy hosted a multidisciplinary panel exploring access to abortion care before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual event, “Abortion Care and COVID: Autonomy is Not Elective,” consisted of abortion care providers, an ethicist, and a litigator. They shared their respective experiences navigating the barriers to providing care during the pandemic and considered how to frame abortion care as a necessary, rather than elective, service.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, states suspended “nonessential” medical procedures, which some states have interpreted to include surgical abortions. Abortion care, however, is a time-sensitive service; a delay in abortion care may increase the risk to the patient or make abortion care inaccessible. The panel aimed to address how to ensure that access to abortion care is not limited during times of crisis.

The discussion opened with two health care providers sharing the on-the-ground challenges they have faced in providing abortion care during the pandemic. Dr. Nancy L. Stanwood is an Associate Professor and Section Chief of Family Planning at the Yale School of Medicine Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences and oversees the clinical Family Planning service at Yale, a program for complex contraceptive and abortion care. As the Associate Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, she also has experience in the reproductive health advocacy arena. Dr. Bhavik Kumar provides care in Texas as the Medical Director for Primary & Trans Care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. Both practitioners spoke about the role of the provider in protecting access to abortion and advocating for patients. Dr. Kumar emphasized the burden on patients and providers in states such as Texas with highly restrictive abortion laws and shared his experience being a plaintiff in three lawsuits challenging Texas abortion restrictions.

The panel also considered the responsibilities of litigators in protecting access to abortion care. Rachel Reeves ’18 serves as a staff attorney with the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. She is currently litigating numerous cases on challenges to the FDA’s restrictions on the distribution of mifepristone (the medication abortion pill), medically unnecessary state restrictions targeting abortion clinics, and de facto bans on abortion. Reeves discussed the legal strategies that could be implemented to challenge restrictions on both medical and surgical abortions during the pandemic.

Dr. Louise King, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School, then addressed the topic of abortion care from the perspective of a medical ethicist. Her areas of interest in medical ethics focus on questions of informed decision-making and assisted reproduction, as well as equitable access to gynecologic surgery. She proposed that autonomy and, therefore, abortion is a human right, encompassed under “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” She also suggested that the shift from abortion care as “elective” to “essential” care is premised on not considering autonomy elective.

The panel concluded by discussing how changing the language used in the abortion debate is necessary to change policy, removing “choice” and “elective” from the conversation, and instead focusing on abortion as an essential health care procedure and autonomy as a human right. When asked how to pave a path forward to ensuring equitable access to abortion care, Dr. King stated that “the solution is to value women.”

This event was cosponsored by the Information Society Project (ISP) and the Yale Health Law and Policy Society (YHeLPS).