Physician Duties When Law Restricts Reproductive Health Care

When Law, Ethics & Medicine Collide
Friday, November 1, 2024, 12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Central Time
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Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, physicians may find their professional obligations to care for patients in conflict with state laws restricting reproductive health care. For nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade protected a pregnant person's right to terminate a pregnancy in the United States. But since Dobbs, state legislatures have adopted laws to govern abortion and reproductive care. A number of states ban or severely restrict abortion. This may hamper provision of urgent medical care even in cases of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy. Cases have been reported of women dying for lack of needed care. In some states, laws requiring treatment of embryos or fetuses as persons may also challenge physicians’ ability to provide IVF and other infertility treatment.

With this shift in the legal landscape, physicians and other clinicians are left to grapple with laws that may create obstacles to necessary medical treatment. They worry that the tightening of abortion rules in some states will lead to more pregnancy-related deaths across the nation due to legal uncertainty. And people in marginalized groups are particularly at risk, according to researchers. Doctors are asking: When do professional ethics and personal conscience outweigh state prohibitions? Law has long permitted individual physicians to decline participation in abortion due to conscientious objection, but should law also protect physicians’ conscientious provision of needed reproductive health care?

We’ve assembled three experts on the frontlines of this difficult health care issue to discuss this conflict between law, ethics, and medicine. Join the Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences for this timely webinar!

The webinar is free and open to the public.

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Disclosures

It is the policy of the University of Minnesota to ensure balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor in all of its sponsored educational activities. All participating faculty are required to disclose to the program audience any financial relationships related to the subject matter of this program. Disclosure information is reviewed in advance to manage and resolve any possible conflicts of interest. Specific disclosure information for each faculty member will be shared with the audience prior to the faculty’s presentation.

No speakers or moderators for this event have disclosures to report.

Speakers are:

Judette Louis, MD, MPH
Judette Louis, MD, MPH
James M. Ingram Professor and Chair, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Southern Florida Morsani College of Medicine; Past-President, Society for Maternal-Fetal

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Bio

Judette Louis, MD, MPH, is the James M. Ingram Professor and Chair for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of South Florida (USF) Morsani College of Medicine, where she serves as Division Chief and Fellowship Director of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. She also holds a faculty position in the USF College of Public Health, is Chief of the Tampa General Hospital Women's Institute, and is Past-President of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Dr. Louis has authored more than 90 scientific articles and book chapters on reproductive medicine topics, including maternal morbidity and mortality, sleep and pregnancy, and health disparities in maternal-fetal medicine.  As a leader on reproductive health care, she is frequently invited to speak nationally and presented in the workshop on “After Roe: Challenges in the Provision of Lifesaving Care: A Webinar” hosted by the National Academies’ Committee on Reproductive Health, Equity, and Society.

Dov Fox, JD, LLM, DPhil
Dov Fox, JD, LLM, DPhil
Herzog Research Professor of Law and Director, Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics, University of San Diego School of Law

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Dov Fox, JD, LLM, DPhil, is the Herzog Research Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he founded and directs the Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics. Prof. Fox has written extensively on the issues raised by legal restrictions on reproductive health care.  He has published more than 75 articles in leading journals of law, medicine, and public health. In 2023, he published an influential article on Medical Disobedience in the Harvard Law Review. His latest book, “Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law,” was published by Oxford University Press.

Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD, MA
Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD, MA
Professor, Department of Social Medicine, Research Professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of North Carolina School of Medicine

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Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD, MA, is a Professor of Social Medicine and Research Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, where she was also the first Associate Director for UNC’s Center for Bioethics. She previously served as Chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Committee on Ethics, and Co-Chair of the Program Committee for the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). Her research addresses socially and morally complex issues in reproductive medicine, including conscience in the provision of reproductive care. Dr. Lyerly has published extensively on these issues, including co-authoring Beneath the Sword of Damocles: Moral Obligations of Physicians in a Post-Dobbs Landscape in the Hastings Center Report.

Moderated By:

woman with should length, light hair, smiling
Susan M. Wolf, JD
Chair, Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences Regents Professor McKnight Presidential Professor of Law, Medicine & Public Policy Faegre Drinker Professor of Law Professor of Medicine

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Professor Susan M. Wolf is a Regents Professor; McKnight Presidential Professor of Law, Medicine & Public Policy; Faegre Drinker Professor of Law; and Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota. She is Chair of the University’s Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).