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Since the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 18 states have put functional abortion bans in place.

New research fills a gap in understanding impacts on physicians after these bans. Mara Buchbinder, Kavita S. Arora and colleagues identify sources of moral distress impacting physicians. Moral distress occurs when health care professionals know the right course of clinical action but are prevented from taking that action due to some kind of external constraint, such as a law or institutional policy.

Through interviews with OB-GYNs, the authors characterized sources of moral distress among OB-GYNs in states with abortion bans, including: delaying medically necessary abortion care for obstetric patients, conflict with other clinicians, denying care they would have provided locally prior to Dobbs, and restrictions on clinical counseling due to “aiding and abetting” clauses in some state laws.

Article Link: New Research Shows Moral Distress, Negative Impacts of State Abortion Bans