老澳门开奖结果

It鈥檚 a pretty basic premise: When we go to the doctor, we expect that they will tell us the truth. It shouldn鈥檛 be controversial to expect the information you receive from a medical professional to be accurate and based in science.

But if you鈥檙e looking for abortion care in Tennessee, politicians are doing everything they can to ensure that鈥檚 no longer the case. Together with the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood, the 老澳门开奖结果 of Tennessee, and five abortion providers in the state, we sued to challenge a law that requires doctors to lie to their patients.

The law, signed by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee last month, coerces the speech of abortion providers and mandates that they lie to their patients. Under the law, physicians are required to tell their patients that if they have a medication abortion, it can be 鈥渞eversed.鈥� Doctors then have to refer their patients to a governmental website encouraging them to partake in experimental treatments that run counter to their patients鈥� best interest, all in violation of their ethical obligation as medical providers.

To be clear: There is absolutely no medical basis for this law.

The claim that medication abortion can be 鈥渞eversed鈥� is wholly unsupported by reliable scientific evidence. Leading medical organizations including the American Medical Association have condemned it, saying such laws 鈥渦ndermines [the provider-patient] relationship鈥�with messages that contradict reality and science.鈥� The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said that there is 鈥渘o evidence鈥� to support the reversal claim. Still, anti-abortion politicians continue to push ahead.

This law is also plainly unconstitutional. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment for the state to force doctors to personally deliver a government-ordered message that they and the overwhelming majority of the medical profession reject. It鈥檚 a direct violation of patients鈥� privacy rights under the 14th Amendment to be subjected to misleading and inaccurate statements about the constitutionally protected medical care they seek. And, it is a violation of the constitutionally mandated guarantee of equal protection under the 14th Amendment for Tennessee to single out medication abortion providers and patients for state-mandated inaccurate disclosures that aren鈥檛 imposed in any other health care context.

And this infuriating treatment isn鈥檛 limited to Tennessee. Just last year, North Dakota and Oklahoma passed bills requiring doctors to tell this lie about medication abortion, both of which have been blocked by courts. During the course of that litigation, medical professionals that the laws forced them to deliver false information to patients in violation of their ethical obligations.

Disturbingly, these 鈥渞eversal鈥� laws are just one example of 鈥渂iased counseling鈥� requirements that have passed in recent years to control and distort the information abortion patients get from their medical providers by inserting anti-abortion talking points into physicians鈥� mouths.

In four states, doctors have to tell their patients that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, even though that is factually wrong. Eight states insist that physicians include 鈥渘egative emotional response鈥� among the lists of risks associated with the procedure, even though mainstream medical associations have uniformly determined that this is false. Four states require doctors to lie to their patients about the risk having an abortion could have on their future fertility.

The intent of all these laws is clear: to shame, humiliate, and deceive people who have decided to have an abortion. The laws are designed to make the process so laborious and so confusing that some patients give up and abandon their constitutional right to abortion altogether.

One Kentucky doctor described the scene when she performed a state-mandated ultrasound in which she was forced by the government to narrate the specifics of the scan and show her patient the screen, even over the patients鈥� objection:

鈥淲e have had patients burst into tears when we tell them that they must undergo an unwanted narrated ultrasound and that they must close their eyes and cover their ears if they want to avoid the speech Kentucky politicians insist we force upon them. I鈥檝e had patients sob through the experience, and others pull their shirts up over their faces to cover their eyes.鈥� 

The stakes could not be higher. If Tennessee鈥檚 law is allowed to take effect, it would damage the trust at the heart of the physician-patient relationship, mislead patients when they are making important medical decisions, and expose patients to a scientifically unsupported and potentially harmful medical practice. Four clinics in Tennessee and an independent provider joined our lawsuit to fight back, because the doctors aren鈥檛 taking this sitting down.

And neither is the 老澳门开奖结果. We've said it before, and we鈥檒l say it again: abortion is health care, and it is a right. And we will never stop fighting to protect it.