SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
physicians for human rights
'Not Sick Enough Yet': Report Details Harms of Florida Abortion Ban
For one patient, doctors "had to wait for her creatinine to bump and her kidneys to be about to fail" before they could even offer her abortion care.
Sep 17, 2024
As new reporting on Amber Nicole Thurman's death highlights the dangers of Georgia Republicans' six-week abortion ban, a human rights group on Tuesday released a research brief about how a similar policy in a neighboring state "harms the health and safety of Florida patients while obstructing clinicians from providing basic reproductive and maternal medical care."
The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) report, Delayed and Denied: How Florida's Abortion Ban Criminalizes Medical Care, focuses on the prohibition that was signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last year but didn't take effect until May, following a state Supreme Court ruling.
The PHR brief follows late May reporting on how wait times soared at abortion clinics in the states closest to Florida after its ban took effect and the Guttmacher Institute's findings from last week that the law led to a "substantial drop" in clinician-provided abortions across the state, in part because many people don't even know they are pregnant until after six weeks.
"Florida clinicians shared harrowing accounts of how routine medical care has been delayed, denied, and deviated from standards of care."
This summer, PHR interviewed 25 of Florida's reproductive healthcare providers about their experiences caring for pregnant patients under the six-week ban. Brief co-author Dr. Michele Heisler said in a Tuesday statement that "Florida clinicians shared harrowing accounts of how routine medical care has been delayed, denied, and deviated from standards of care."
"Not only abortion care but miscarriage and broader maternal healthcare have suffered gravely due to the state's ban," noted Heisler, PHR's medical director and a professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan.
"Our research brief sheds new light on the health and rights crisis fueled by Florida's abortion ban—on patients, providers, and the medical system as a whole," she said. "Under the state's abortion ban, Floridians have lost their reproductive autonomy."
One Florida doctor in private practice told PHR that "with the six-week ban, I would say it is more like the inability to really offer anything at all now. I mean, we see patients for their new obstetrician-gynecologist visits usually around eight weeks, and sometimes we see them earlier, if they are having bleeding or other issues where we end up scanning them earlier."
"But I do not think I have ever had a viable pregnancy that was less than six weeks that I could offer a termination," the OB-GYN said. "They are never less than six weeks, so it is essentially impossible. By the time we see them for their first visit, that option is already gone."
Florida's ban technically allows some abortions after six weeks—in cases of rape and incest, or to protect the health of the pregnant person—though medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates often point out that many patients are still denied legal care even with the limited "exceptions" in place.
Before the current law, Floridians were living under a 15-week ban, which took effect in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority reversingRoe v. Wade with its June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling.
One doctor who spoke with PHR recalled a story from that period: "I strongly remember a patient who had severe kidney disease and was admitted to the hospital and was teetering on the edge of that 15 weeks. I think she was 14 weeks or so, and she got admitted, and we were trying to figure out how best to help her. She was getting sicker and sicker."
"[We] had to bring it to the head people of the hospital and be like, 'What are we allowed to do?' And they were like, 'She is not sick enough yet.' And we had to wait for her to get sicker before we were even allowed to offer her termination. And she was past 15 weeks at that point," the OB-GYN explained.
"I think it took over two weeks for us to get an answer from the hospital administrators," the doctor added. "So that hit very strongly, because it was kind of insane that we had to wait for her to become sicker. We had to wait for her creatinine to bump and her kidneys to be about to fail before we were allowed to even offer her [termination]. Then we had to jump through so many hoops to be able to do it. It really changed everything that we did in our practice."
The report features several other stories of patient and provider frustrations and the dangers created by the six-week ban.
"The findings of PHR's research brief demonstrate the need to remove Florida's extreme abortion ban and restore access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare in the state," argued Payal Shah, brief co-author and the group's director of advocacy, legal, and research. "Both patients and providers are trapped in an unworkable legal landscape."
"Despite state health agency statements to the contrary, the state's abortion ban is an egregious intrusion on patient autonomy that is causing medical harm," Shah added. "The ban's criminal penalties and narrow, vague exceptions have compelled clinicians to deviate from established standards of care and medical ethics. These impacts constitute violations of Floridians' human rights."
Florida voters will soon have an opportunity to restore much broader access to abortion care. This November, they can vote "yes" on Amendment 4, a state constitutional amendment backed by Floridians Protecting Freedom that would enshrine the right to abortion before viability in Florida.
Former President Donald Trump, a Florida resident and the Republican nominee facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the battle for the White House, confirmed last month that he plans to vote "no" on the ballot measure. In response, Harris said that "I trust women to make their own healthcare decisions and believe the government should never come between a woman and her doctor... The choice in this election is clear."
Keep ReadingShow Less
WHO Chief Demands Swift Medical Evacuations for 9,000 Injured, Sick Patients in Gaza
Israel is currently attempting to send several patients back to the besieged enclave from East Jerusalem, where they have been receiving cancer treatment.
Mar 30, 2024
The head of the World Health Organization on Saturday demanded that Israel speed up approvals for medical evacuations from Gaza as the number of people who urgently need life-saving healthcare reached roughly 9,000—and as Israeli officials threatened to send several Palestinian patients back to the besieged enclave from the East Jerusalem hospital where they've received cancer treatment.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, warned that with only 10 of Gaza's 36 hospitals "minimally functional" following repeated attacks on the enclave's healthcare system, "thousands of patients continue to be deprived of healthcare."
At the beginning of March, WHO assessed that about 8,000 patients needed to be immediately evacuated from Gaza to receive treatment for cancer, kidney failure, and other chronic diseases as well as injuries from Israel's relentless bombing of civilian infrastructure.
That number has grown by about 1,000 in recent weeks, Tedros said.
More than 3,400 sick and injured people have been taken abroad via the southern border town of Rafah since Israel began its bombardment on October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
"But many more need to be evacuated," said Tedros. "We urge Israel to speed up approvals for evacuations, so that critical patients can be treated. Every moment matters."
As Tedros called on Israel to swiftly approve medical evacuations, human rights advocates condemned Israeli authorities who aim to deport patients with cancer back to Gaza from an East Jerusalem hospital where they've been receiving advanced treatment since before the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
"Returning residents to Gaza during a military conflict and a humanitarian crisis is against international law and poses a deliberate risk to innocent lives," Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said in a statement. "All the more so when it concerns patients who may face a death sentence due to unsanitary conditions and hunger, along with the unlikely availability of medical care."
At least 22 patients from Gaza, including several children, have been receiving treatment at Augusta Victoria Hospital, having received authorization from Israel prior to the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) current escalation.
"I arrived here in Jerusalem with my son Hamza on September 27 last year," Qamar Abu Zoar toldThe Guardian on Saturday. "Hamza, who is four and a half years old, has a brain tumor and needs treatment that he couldn't receive in Gaza. While we were here, the war broke out. And since then, we have been stranded in this hospital, while my other two younger children are in the north of Gaza with my husband."
The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, has urged hospital officials to provide a list of patients who could be sent back to Gaza, where patients in the remaining hospitals are suffering from infections due to the use of improvised and unsterilized medical equipment, as well as from worsening malnutrition.
Israel's near-total blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza has affected food and medicines, and CNN reported earlier this month that anesthetics, anesthesia machines, oxygen tanks, and ventilators are frequently rejected by Israeli inspectors who examine aid trucks.
Last week, the Israeli High Court of Justice halted an effort by COGAT to send 10 patients from Augusta Victoria Hospital back to Gaza, where in many cases their homes and hometowns have been decimated by Israeli bombing and shelling.
COGAT claimed the patients had finished their treatment and said it would work with aid agencies if they had a need for more medical care, coordinating "their stay with the hospitals to safeguard their health."
But as Tedros warned Saturday, the vast majority of hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating.
Israel's High Court has until April 21 to issue a final ruling on whether officials can deport patients to Gaza.
"The hospitals and the medical staff must strongly oppose the release of the patients from their custody," said PHR, "unless a guarantee is given that they will not be returned to Gaza where their lives are in danger."
Keep ReadingShow Less
30 Israeli Groups Urge Global Community to Help Stop Surging West Bank Settler Violence
"Unfortunately, the Israeli government is supportive of these attacks and does nothing to stop this violence."
Oct 29, 2023
With international focus on the horrors of Israel's assault on Gaza, 30 Israeli human rights and anti-occupation organizations on Sunday aimed to draw attention to a surge in settler violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank.
The coalition of groups—including B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and the Israeli arms of Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights—released a joint statement calling on the international community "to act urgently to stop the state-backed wave of settler violence which has led, and is leading to, the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities in the West Bank."
In retaliation for a Hamas-led attack earlier this month—in which over 1,400 Israelis were killed and around 200 others were taken hostage—Israel has waged what some legal scholars are calling a genocidal war, killing more than 8,000 people in Gaza.
"Settlers have been exploiting the lack of public attention to the West Bank, as well as the general atmosphere of rage against Palestinians, to escalate their campaign of violent attacks in an attempt to forcibly transfer Palestinian communities," the coalition noted. "During this period, no fewer than 13 herding communities have been displaced. Many more are in danger of being forced to flee in the coming days if immediate action is not taken."
"Palestinian farmers are particularly vulnerable at this time, during the annual olive harvest season, because if they are unable to pick their olives they will lose a year's income," the groups explained. "Yesterday Bilal Muhammed Saleh from the village of As-Sawiya south of Nablus was murdered while tending to his olive trees. He was the seventh Palestinian to have been killed by settlers since the current war began."
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Saturday that 111 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed since October 7.
Jewish settlers have recently tried to scare Palestinians into fleeing the West Bank by displaying dolls covered in blood or a substance meant to mimic it and distributing leaflets with messages like "Run to Jordan before we kill our enemies and expel you from our Holy Land, promised to us by God."
The coalition said Sunday that "unfortunately, the Israeli government is supportive of these attacks and does nothing to stop this violence. On the contrary: government ministers and other officials are backing the violence and in many cases the military is present or even participates in the violence, including in incidents where settlers have killed Palestinians."
Over the past three weeks, Israeli forces fatal violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has included raids and an airstrike on a mosque in the densely populated Jenin refugee camp.
"Moreover, since the war has begun there has been a growing number of incidents in which violent settlers have been documented attacking nearby Palestinian communities while wearing military uniform and using government-issued weapons," the coalition continued. "With grave concern and with a clear understanding of the political landscape, we recognize that the only way to stop this forcible transfer in the West Bank is a clear, strong, and direct intervention by the international community."
In response to the statement, Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said on social media that the "world must act."
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli forces have moved to a "second stage" of the war with ground operations, despite global demands for a cease-fire—though notably not from the U.S. government, which provides Israel with billions of dollars in annual military support.
"Israel's major ground offensive in Gaza, following weeks of bombardment that have reduced large parts of neighborhoods to rubble, raises grave concerns for the safety of all civilians caught in the fighting," HRW executive director Tirana Hassan said in a statement Sunday. "Thousands of children and other civilians have already been killed."
"Palestinian armed groups are continuing to indiscriminately launch rockets at Israeli communities," she added. "All civilians, including the many who cannot or do not want to leave their homes in northern Gaza, retain their protections under the laws of war against deliberate, indiscriminate, or disproportionate attacks."
Over objections from Israel and the United States, the U.N. General Assembly on Friday adopted a nonbinding resolution demanding that "all parties immediately and fully comply with their obligations under international law," and calling for "an immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular