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Saturday, August 13th, 2022

Medical Boards That Can Strip Abortion Providers of Licenses Are Stacked With Republican Donors

Author:     Madison Pauly
Source:     Mother Jones
Publication Date:     13 August 2022
 Link: Medical Boards That Can Strip Abortion Providers of Licenses Are Stacked With Republican Donors
Stephan:   Although it hasn't gotten much attention, in Red states, there is a major effort underway by Republican legislators and MAGAt supporters to frighten physicians so that they don't even think about ending a pregnancy. I predict the result will be that healthcare, which in Red states is already greatly inferior to healthcare in Blue states will get worse. and even more alarming few OB/GYN physicians will choose to practice in Red states. The result, the lives of fertile women and girls in Red states will be even further compromised.
Credit: Mother Jones / Getty

In 2010, a group of anti-choice activists sent several complaints to Iowa’s medical board, demanding the agency end a popular telemedicine abortion program. Run by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, the program helped patients in rural clinics access safe medication for ending their pregnancies without traveling hours to a city. The anti-choice activists claimed, inaccurately, that not having a doctor physically present to hand people the pills was a threat to patients’ safety. At the time, the medical board wasn’t swayed. It closed the complaints without taking disciplinary action against Planned Parenthood’s physicians.

But that changed after Republican Terry Branstad, an abortion foe, reclaimed the Iowa governorship that November. In Iowa, as in many other states

✎ EditSign, medical board members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. Over the next couple of years, Branstad nominated replacements for all 10 members, installing an anti-abortion doctor who became board chair. Another Branstad appointee, a Catholic priest, had campaigned against the Planned Parenthood program, once arguing

✎ EditSign in a board meeting that the medical board ought to “uphold […]

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