Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a proposal in early January to loosen restrictions on abortions in New York, but opponents claim it increases access to a dangerous and ineffective procedure.

The bill is New York’s first move on abortion rights since it legalized the procedure in 1970, three years before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling, according to a Feb. 17 article in The New York Times.

Current state law bans abortions after 24 weeks, except to save the mother’s life. The Reproductive Health Act would allow abortions at any time if the mother’s health is in danger. Additionally, if the proposal is successful, it will delete abortion from the penal code and integrate it into public health law. Abortion providers will be subject to the same malpractice suits and criminal charges for negligence as other health care practitioners, according to the bill.

“One of the reasons abortion regulation does not belong in the penal code is because it is a legal medical procedure,” said Renee Mestad, an OB-GYN at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. “The anti-choice folks want it in the penal code so they can try maternal deaths that result from abortion in criminal courts.”

But if a patient dies after a neurosurgeon performs surgery to remove a brain tumor, Mestad said, they are not tried in criminal court, but in malpractice courts regulated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

However, a coalition of New York City physicians have condemned the bill, claiming that late-term abortions lead to chronic guilt and depression, according to the Times.

This conclusion is disputed in the medical community. A 2009 study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research claimed a direct link between abortions and eventual mental illness. But the study has repeatedly faced concerns about its accuracy.

“Most women are very relieved afterward. Some will cry because they were upset to have been in that situation,” Mestad said.

As an OB-GYN, Mestad performs abortions up to the second trimester.

Most women who sought late-term abortions had developed health problems late into the pregnancy or found abnormalities in the fetus, she said.

“The majority of these pregnancies they had planned for, that we were excited for,” Mestad said.

For some patients, a pre-existing condition can make a late-term abortion safer than continuing to term. Mestad gave congestive heart failure as an example.

Those who say late-term abortions are ineffective in saving the mother’s health, she said, “say so from inexperience.

She added that some low-income women postpone the abortion because of the time needed to raise the money for the procedure. Expenses incurred through out-of-state travel to obtain an abortion, babysitting fees and shaky job security add to the cost, she said.

Mestad said she sees no long-term effects in her patients. Women who experience depression after an abortion, she said, usually do so because of a prior history of mental illness.

Mary Thompson, a certified nurse midwife at Crouse Midwifery Group, said she has seen some women develop depression, but the response varies among patients who receive abortions.

“It depends on the circumstances, on how they got pregnant,” Thompson said. “Whether they were raped, whether the pregnancy was planned, severe anomalies in the baby, incest, things like that.”

The decision to get an abortion, Thompson said, is not an easy one.

“I do feel that abortion has more long-term effects on the mom, but at the same time, I feel that sometimes they’re between a rock and a hard place,” she said.

Thompson said she has seen emotional scenes involving mothers dealing with the discovery of “major, major anomalies” in their fetuses. She added that evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of abortions does not often lead to neat conclusions.

But she did not address the morality of abortion, noting the importance of counseling and empathy in working with women considering abortions.

“We hope we can counsel and help anyone facing that decision,” Thompson said. “No one likes giving that news to anyone. I don’t think even the physicians find it easy.”

Published on March 19, 2013 at 11:42 pm

Contact Natsumi: najisaka@syr.edu