ACP: Abortion services a critical part of comprehensive health care

In an update to its 2018 public policy on abortion, the ACP cemented its position on reproductive health services, reaffirming its “opposition to undue and unnecessary governmental interference in the patient–physician relationship.”

The position paper, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, noted that, after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, “the legal landscape around access to reproductive health care services was substantially altered.” After the decision, some states have begun imposing restrictions on abortion services, according to the paper, and physicians, in some cases, can be subject to criminal penalties for abortion care.

This paper, therefore, served as an update to ACP’s previous public policy positions on abortion “to reflect this new reality.”

The ACP believes that abortion services are a critical part of comprehensive health care, and the organization “has long advocated for increasing access to comprehensive health care services,” Josh Serchen, BA, a health policy associate with the ACP, and colleagues wrote.

“Underpinning this advocacy is ACP’s respect for patient autonomy as one of many important principles in the patient–physician relationship, as well as its belief that health care decisions are most appropriately addressed within the confines of the patient–physician relationship without undue third-party interjection,” they wrote. “These personal and private decisions should be made in consultation with a health professional and should be devoid of unnecessary governmental interference.”

In its top recommendation, the ACP asserts that, when it comes to matters affecting one’s own reproductive health, people have the right to make their own decisions alongside their health care professionals — including the decisions surrounding continuing a pregnancy or the types of contraceptive methods they use.

“ACP opposes government restrictions that would erode or abrogate equitable access to reproductive health care services, including family planning, sexual health information, the full range of medically accepted forms of contraception, and abortion, that are evidence-based, clinically indicated, and guided by biomedical ethics,” Serchen and colleagues wrote.

The second recommendation noted that the ACP stands in opposition to any restrictive regulations or laws that impose penalties for providing “clinically appropriate health care services that meet the standard of care.”

As part of this recommendation, the ACP specified that it is against the use of personal health information to penalize or prosecute people for seeking out clinically appropriate reproductive health care services like abortion. Additionally, the organization believes that third-party citizens should not be able to enforce state laws imposing restrictions on reproductive health care services, including abortion.

The final recommendation reaffirms that, regardless of where one lives or works, “all individuals should have equitable access to high-quality health care” and that public policy and delivery and payment systems should “fully support all patients having the ability and means to receive care.” More specifically, the organization supports patients having the freedom to travel in order to obtain health care services and “the ability of appropriately licensed entities to ship and deliver legally prescribed drugs to patients.”

“The brief ... reaffirms ACP's opposition to inappropriate government interference in the provision of medical care, the importance of protecting the privacy of personal health information, the need for public policy to address underlying social drivers of health that perpetuate health inequities, and the goal of ensuring that all have access to equitable health care regardless of where they live or work,” Serchen and colleagues wrote.